Harold Dejan interview recording, 1994 August 06

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Kate Ellis	Will you say your name?	0:01
Harold Dejan	My name is Harold Dejan. Everybody calls me Duke Dejan.	0:03
Kate Ellis	Okay.	0:04
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	0:10
Kate Ellis	So let me just say that this is Kate Ellis with Mr. Harold Dejan on August sixth, 1994, and we're sort of starting with the family history forms, but we're all just going to start talking too. So— and your nickname has been Duke.	0:10
Harold Dejan	Duke. Yeah.	0:33
Kate Ellis	Right. So when was that you got your nickname and that? How long ago?	0:35
Harold Dejan	Oh, I got my nickname, I guess, around 1920-something. And I did, I said that right, 1922 or '23, something like that. Yeah.	0:38
Kate Ellis	Because he said— Tell me again now, we've got the tape rolling.	0:58
Harold Dejan	Yeah. This boy played drum with me. His brother plays trombone with the band right now. He told me, "Duke Ellington raised a lot of hell in New York. We raising a lot of hell here, man. You ought to call yourself Duke Dejan."	1:01
Kate Ellis	So it'd be like you and Duke Ellington were [indistinct 00:01:24].	1:21
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah, yeah.	1:24
Kate Ellis	That's great. Akin to one another. Huh.	1:26
Harold Dejan	But it'd been working a long time.	1:26
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	1:26
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	1:26
Kate Ellis	Tell me your wife's name.	1:41
Harold Dejan	My wife, her name was Rose Angelin.	1:41
Kate Ellis	Angelin?	1:43
Harold Dejan	Yeah, A-N-G-E-L-I-N.	1:43
Kate Ellis	Dejan?	1:43
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	1:43
Kate Ellis	And when was she born?	1:55
Harold Dejan	Now, you got me. Let me see if my granddaughter know. Lavetta!	1:58
Lavetta Dejan	Yeah, Daddy.	2:08
Harold Dejan	She might know.	2:09
Kate Ellis	We could—	2:12
Harold Dejan	When was Honey born?	2:16
Lavetta Dejan	August thirty-first.	2:18
Harold Dejan	What?	2:24
Lavetta Dejan	19— Oh God, I got to think.	2:24
Harold Dejan	19—	2:24
Lavetta Dejan	When was you born?	2:24
Harold Dejan	1909.	2:24
Lavetta Dejan	Okay, but she born 1910.	2:24
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	2:24
Kate Ellis	Okay. Thank you.	2:24
Harold Dejan	Thank you very much.	2:24
Lavetta Dejan	Okay.	2:24
Kate Ellis	When did she pass?	2:33
Harold Dejan	Huh?	2:35
Kate Ellis	When did your wife pass?	2:36
Harold Dejan	Oh, about six years ago.	2:39
Kate Ellis	Okay.	2:41
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	2:42
Kate Ellis	Where was she born?	2:45
Harold Dejan	My wife?	2:47
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	2:47
Harold Dejan	Right here in New Orleans.	2:47
Kate Ellis	New Orleans.	2:47
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	2:50
Kate Ellis	Okay.	2:51
Harold Dejan	She was.	2:55
Kate Ellis	And she was— Did you say— What was her occupation?	2:57
Harold Dejan	She was a housewife, but she used to dance. She was a dancer too.	3:00
Lavetta Dejan	Entertainer, just like Daddy.	3:05
Harold Dejan	Huh?	3:06
Kate Ellis	Housewife and entertainer?	3:10
Lavetta Dejan	Uh-huh.	3:12
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	3:13
Kate Ellis	Okay. I have questions about when your parents were born, should your granddaughter be here?	3:17
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	3:23
Kate Ellis	Well, tell me your mother's name.	3:23
Harold Dejan	My mother was Ella D. Planchard.	3:26
Kate Ellis	How do you spell that?	3:31
Harold Dejan	Ella D. P-L-A-N-C-H-A-R-D.	3:31
Kate Ellis	Okay. Say it again. P-H—	3:41
Harold Dejan	P-L-A-N-C-H-A-R-D.	3:43
Kate Ellis	Planchard. Okay. What was her maiden name?	3:48
Harold Dejan	Oh, that's her maiden name. Her name was Ella D. Dejan.	3:57
Kate Ellis	Oh, right, right, right.	3:58
Lavetta Dejan	That's her maiden name. Planchard is her maiden name.	3:58
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	3:58
Kate Ellis	Right. Okay. When was she born?	4:02
Harold Dejan	Now you got me.	4:17
Kate Ellis	Okay. Do you know how old she was when she passed?	4:18
Harold Dejan	Yeah, she died, I think she was sixty-something years old. She was in her sixties.	4:22
Kate Ellis	And when did she die?	4:32
Harold Dejan	In New Orleans.	4:33
Kate Ellis	No, around what year did she die, or about how long ago?	4:35
Harold Dejan	I was playing at the opera house when she died, on Bourbon Street. I would say '44 or '45, something. Rough guess.	4:41
Kate Ellis	That's great. Rough is fine. Okay.	5:00
Harold Dejan	[indistinct 00:05:15] place in the steamship line.	5:14
Kate Ellis	So your father, he had a team of mules?	5:17
Harold Dejan	He had forty teams.	5:22
Kate Ellis	He had forty teams of mules?	5:24
Lavetta Dejan	That was during the time of horse and buggy time that he was—	5:24
Harold Dejan	Yeah, before you were born.	5:24
Lavetta Dejan	[indistinct 00:05:27] trucking. It's like you have the trucking time now for transport. Well, the horse and buggy time, he used to do that.	5:24
Kate Ellis	And so he had forty teams of mules?	5:26
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	5:26
Kate Ellis	And wagons to go with them, so—	5:40
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah.	5:42
Kate Ellis	That's amazing. I mean, that's—	5:43
Lavetta Dejan	Horse and buggy time.	5:45
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	5:46
Harold Dejan	Well, you see, see, here's a— He used to keep about three sets of his horses on a pasture about three months a year. He never believed in working them to death.	5:46
Kate Ellis	So he'd give the horses about a three month break.	6:04
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Yeah, yeah.	6:08
Kate Ellis	So he could kind of rotate his teams of animals?	6:09
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah. Yeah.	6:12
