Amazing Performers: B1. Jane Rollason

to expect the best from people and myself, and to work hard.

      I left school when I was 11 and joined a singing group of four boys. We earned a few dollars, singing the latest songs on street corners, and people seemed to like my voice. The other boys called me ‘Satchel Mouth’ because I had such a wide open mouth (a ‘satchel’ is a kind of school bag with a wide opening). Also, I learned to play some simple songs because some of the musicians in the clubs were kind to me and gave me music lessons.

      Because of the area where I lived, I was often in trouble with the police. One New Year’s Eve, when I was 11, I fired a gun into the air in the street. The police caught me, and sent me to the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs, a home for young African-American boys who had been in trouble with the police. It was really a prison for children. I lived there for 18 months.

      There was a music teacher at the Colored Waifs’ Home called Professor Davis. Most of the other boys weren’t interested in music and behaved badly in his lessons, but I wanted to learn. The Home had a band, and the band had a cornet, which I loved. I practised the cornet every day, improving all the time until, when I was only 13, Professor Davis asked me to be the leader of the band. It was the proudest day of my life.

      When I left the Colored Waifs’ Home I had nowhere to go and I was soon back on the streets again. I was 18, and I could have got into a lot of trouble. Life was kind to me, however. New Orleans was famous for its brass band parades. Brass bands walked through the streets of the town, playing popular songs. I soon found a job playing in these bands.