Pud Brown and His New Orleans Jazzmen

The late Pud Brown, a jazz saxophonist and clarinetist based in New Orleans, was a saxophone virtuoso at the tender age of five. Within two years, he hit the road with his parents and four siblings to play gigs throughout the U.S. with additional stops in Mexico and Canada. The family played nightclubs, circuses, and minstrel and tent shows, covering more than half a million miles in a prototype motor home designed by his engineer father. In 1924, it rolled across the continent at no more than 25 miles an hour and was equipped with such amenities as a sewing machine, a sink, a...