Kate Ellis	Where was the pasture that he would keep them?	6:13
Harold Dejan	Oh, Down Gentilly.	6:15
Kate Ellis	Down Gentilly.	6:15
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	6:17
Kate Ellis	That's right. I forget that, of course, the land wasn't as developed as it is now.	6:19
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	6:22
Kate Ellis	There were probably more pastures at the time.	6:22
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Don't have nothing down there.	6:22
Kate Ellis	Right.	6:22
Harold Dejan	Before, you used to could take a shovel and go down Gentilly and just shovel you up some crawfish. You can't do that now.	6:29
Kate Ellis	Really? No, I guess you can't. That's right. You could just shovel— So the crawfishes kind of lived at the surface of the ground?	6:37
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah. But I mean that's how plentiful they were. They would come walking on the ground. You know?	6:47
Kate Ellis	Yep.	6:50
Harold Dejan	Going from this place to the another place to find another hole.	6:50
Kate Ellis	Geez. That's amazing. So he was the owner? He was the—	6:50
Harold Dejan	They called him Dejan's Transfer.	6:50
Kate Ellis	Owner, Dejan's Transfer?	7:17
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	7:17
Kate Ellis	I see. And so transfer, it was sort of like a hauling company.	7:18
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right.	7:22
Kate Ellis	I see. He would haul things.	7:23
Harold Dejan	Anything.	7:23
Kate Ellis	So he could be hired to haul—	7:23
Harold Dejan	Yeah, to haul anything. Sometimes like these big truckers call them, if you have a shipment coming in, they'd call him to hire him. He was bigger than the guys that they got all these trucks now. He was bigger than all them people.	7:30
Kate Ellis	Really? You mean all of the current—	7:48
Harold Dejan	All the current trucking companies. Yeah.	7:51
Kate Ellis	He was bigger than that.	7:53
Harold Dejan	That's right.	7:54
Kate Ellis	How did he develop that business?	7:55
Harold Dejan	Well, he had a mule and wagon hisself.	7:58
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	8:04
Harold Dejan	And he was doing hauling, so finally bought another, and bought another, until it go—	8:04
Kate Ellis	And it just kept growing.	8:08
Harold Dejan	Yeah, until he got what he wanted.	8:09
Kate Ellis	Now— Oh, wow. I guess— Hmm, that's really interesting. Given the extent that Jim Crow affected African Americans' lives it's striking that he would have such a successful business.	8:12
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Well, it had nothing to do with them. Most of the people that hired him was White people.	8:37
Kate Ellis	Right. Yeah.	8:45
Harold Dejan	So I mean, just like I never worried about none of that in my life, no Jim Crow and all that stuff. Jim Crow just— this.	8:49
Kate Ellis	What does that fist mean? That you—	8:58
Harold Dejan	You know, sometimes people call you lots of names, you've got to straighten them out. After you straighten them out you don't have no more trouble with them.	9:07
Kate Ellis	How would you straighten them out?	9:15
Harold Dejan	With this.	9:16
Kate Ellis	With your fist?	9:17
Harold Dejan	That's right.	9:18
Kate Ellis	You mean you'd punch them?	9:19
Harold Dejan	Yeah. They need to be punched, I'll punch them.	9:22
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	9:24
Harold Dejan	Maybe that's why I got the stroke.	9:25
Kate Ellis	No. In your right hand.	9:26
Harold Dejan	But everything was all right. I live a beautiful life.	9:37
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	9:38
Harold Dejan	I had White friends just like I had Black friends. You know?	9:40
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	9:44
Harold Dejan	In fact, both of my friends was White, because I always lived in a mixed neighborhood.	9:45
Kate Ellis	You did?	9:51
Harold Dejan	Yeah. See, all the neighborhoods I lived in was mixed. See, I lived around the Treme, in the Seventh Ward. You know?	9:52
Kate Ellis	Really? That's where you lived when you were growing up?	10:04
Harold Dejan	Yeah, the Treme.	10:07
Kate Ellis	Oh.	10:14
Harold Dejan	And they were right on Orleans Street where the Treme market was at. And sometimes, if you didn't know how to fight, you couldn't go to the market for your mama.	10:15
Kate Ellis	Oh, really? So who would you need to fight when you were coming up?	10:24
Harold Dejan	Well, anybody be a fool.	10:27
Kate Ellis	Anybody who'd be a fool.	10:28
Harold Dejan	That's right.	10:30
Kate Ellis	White or Black?	10:32
Harold Dejan	Yeah, it made no difference.	10:33
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Just fight.	10:35
Harold Dejan	Well, sometimes we used to go take my music lesson, well, I used to dress beautiful. I'll show you all the clothes I got. I got about three, four lockers full.	10:37
Kate Ellis	Oh, I'd love to see your clothes when we're finished.	10:46
Harold Dejan	But I can't dress now, but I always did dress good. And when we'd be going to take our music lessons when I was a little boy, fellas would say, "Play me song." This fella would be sitting in the grass, you know.	10:53
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	11:12
Harold Dejan	I'd say, "I don't know how to play nothing." Maybe one of the fellas would recognize me, say, "Man, don't mess with them, that's Harold. That's Charlie's brothers." They'd recognize me from my big brother, see?	11:14
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	11:32
Harold Dejan	And they kept quiet then.	11:33
Kate Ellis	But when they'd say to you, "Hey, play me a song," you mean they weren't serious, they were like—	11:37
Harold Dejan	Well, sure they're serious. They'd tell you, "Play me a song." "I don't know how to play one." "Play what you like today."	11:41
Kate Ellis	So who would be saying— But people would be saying to them, "Don't mess with you—"	11:50
