On a late summer afternoon 23 years ago this week, Jazzou Jones received The Flood’s highest honors. In a ceremony aboard the Delta Queen steamboat, this old buddy was given his official kazoo and was certified an “ornery member” of the band.
Throughout 2003, The Flood had patiently courted the DQ and her sister boats (the Mississippi Queen and the American Queen), trouping down to the riverfront to serenade whenever one of the old girls landed in Huntington.
As reported earlier, it all had begun that May when the guys spent a Thursday morning sitting on the riverfront and playing for passengers as they walked between the boat and the buses that waited to take them on shore tours of the town.
By then, Jazzou, the DQ’s cruise director, had The Flood’s first album, but he hadn’t yet heard the group in person. Pleased with what he heard on the riverfront, Jazzou invited the guys aboard to sing and play for their lunch in the DQ’s beautiful Orleans Room.
That, of course, was exactly what the Floodsters were hoping for. They played for a half hour and the crowd loved it. Banjo Bob Stevens, Jazzou’s assistant, even came back with an old washboard he used for comedy skits and sat in for special rendition of Chuck Romine’s standard, “Coney Island Washboard Roundelay.”
Jazzou Gets Certified
By summer’s end — with The Flood by then a fixture on the riverfront whenever the boats appeared in Huntington — the DQ crew invited the guys onboard for another little impromptu concert for the passengers, this time in the gorgeous Forward Cabin Lounge.
Facilitating the appearance that afternoon, Jazzou was pleased that the place was packed and the audience seemed to love the music.
During a break in the show, the band presented Jazzou with a kazoo and a framed certificate proclaiming his Floodified orneriness and entitling him to play the kazoo whenever possible. (The honor was actually patterned after the certificate the DQ folks themselves gave people who “learned” to play the calliope on cruises.)
Jazzou was flattered and took his award around the room showing it off to people. Years later, he as still talking about it. Click the button below to hear his comments during a Flood gig:
Incidentally, this was the second such certificate awarded, the first being given earlier that summer to Jim and Sally Tweel during The Flood’s performance at the 65th birthday celebration for Huntington’s famed Jim’s Steak and Spaghetti House. In years to come, similar certificates would be awarded or other long-time band buddies like Rose Marie Riter, Ken Hechler and Dale Jones.
Jamming with Jazzou
The Flood would have one more on-board visit that year with Jazzou and the Delta Queen when in October the boat landed in Huntington and Jazz invited the guys to offer a set in the legendary Texas Lounge.
After the first couple of tunes, the guys handed out kazoos and got the passengers playing along. They then persuaded Jazzou to come to the piano and join in for the last 45 minutes of the set.
“We called on Jazzou for a solo in every tune,” Charlie Bowen told his mom in an email later, “and then we just held on as he rocked the room! At the end, they didn’t want it to stop, but the boat was ready to leave. We had just 10 minutes to get all the equipment back down two flights of stairs and to say our goodbyes.”
Alas, we don’t have recordings of what the band played on those DQ visits. However, you can get a taste of what your Flood fellas sounded like in those days by clicking the 2003 button in the “Hear by Year” section of the free Radio Floodango music streaming service. Below is an express lane:
And if you’d like to know what else was happening in the Floodisphere 23 years ago, click here to see those pages of the band’s online scrapbook.
An Encore
Since Jazzou so kindly hosted The Flood in his home, the guys were eager to return the favor. The chance came five years later when Jazzou happened be in West Virginia during the same weekend as the good ol’ Coon Sanders Nighthawks Reunion Bash.
Jazzou was in Charleston, WV, that 2008 Saturday, brought down from his New England home by a friend who owned a coal company and was going to be married on his towboat, the historic J.S. Lewis, on the Charleston riverfront. (Jazzou was to play a steam calliope during the wedding.)
When Floodsters discovered that he was free Saturday morning, Jazzou was invited by Charlie to perform with the band at the Coon Sanders Bash during its annual “Jug Band Breakfast.”
In the spring in 2020, we celebrated this wonderful morning in an hour-long “Pajama Jam” video, which you can see below.
This was a momentous event in my river career, and I’ve treasured those rarified river times with the 1937 Flood all through the years. My grandchildren have by now learned to play the kazoo and are well on their way to virtuosity. The oneryness lives on!!