JEAN KITTRELL

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Old St. Louis Levee Band (OSLLB)

OSLLB in 1978

25 years later--still hanging in there

PERSONNEL: Pat Arana - trombone Bobby Grimm - tenor banjo Jean Kittrell - piano David "Red" Lehr - sousaphone Rick Schaumberger - drums

The five-piece OLD ST. LOUIS LEVEE BAND struts with two brass horns.  Pat Arana's trombone leads forth with a melody, and David "Red" Lehr's sousaphone answers like a tailgate trombone or a trumpet or a clarinet or a flute with the hiccups, at the same time building a terrific bass line. The rhythm section supplies a cushion of driving sound with Bobby Grimm's steady rhythm and brilliant single-string picking on the tenor banjo, Rick Schaumberger's swinging, impelling drums, and the no-holds-barred barrel house piano and vocals of Jean Kittrell.

The band steps high with street marches, sanctifies souls with hand-clapping spirituals, wraps up toe-tapping, banjo-picking minstrel tunes to a T, plays those ever-loving, heart-breaking blues, and feasts on the jazz classics of W. C. Handy, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong. Featured for thirteen years (1978-1990) on Saturday nights aboard the Lt. Robert E. Lee, a restaurant/lounge moored on the Mississippi River just below the Arch in downtown St. Louis, the band has also performed in jazz festivals, university concerts, private clubs, and conventions throughout the Midwest.  They appeared in Pop Concerts, Richard Hayman conducting, with the ST LOUIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA and with the HONOLULU SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA in Hawaii.  They performed in Powell Symphony Hall on a dual billing with the KINGSTON TRIO. In 1990 they made a 10-day Mediterranean cruise, followed by a 10-day tour of Italy, with Ed Zimbrick's TENTH AVENUE JAZZ BAND. In 2003 they played on Carol Neumann's Twentieth Anniversary Caribbean cruise. There have been no changes in the band personnel in 27 years, and each guy is still married to his first wife.  Never mind about Jean Kittrell.

Lt. Robert E. Lee Saloon - OSLLB home 1978-1990

OSLLB travels in style - 1998