Harold Dejan	Because, "That's Charlie's brothers."	11:54
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. Would you ever stop and play for them though?	11:58
Harold Dejan	No.	12:01
Kate Ellis	Why not.	12:02
Harold Dejan	I didn't have to.	12:04
Kate Ellis	You didn't have to?	12:05
Harold Dejan	That's right.	12:05
Kate Ellis	So you didn't feel like it.	12:06
Harold Dejan	That's right.	12:07
Kate Ellis	Wow. Okay. So how many brothers did you have?	12:09
Harold Dejan	Oh, let me see. We had four boys and six girls.	12:14
Kate Ellis	Oh, so there was 10 altogether?	12:21
Harold Dejan	10.	12:24
Kate Ellis	Four boys, including you?	12:24
Harold Dejan	Yeah. But my mama had twins once, but one of them died.	12:25
Kate Ellis	Died. Huh. And so you had older brothers and—	12:35
Harold Dejan	Yeah. The oldest ones is dead. I had a brother that lived in California. He died about— My brother next to me, he's dead. Only brother I've got living now is Leo, the one that play the trumpet. Live in Los Angeles.	12:37
Kate Ellis	You got younger sisters?	12:58
Harold Dejan	Huh?	12:59
Kate Ellis	You have younger sisters?	13:00
Harold Dejan	No, she died too. Vera. She used to play piano.	13:01
Kate Ellis	Oh.	13:08
Harold Dejan	Not for money, just for her own entertainment.	13:08
Kate Ellis	It sounds like you were a musical family.	13:15
Harold Dejan	Well, partly, me and my brother, yeah.	13:17
Kate Ellis	And your sister.	13:20
Harold Dejan	Yeah, but she never played out in public and all that.	13:22
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	13:24
Harold Dejan	She really didn't want to play.	13:25
Kate Ellis	She didn't want to play?	13:29
Harold Dejan	They bought her a piano and she learned it because they bought it for her. That's all.	13:31
Kate Ellis	Who bought her a piano?	13:35
Harold Dejan	My daddy.	13:36
Kate Ellis	Oh.	13:37
Harold Dejan	Yeah. My daddy bought my brother a gold trumpet, but my brother was too small to play trumpet, so he played violin. You know?	13:38
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	13:50
Harold Dejan	So when he got big enough to blow the trumpet, he bought him a gold trumpet, and I told my mama, I said, "How's Leo got a gold trumpet and I don't have no gold saxophone?"	13:51
Kate Ellis	And what'd she say?	14:05
Harold Dejan	So she said, "That's something." So my daddy said, "But your saxophone cost two, three times more than the trumpet." So just then I got the job playing at the Japanese Tea Garden at Milneburg.	14:07
Kate Ellis	At the what?	14:24
Harold Dejan	Japanese Tea Garden at Milneburg at the lake. And my daddy said, "Oh, let's go get you a gold saxophone, and if you can't pay for it, I'll pay for it." So I paid for it about three months and two weeks.	14:25
Kate Ellis	Really? That's how long it took you to make the money?	14:43
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	14:44
Kate Ellis	Three months and two weeks, that's how long it took you to make the money?	14:44
Harold Dejan	Yeah. To pay for it, yeah.	14:44
Kate Ellis	Tell me the name of the lake park. That was like a lake resort place?	14:49
Harold Dejan	Yeah, just out on the lake, right now by the New Orleans University there.	14:52
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	14:52
Harold Dejan	But this was at the beginning at the lake, like I said. At Milneburg, it's famous for it.	14:58
Kate Ellis	Okay, Milne. Okay. That's all I was trying to get, the name of that.	15:08
Harold Dejan	Yeah. At the My-O-My Club I was playing at.	15:15
Kate Ellis	The My-O-My.	15:17
Harold Dejan	A sissy joint.	15:20
Kate Ellis	A sissy joint?	15:21
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	15:21
Kate Ellis	Tell me what a sissy joint is.	15:21
Harold Dejan	Well, all the men want to be women there. You know?	15:23
Kate Ellis	That's where you played? They had those kinds of joints—	15:30
Harold Dejan	What? Sure they had them kind of joints. (laughs)	15:31
Kate Ellis	Up by the lake?	15:38
Harold Dejan	Sure.	15:39
Kate Ellis	What, you're talking like the 1920s?	15:40
Harold Dejan	Yeah. About 1920, '24, '25, '26, '27, '28, '20— all the while [indistinct 00:15:56].	15:46
Kate Ellis	Oh, fine. Fine.	15:55
Harold Dejan	All the while I know out there. Sure they had them joints out there, them girls. Men used to dress like women. Pretty.	15:55
Kate Ellis	And you played in the band.	16:06
Harold Dejan	Yeah. My wife seen I had lipstick on my face one day when I come home. She said, "Yeah, they've been kissing you."	16:07
Kate Ellis	Wow. So it was called My-O-My Club.	16:22
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	16:25
Kate Ellis	Now, was that mostly White people who went to that club?	16:27
Harold Dejan	Oh, yeah.	16:29
Kate Ellis	It was only White people.	16:29
Harold Dejan	Yeah, only. They had some— Well, some would sneak in and would pass for Whites, the fair-skinned and all.	16:29
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. How did you know that they were passing for White?	16:39
Harold Dejan	Well, I know them.	16:42
Kate Ellis	You knew them yourself.	16:44
Harold Dejan	Sure. And they feel like going in a place, they go.	16:45
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. If you're light enough.	16:45
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	16:45
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. Right. And you never said anything. I mean, you never—	16:47
Harold Dejan	No. That's none of my business.	17:00
Kate Ellis	Right.	17:01
Harold Dejan	I was making money.	17:01
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So this was a brass band that you were playing in.	17:07
Harold Dejan	No, I was playing with a violin, a piano, and a drum, and myself.	17:12
Kate Ellis	Oh, nice. Huh.	17:19
Harold Dejan	Yeah. A jazz band, you know?	17:21
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Yeah.	17:24
