LOUIS’ HERO

As the traps maestro and bass drum brujo for a variety of New Orleans brass bands at the dawn of the twentieth century, Benny “Black Benny” Williams is by the most liberal standards worthy of a small-pica footnote in the comprehensive history of the city’s jazz.

But as a True Character (and in that context a sort of early philosopher/king mentor to Louis Armstrong) Williams probably deserves a book -- or at least the sort of monograph Ignatius J. Reilly might have wri...