Portrait of Wellman Braud (Podcast #23-010)

Ellington Reflections · Dec 2, 2023 · 45m

“Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Wellman Braud were like Jelly [Roll Morton]; they’d talk as long as anyone would listen and hung around outside the Band Box. After Braud got written up in Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” column, he was too big for anybody. Ripley said he could pick faster than any bass player. He quit Duke’s band and started one of his own. He got a nice little band together to play a place over in Jersey. He talked so much to the man who owned the place about where to put the tables and how things were in the wrong place, the man…