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	17:24
Kate Ellis	Certainly, you've played, I'm sure, many White only clubs in your lifetime.	17:31
Harold Dejan	Mostly.	17:38
Kate Ellis	Mostly White owned.	17:38
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	17:39
Kate Ellis	White only clubs.	17:39
Harold Dejan	Yes. The money was there, you know?	17:40
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	17:43
Harold Dejan	Many years ago, a friend of mine called Earl Fouche, what I'd like to do, he played saxophone, and we'd record— I got a saxophone, see, because I was playing clarinet. And he told me, he said— I used to go to his house every Sunday. He'd give me my lesson. He said, "Don't play like me. Stick to your music, and you'll already have a job." Because I'd [indistinct 00:18:28] some of the things that he'd make. He said, "Don't copy after me. Copy after your own self." So I did that. I always kept a job.	17:47
Kate Ellis	In other words, playing your own—	18:40
Harold Dejan	Playing my own style.	18:41
Kate Ellis	Not his style.	18:45
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	18:46
Kate Ellis	Tell me about this music now. I was actually going to ask you about this. As far as your music lessons were concerned, who did you— Was he your primary teacher? I mean, who—	18:46
Harold Dejan	No, no, no, no. I started taking lessons for a clarinet, Professor Nickerson.	18:57
Kate Ellis	Professor Nickerson?	19:02
Harold Dejan	Yeah. And his wife was a concert pianist.	19:03
Kate Ellis	Okay. They were White?	19:15
Harold Dejan	No.	19:15
Kate Ellis	They were Black.	19:18
Harold Dejan	That's right.	19:18
Kate Ellis	Well, the reason I asked—	19:19
Harold Dejan	He was a fine man. Handlebar mustache. Well-to-do people.	19:21
Kate Ellis	This was in the Treme?	19:31
Harold Dejan	No, no, he was living on Galvez and Iberville.	19:32
Kate Ellis	Okay, the reason I asked about that, because you said that his wife was a concert pianist.	19:41
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Her name was Camille Nickerson.	19:48
Kate Ellis	Camille Nickerson. But am I right that it was difficult for—	19:51
Harold Dejan	Well, yeah, I guess, there was a fair complexion, and they could go for what they wanted.	19:56
Kate Ellis	They could?	20:10
Harold Dejan	Yeah. But I guess they did that sometime when they have to. Oh, he was highly regarded, you know?	20:11
Kate Ellis	No, yeah. I believe— Having talked with some other musicians, it just seemed like, especially in the classical music genre, so—	20:23
Harold Dejan	Some musicians will tell you something different because they never played no high class places and everything.	20:36
Kate Ellis	I see.	20:44
Harold Dejan	They played the dumps.	20:45
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	20:47
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	20:48
Kate Ellis	Well, tell me about that. What do you mean? I mean, that some musicians in the area—	20:48
Harold Dejan	Well, I mean, some of them wasn't fit to play in these nice places.	20:52
Kate Ellis	Where you might play classical music?	21:01
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah. Not even having to play the regular— the music. Like the country club and all them places, you had to play nice music. You know?	21:02
Kate Ellis	What's nice music?	21:13
Harold Dejan	I mean nice numbers like waltzes and that. Just you couldn't play no, what do you call it, ratty music. You know?	21:16
Kate Ellis	What was ratty music?	21:29
Harold Dejan	Well, I mean, like you go to dance how you want to dance.	21:31
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Stuff that you might be more likely to hear in the clubs.	21:33
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Yeah, you let your hair down.	21:37
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	21:39
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	21:40
Kate Ellis	That was for other places.	21:41
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	21:42
Kate Ellis	But do you get my question as far as whether Black musicians— Say, like in the 1920s, whether they were hired as concert pianists, whether they were hired to play classical music, or if they had to pretty much play jazz or gospel?	21:44
Harold Dejan	Oh, they pretty much played jazz or gospel. See, some your good band that played these place like Cellar Stand Band, AJ Pierro Band, Banjo Peres Band, people like that, they hired these bands to play for them classical people, you know? Yeah. Like birthday parties and weddings and things like that. Otherwise they wouldn't hire no Black band. They would hire some good White band, because they had good White bands too, you know?	22:08
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. But these bands that you just named, AJ—	22:54
Harold Dejan	AJ Pierro.	23:06
Kate Ellis	They were White?	23:06
Harold Dejan	No. Playing at the country club. My little brother used to play trumpet for them.	23:06
Kate Ellis	Okay. But they played for country clubs and things.	23:07
Harold Dejan	Yeah. My teacher used to play clarinet with them, Lorenzo Till.	23:08
Kate Ellis	Okay.	23:09
Harold Dejan	See, Lorenzo Till had beautiful hair, Mexican color, and he came from Mexico.	23:10
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	23:21
Harold Dejan	But he never went as a White.	23:25
Kate Ellis	He didn't go as White?	23:25
Harold Dejan	No.	23:25
Kate Ellis	He went as Mexican.	23:30
Harold Dejan	That's right. And they played with AJ Pierro's band.	23:30
Kate Ellis	I see. Okay. Huh.	23:30
Harold Dejan	See, but the first teacher I went, I went to Professor Nickerson first. See, Lorenzo Till was out of town with Pierro's band. And then I went to Albert Nicholas, because he lived close to my house.	23:37
Kate Ellis	In the Treme?	23:58
