Chances are that if you are going to one or more Mardi Gras parades this season, at some point, you’ll be entertained by the purple and gold clad St. Augustine High School Marching 100. The best known and most recognizable of all the New Orleans high school marching bands, the Marching 100 will be led this year (just as it has for the previous 45 years) by band director Edwin H. Hampton,

“I had no idea when I took this job that I would be here this long,” said Hampton, relaxing in the cozy St. Augustine band room office which has its walls covered with photos and posters of former students and celebrities. “But it’s rewarding work. You have no idea how many fine men and excellent musicians I taught over the years.”

Hampton, who turns 71 this month, is a Houston native.

“I came to New Orleans to study pharmacy at Xavier,” he recalled. “I was in the medical corps during the war and I thought that pharmacy was a good field to go into. But I started hanging around the Dew Drop and sitting in on the late night jam sessions.

“I played clarinet and saxophone in the army, but I didn’t really get serious about music until I got here and saw all these great musicians. My roots were jazz. I liked Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins and the heavy dudes that played with Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

“Every night we’d go by the Dew Drop or to the Robin Hood on Jackson Avenue. A lot of white boys that played in the Quarter would sneak into the Robin Hood and jam with us. Those jam sessions were like school to me. I really tried to learn from all the great players I encountered.” Hampton eventually switched his major to music and graduated from Xavier in 1950.

“Back then they had a music school called Grunwald’s on North Claiborne Avenue where a lot of ex-GIs went,” said Hampton.

“The school had been bought out and it became Gateway School of Music—there were a bunch of them across the country. The school here had some pretty talented musicians on staff, people like Clyde Kerr Sr. Paul Barbarin and Willie Humphrey. They also had some pretty talented musicians that enrolled at the school. A lot of guys came to school that didn’t really need to learn anything about music, but they attended anyway because they got a check from the government. Anyway, I got a job teaching there.”

While at Gateway, Hampton met Wardell Quezergue, who was beginning to learn about arranging music.

“Around 1952, Wardell and I started the Royal Dukes of Rhythm,” said Hampton. “It was a real professional big band. We used to have three different singers, one female and two males. We became known because we learned every new song that came out. We played a lot of carnival balls but, by me being an educator, I got us a lot of jobs at schools. The band did some sessions on Imperial with Dave Bartholomew and we backed up people like Shirley & Lee and Professor Longhair (Hampton played on the “Big Chief” session.) For 30 years we had gigs every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. We were like a corporation—we took the profits each night and split them evenly.”

At the time, Hampton lived in an apartment on North Claiborne Avenue, just two doors down from Local 496, the black musicians Union. “The Local” was a natural hang out for musicians.

“Most of your older musicians came by the Local almost every day,” said Hampton. “When you walked in the building there was a bar named The Offbeat Lounge. You had to walk down a short hallway to get to the office. That’s where you picked up your contracts and paid your dues. Louis Cottrell and Alvin Alcorn were on the board then so they were almost always there. There was a rehearsal hall next to the office and they would have jam sessions late in the afternoon. I met a lot of musicians that way too.”

In 1952, Hampton began his association with St. Augustine High School.

“St. Augustine started in 1951,” said Hampton. “The following year the principal decided he wanted to form a band. He talked to Sister Elise at Xavier and she recommended me. I’ve been here ever since.”

When asked if it was tough starting a school band from scratch, Hampton chuckled. “When I saw some of the last names of the students—Cottrell, Kerr, Brunious, Barbarin—these were sons and grandsons of great New Orleans musicians, and I knew I’d have an easy job.”

While the Marching 100 seems as much of a Mardi Gras tradition as masking and throwing beads, they didn’t participate in their first parade until 1965.

“They didn’t always have marching bands in Mardi Gras parades,” said Hampton. “There would be second line bands, but there wasn’t much music in the parades. In the early 1960s, we wanted to march with the Zulu parade, but we had to bargain with the Zulus to clean up their act somewhat. We agreed to play for them if they put on a decent parade.

“Until 1965, the Zulus didn’t know where they were going on Mardi Gras day, they just went randomly from bar room to bar room. The first year we paraded was the first year they had an official route and a motorcycle police escort. We had teachers and priests march with the band and things went smoothly. Everybody liked us.”

Two years later, the white Mardi Gras royalty finally accepted the Marching 100 and they were invited to take part in the Krewe of Freret and Rex parades.

“The most frightening parades were those early Endymion parades that went through the Quarter,” said Hampton. “You can’t believe the noise and the crowds. People were so crazy, some threw buckets of urine on us from the balconies. It wasn’t a racial thing, they gave everybody hell. After that, I knew that kind of stupidity would make them stop routing parades through the Quarter.”

Hampton has seen some pretty grizzly Mardi Gras incidents, including 1980 when one of his drum majors got hit in the face with a stray bullet. Because of the random rowdiness of the Mardi Gras revelers, Hampton instructs his band to march, play, avoid confrontation and don’t break rank on the street. Musical skills aside, members of the Marching 100 must possess one other important trait.

“Stamina,” said Hampton. “Some of these parades are six and seven miles long. That’s a long walk even without carrying an instrument. We start marching after school in the fall right up until Mardi Gras just to get in shape. You see a lot of out of town bands start to get tired and drop out halfway through the parade. We couldn’t have the Marching 100 do that.”

Hampton still leads the Marching 100 at every parade, but no longer on foot. “A few years ago, I started riding at the front of the parade in a car,” said Hampton. “I have an assistant band director who marches with the band. I’m getting a little too old for all that marching.”

Deacon John is planning to issue live tapes from his mid-1990s New Orleans Jazz and heritage sets on his own label. Aim has leased two Du Bat CDs, one by Ernie K-Doe, the other by Tabby Thomas. They’ve also leased some mid-1970s Hep’ Me tracks by Johnny Adams… Just in time for Carnival comes Rhino’s More New Orleans Party Classics.

The 18-track collection includes the usual hits by Robert Parker, Lee Dorsey and the Wild Magnolias. It also includes some off the wall tracks by Alvin Robinson and T.V. Slim… Black Top is the new home for Omar and the Howlers. Watch for their new CD soon.

Congratulations to New Orleans drummer Kerry Brown, who was in town over Christmas to get hitched. Brown now lives in San Francisco and works with The Allman Brothers Band and Joe Louis walker… Good Rockin’ Tonight’s auction catalog came out last month with some interesting New Orleans items, and some interesting prices.

They listed The Best of Frankie Ford EP at $200; Lee Allen’s Watkin’ With Mr. Lee LP at $200; and Huey Smith’s Havin’ A Good Time LP at $250. At those prices, the $100 they wanted for Smiley Lewis’ “Caldonia’s Party” on 78 seems paltry indeed.