Harold Dejan	No, he was living back on St. Ann between White and Dupre, in that vicinity. Well, when I went to take the second lesson, whatever, he told me, "Man, I'm sorry, but King Oliver sent for me." So just then Lorenzo Till came back. That's who I was really waiting for to take lessons with.	23:59
Kate Ellis	And so that's who taught you, Lorenzo Till.	24:41
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	24:43
Kate Ellis	For most of your of your training.	24:45
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	24:48
Kate Ellis	Was from him.	24:48
Harold Dejan	That's right.	24:49
Kate Ellis	Okay. Huh. So why did you decide to take lessons? I mean, what interested you in music in the first place?	24:50
Harold Dejan	Well, my mama, she never sang opera for nobody, but she sang in the house. She'd go to opera house, sit and hear them, people sing.	25:00
Kate Ellis	She did?	25:15
Harold Dejan	She'd go anywhere she wanted to go, because she was very fair, beautiful hair. She was a beautiful woman. But she never sang for no money. So my daddy wanted my little brother to play violin, and then me to play the clarinet. He originally wanted my brother to play trumpet, but he was too small, so he bought him a violin. And after he got big enough, he got his trumpet.	25:16
Kate Ellis	He got that gold trumpet.	25:53
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah.	25:54
Kate Ellis	But he got you going with the clarinet.	25:56
Harold Dejan	And he bought me a silver saxophone.	26:00
Kate Ellis	Oh, a silver saxophone.	26:04
Harold Dejan	Yeah, that one doesn't work.	26:05
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	26:05
Harold Dejan	That didn't work.	26:09
Kate Ellis	That didn't work?	26:09
Harold Dejan	No. No, because my brother had a gold—	26:10
Kate Ellis	Right. So you had to have a gold one.	26:12
Harold Dejan	That's right. So just then I started to work at the My-O-My Club.	26:20
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	26:23
Harold Dejan	My daddy said, "If you can't pay for it, I'll pay for it—" So I got the gold horn. I got that right now.	26:24
Kate Ellis	You got the horn here?	26:48
Harold Dejan	It's old though, you know?	26:48
Kate Ellis	Oh, maybe we can look at it.	26:48
Harold Dejan	Wait, I have to get it out of the locked closet.	26:48
Kate Ellis	Do you need to get some water?	26:48
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	26:48
Kate Ellis	Here, let me— Okay, let's talk about what?	26:48
Harold Dejan	Well, we'll talk about when I first started with Professor Nickerson and then I went to Earl Fouche. Oh, and in between time, my brother was going to a trumpet player by the name of— Get this name, Chalignee. That was a man's name.	26:54
Kate Ellis	His name was Chal—	27:16
Harold Dejan	Chalignee, C-H-A-L-I-G-N-E-E.	27:20
Kate Ellis	You say those words too fast. Say it—	27:21
Harold Dejan	Chal—	27:22
Kate Ellis	Okay, C-H-A—	27:22
Harold Dejan	Wait. See, it's C-H-I-L-A-G-N-E-E, Chilagnee.	27:33
Kate Ellis	Geez.	27:37
Harold Dejan	He used to charge twenty-five cents a lesson.	27:42
Kate Ellis	Twenty-five cents a lesson. Was that a lot or a little?	27:46
Harold Dejan	Yeah, long enough.	27:48
Kate Ellis	That was a lot of money?	27:51
Harold Dejan	No. A lot of money to people, but he did that because he wanted to have the musicians [indistinct 00:28:01]. But twenty-five cents was a lot of money too. But I paid a dollar for all my lessons.	27:52
Kate Ellis	You mean, with these other people that you [indistinct 00:28:08] teachers?	28:07
Harold Dejan	No, no, just with Lorenzo Till.	28:07
Kate Ellis	That was a dollar a lesson.	28:08
Harold Dejan	That's right.	28:08
Kate Ellis	So that was really expensive.	28:18
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	28:25
Kate Ellis	I mean, compared to the twenty-five cents a lesson.	28:25
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Yeah. And Chalignee used to charge twenty-five cents a lesson. Now, I went there a little while, all that in between times, waiting for Lorenzo Till to come back from New York.	28:28
Kate Ellis	To come back.	28:38
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	28:38
Kate Ellis	Tell me again the person, Earl Fouche?	28:39
Harold Dejan	Earl Fouche is an alto saxophone player. He used to play with the Sam Morgan Band.	28:44
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	28:49
Harold Dejan	Played alto saxophone and soprano. Lovetta! Let me see if she can— If she can dig and find that old horn.	28:53
Kate Ellis	Find what?	29:07
Harold Dejan	That old horn. You say you wanted to see. Lavetta!	29:07
Lavetta Dejan	Yeah, Daddy.	29:24
Harold Dejan	She's downstairs now.	29:24
Lavetta Dejan	Yeah.	29:24
Harold Dejan	You know where that alto saxophone is, in that locker back right there?	29:24
Lavetta Dejan	Which one of them, Dad?	29:29
Harold Dejan	There's only one. Not the clarinets, the saxophone.	29:29
Lavetta Dejan	Oh.	29:29
Harold Dejan	Yeah. If there's too much junk in there then forget about it.	29:45
Lavetta Dejan	This one here? [indistinct 00:29:50]	29:50
Harold Dejan	Put it there.	29:50
Lavetta Dejan	[indistinct 00:29:51]	29:50
Harold Dejan	She wants to see my first horn.	29:54
Kate Ellis	Okay, this is what you bought with your money when you started playing.	29:59
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	30:04
Kate Ellis	How old were you when you had your first paying gig?	30:05
Harold Dejan	[indistinct 00:30:09]	30:07
Kate Ellis	How old were you when you first started performing?	30:09
Harold Dejan	Oh, about twelve years old, I guess. Yeah.	30:11
Kate Ellis	Oh, look at this. This is beautiful.	30:12
Harold Dejan	We first started playing out for money about fourteen years old.	30:19
Kate Ellis	Okay. And how old were you when you started playing?	30:23
Harold Dejan	Oh, about fourteen years old.	30:25
Kate Ellis	I mean, I'm sorry, when you started your lessons.	30:28
Harold Dejan	Oh, about ten years old, I guess.	30:31
Kate Ellis	So this is your first saxophone?	30:33
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	30:35
Kate Ellis	Wow. It's gorgeous. Wait, did you say ten years old?	30:37
Harold Dejan	About. No, let me see. I was about twelve years old.	30:47
Kate Ellis	So you didn't take lessons that long before you started playing.	30:48
Harold Dejan	Yeah. No. Just one lesson on the saxophone. See, Lorenzo Till showed me the difference for the clarinet and the saxophone.	30:54
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	31:06
Harold Dejan	And I just took one lesson on the saxophone. Earl Fouche used to show me little breaks on the saxophone.	31:08
Kate Ellis	Okay.	31:15
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	31:16
Kate Ellis	Okay, but when did you start playing clarinet then?	31:16
Harold Dejan	Oh, Lord, I played clarinet since I was about eight or nine years old, I guess.	31:19
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	31:37
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	32:02
Kate Ellis	This is old cards. Uh-huh. Dejan's original [indistinct 00:32:03] brass band.	32:02
Harold Dejan	Mm-hmm.	32:02
Kate Ellis	Wow.	32:02
Harold Dejan	It can't work no more.	32:02
Kate Ellis	No. Because of your stroke.	32:02
Harold Dejan	No, I mean I can't play it no more, because it's wore out in a lot of places.	32:03
Kate Ellis	Water?	32:04
Harold Dejan	Wore out. Used.	32:05
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay.	32:17
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	32:17
Kate Ellis	Okay. Gotcha.	32:17
Harold Dejan	Used it so much it ain't no more good.	32:17
Kate Ellis	But look at all the stickers that you've got on here.	32:17
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	32:19
Kate Ellis	It's all stickers where you played?	32:22
Harold Dejan	Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah.	32:23
Kate Ellis	All over Europe.	32:23
Harold Dejan	Yeah. There's the horn I had when I first started.	32:23
Kate Ellis	When you first started?	32:25
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	32:26
Kate Ellis	But wait, were you just a teenager when you were playing in those bands? When you played in that band at the lake?	32:29
Harold Dejan	Yeah, I was about 14 years old.	32:37
Kate Ellis	Okay. They weren't worried about the— you being out playing.	32:41
Harold Dejan	No, no. They wouldn't worry about nothing, because, see, I had long pants on, you know? And thought I was a man.	32:51
Kate Ellis	Really? Mm-hmm.	33:02
Harold Dejan	I got by.	33:05
Kate Ellis	Right.	33:07
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	33:07
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. You grew up in the Treme, you said. Is that right.	33:10
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Yeah.	33:13
Kate Ellis	What street did you live on?	33:18
Harold Dejan	I lived on St. Ann between Miro and Tonti.	33:28
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. Is that where you were born?	33:33
Harold Dejan	No, I was born on [indistinct 00:33:34] and Miro.	33:33
Kate Ellis	Okay.	33:33
Harold Dejan	You call that across the basin. See, the basin— You see Lafitte Street? That was the old basin there.	33:34
Kate Ellis	Huh. Yeah. Okay. So what was your neighborhood like that you grew up in? You said it was—	33:50
Harold Dejan	A mixed neighborhood. Yeah.	33:53
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	33:53
Harold Dejan	Two doors would be White. Half of the block.	33:59
Kate Ellis	Was White.	34:05
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	34:06
Kate Ellis	And so you had White friends and—	34:06
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Well, my first little band was a White band.	34:08
Kate Ellis	Really?	34:13
Harold Dejan	I don't tell about it.	34:13
Kate Ellis	You don't what?	34:13
Harold Dejan	I just don't brag on it, because we played little jobs.	34:19
Kate Ellis	You did? Like around the city.	34:24
Harold Dejan	Yeah. People hired us. Yeah.	34:24
Kate Ellis	Well, and that was— You could be hired out as a mixed band? I mean, they didn't have many mixed bands then?	34:39
Harold Dejan	No, no, no, they hired us. They knew us. The people that knew us hired us for birthday parties.	34:42
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay, so you were really young then.	34:42
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	34:51
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. But am I right, that it was hard for people, Whites and Blacks, to be hired together in a band?	34:52
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some people wouldn't go for it, and some didn't give a damn. You know?	35:00
Kate Ellis	And some would. Right. And that was sort of the way it was?	35:11
Harold Dejan	Yeah. See, because when I first got out of the Navy, I played at the opera house about three years.	35:12
Kate Ellis	Oh.	35:27
Harold Dejan	Over on Toulouse and Bourbon, on the corner.	35:27
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Yeah.	35:27
Harold Dejan	And I never had no trouble with nobody.	35:34
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. And they knew that you were Black?	35:38
Harold Dejan	Oh yeah. Sure.	35:41
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Did it just sort of depend on the situation as far as whether people were going to—	35:45
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Then it depends on some people's attitude and just stuff like that. You know?	35:49
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	35:59
Harold Dejan	See, I never meddled in nobody's business, and never meddled in my business. You know?	36:00
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Uh-huh. And it sounds like, from what you were saying a few minutes ago, if somebody gave you— I mean, when you saying earlier about with Jim Crow, I mean, if somebody—	36:03
Harold Dejan	Yeah. I never worry about nothing like that.	36:18
Kate Ellis	Because you would just—	36:23
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	36:23
Kate Ellis	If somebody gave you a hard time, you'd punch them or—	36:25
Harold Dejan	That's right.	36:26
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	36:27
Harold Dejan	And I didn't have to do that too often.	36:31
Kate Ellis	Because people didn't usually—	36:33
Harold Dejan	No.	36:34
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. Huh. So it just kind of depended on the situation.	36:35
Harold Dejan	That's right.	36:40
Kate Ellis	Huh. Well, let me ask you something about that, if you don't mind dwelling on that. Do you mind if we talk about this for a couple more minutes?	36:42
Harold Dejan	Say any words you want.	36:49
Kate Ellis	Everybody that I talk to, when they talk about segregation and Jim Crow, some people I've talked to have had really negative experience with it. I mean, it's really shaped their lives. And other people, it hasn't been as bad.	36:54
Harold Dejan	Some people make things hard on theirself. You know? Like if the grocer's closed and I want a Coca-Cola, I went in anyway, he give me Coca-Cola, walk out. See, I don't never meddle in nobody, never meddled me.	37:10
Kate Ellis	And they never refused you service?	37:37
Harold Dejan	No. Only one place that refused me service in De Queen, Arkansas.	37:39
Kate Ellis	De Queen? De Queen, Arkansas.	37:47
Harold Dejan	Yeah. They had hamburgers, it was twenty-five cents and they charged me a dollar for one.	37:48
Kate Ellis	Really? And what did you do?	37:57
Harold Dejan	I gave it to them.	38:00
Kate Ellis	You gave them $1?	38:01
Harold Dejan	Sure.	38:01
Kate Ellis	You were hungry.	38:01
Harold Dejan	No, I paid them a dollar. They wanted a dollar, I paid them a dollar.	38:01
Kate Ellis	You say anything to them when you—	38:07
Harold Dejan	No, no. I was with the Joyland Revelers at the time.	38:11
Kate Ellis	The Jordan—	38:13
Harold Dejan	Joyland Revelers.	38:15
Kate Ellis	Oh, uh-huh.	38:20
Harold Dejan	And the boys [indistinct 00:38:21], "Don't worry now." I said, "Man, I want my hamburger. I'm hungry."	38:20
Kate Ellis	You said that you want— uh-huh.	38:25
Harold Dejan	And so I went there, it was twenty-five cents, so they charged me a dollar. I gave it to them. And didn't tell them, "I thought this was twenty-five cents" either. I gave them the dollar.	38:25
Kate Ellis	You didn't even say, "Excuse me, this is—" They just—	38:42
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	38:45
Kate Ellis	So when you went back outside with your hamburger, what did your friends say?	38:46
Harold Dejan	"See you got it, huh?" Said, "Yeah, I got it."	38:53
Kate Ellis	Did they go in next, or did they—	38:56
Harold Dejan	No.	38:58
Kate Ellis	I see. But it doesn't sound like you gave it a whole lot of thought.	39:02
Harold Dejan	No, I didn't. I didn't give it a thought. Just went and asked them for a hamburger, I got it. Nobody told me nothing. I walked out with it, so—	39:05
Kate Ellis	Well, let me ask you this, because— And again, I'm just interested in your perspective, because— Well, I've talked to some musicians who have talked with bitterness about traveling through the South and having to stay in lousy hotels, and being refused service, but just even from the look on your face— What is that look on your face?	39:16
Harold Dejan	I stayed in a lot— mostly rooming houses. And most of them rooming houses I stayed, they delighted me. I didn't have to worry about nothing. But the Negro houses had rooming houses. They could've stayed in some rooming house if they wanted, I guess. But the band I traveled with, we used to stay— very seldom we stayed in a hotel room.	39:44
Kate Ellis	Very seldom you couldn't stay?	40:18
Harold Dejan	No, very seldom we stayed in a hotel.	40:18
Kate Ellis	You stayed in rooming houses.	40:19
Harold Dejan	Yeah, in the rooming houses.	40:19
Kate Ellis	For Black people.	40:21
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	40:22
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. And they were comfortable?	40:23
Harold Dejan	I don't care if it was for Black or White, but some of them I stayed in, I guess, there was a mix of them, some of them I stayed in, but I was very, very comfortable, me.	40:24
Kate Ellis	Oh. Huh. So it was not—	40:36
Harold Dejan	No, as I said, some of the fellas, I don't know, maybe— I traveled with all good bands in my life, some like that. And I had some fellas talk about different things happened to them. You know?	40:44
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	41:01
Harold Dejan	Oh yeah, something happened to me once in Lafayette, Louisiana.	41:04
Kate Ellis	What happened?	41:14
Harold Dejan	A fella, some White fellas coming, and they pushed me off the sidewalk. And I went, I fell right on the half of a brick. And I was about fit to bust them, bust them on their heads with that brick. And a boy come around the [indistinct 00:41:32], said, "Man, don't do that. Don't, or you'll get killed." I said, "I betcha one of them gets killed with me." And so he said, "Man, when people come from court like that, they lose the case, man, they get mad. We get out their way." I said, "Well, I didn't know that." I said, "But I was walking on the sidewalk, he pushed me off the sidewalk." Sure that's the only thing that ever happened to me. If the boy wouldn't have came out there and grabbed me, guess what, I'd have been dead now.	41:14
Kate Ellis	Because you would've fought them.	41:54
Harold Dejan	Sure.	41:54
Kate Ellis	So he pushed you. Did you say that you fell on a brick. You threw the—	41:54
Harold Dejan	No, I fell in the street where they had some bricks there. I got me a nice beautiful one.	42:22
Kate Ellis	And you were going to launch that brick.	42:27
Harold Dejan	Yes, I—	42:29
Kate Ellis	You didn't.	42:30
Harold Dejan	No.	42:30
Kate Ellis	Because that guy said, "Don't mess with them."	42:31
Harold Dejan	That's right. Yeah.	42:33
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. I see. Wow. Huh.	42:44
Harold Dejan	But that was nothing. But I just said it was a little incident. I laughed about it after.	42:46
Kate Ellis	Huh.	42:50
Harold Dejan	And once, I was in— Hot dog, [indistinct 00:43:09]. What's the name of that place? Somewhere in Mississippi. And a man told me, "You want a drink?" I said, "No, I don't drink." He bought a gallon of whiskey for the band.	43:01
Kate Ellis	He bought a gallon of whiskey?	43:38
Harold Dejan	I said, "I don't drink." He said, "Where you from?" I said, "New York." "I'll kill him then." So the band leader, went in his case and he got his pistol out, and the bartender seen that incident, and he come out the bar with his pistol and said, "What's the matter?" I say, "That man told me I got to take a drink because I'm from New York." So he took the gallon of whiskey away from the man and told him, "Don't put his lights out, because I'll be behind you."	43:39
Kate Ellis	Say that again, the don't—	44:30
Harold Dejan	"Don't put his lights out." Said he'd be behind him. Yeah.	44:34
Kate Ellis	Huh.	44:40
Harold Dejan	He said that every time they have a Negro band there, they get in trouble with him.	44:41
Kate Ellis	Who gets in—	44:51
Harold Dejan	The man. The man that—	44:52
Kate Ellis	Oh. That tried to get you to drink something.	44:54
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	44:55
Kate Ellis	So he would mess with the—	44:56
Harold Dejan	Would mess with anybody. So I mean, I didn't never have no trouble at no rooming house or hotel. Never.	45:09
Kate Ellis	It just wasn't—	45:14
Harold Dejan	No. No.	45:18
Kate Ellis	Huh.	45:18
Harold Dejan	[indistinct 00:45:20] pay as you go and you'll never owe. So I paid everywhere I went and I never owed nothing.	45:20
Kate Ellis	Say it again.	45:26
Harold Dejan	Pay as you go and you'll never owe.	45:31
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. Huh. Well, what do you mean by that? I mean, just to—	45:33
Harold Dejan	I mean, if you pay your bill as you go, you'll never owe nothing, so I don't get in no trouble with nobody.	45:40
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.	46:03
Harold Dejan	Is this thing on?	46:03
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	46:03
Harold Dejan	Can I say something? Everything is lovely. And you want to know different places I play at?	46:05
Kate Ellis	Yes, I do.	46:16
Harold Dejan	All right.	46:17
Kate Ellis	But wait one second. I want to turn— I see this is about to run out. Let me turn the tape over.	46:18

Harold Dejan	Oh, sure, yeah.	0:00
Kate Ellis	It sounds like you had a lot of fun.	0:07
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	0:07
Kate Ellis	So tell me about your musical career. I want to hear about that.	0:07
Harold Dejan	Well, man, when I got out the Navy, I took over the Tree Almond Band under the direction of Melvin C. Bright.	0:12
Kate Ellis	Tell me again?	0:24
Harold Dejan	Under the direction of Melvin C. Bright. I got some of the fellas then that played in the Almond Band with me. I got it in that big book you had.	0:26
Kate Ellis	Which big book? Well, we'll find it after we—	0:40
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	0:45
Kate Ellis	Okay, good. I'll have to remember that, to get the names, okay.	0:53
Harold Dejan	I always like to play with brass bands all my life. I made a trip when I was a little boy with the Holy Ghost Brass Band in New Orleans, and we played in Opelousas, and then start liking the brass bands. I just played the Eureka Brass Band, I played with John Academy Brass Band and I played with the George Williams Brass Band. I played with Manuel Perez Brass Band. I played Kit Harbor's Brass Band. I played in most all of the brass bands.	0:54
Kate Ellis	What did you like about it?	1:33
Harold Dejan	Well, I liked to play— Some of them had music. Most of it, I managed because I read the music.	1:34
Kate Ellis	Oh. You can use it.	1:47
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	1:49
Kate Ellis	That was really an advantage, wasn't it? To be able to read music?	1:50
Harold Dejan	Yeah, of course. Sure, because so many fellas couldn't read and then they'd deny them, you see? I liked to play with the brass bands. I was sitting on my step and this fella comes, Louie Warner, he said, "Dejan, do you want to play with the Eureka Brass Band?" I said, "Man, I don't know." He said, "Man, we got plenty of music and everything," I said, "I don't have no cap or nothing." He said, he went in his house and got me a cap, and he says, "Now, you're a member of the Eureka." By playing with the Eureka Brass Band, I really got enthused. That's what made me make that Olympia Brass Band.	1:55
Kate Ellis	Oh.	2:50
Harold Dejan	See?	2:50
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. Tell me again, you had said this off tape, but you formed the Olympia Brass Band in the 1950s?	2:51
Harold Dejan	In 1955, and I named it in 1956.	2:59
Kate Ellis	And you named it the Olympia Brass Band because— ?	3:05
Harold Dejan	Because I found out Louis Catrell told me that the Olympia Brass Band was the oldest standing brass band, so I named it. I said, "That's good." I used to play with the Olympia Serenaders when I was a kid.	3:10
Kate Ellis	Oh yeah.	3:27
Harold Dejan	That was one of the bands I used to play with, the Olympia Serenaders. I named it Dejan's Olympia Brass Band.	3:27
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm, and you've been playing ever since? Well, until your stroke.	3:33
Harold Dejan	Ever since, yeah.	3:39
Kate Ellis	But the band is still playing.	3:41
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah. One day, when I was waiting for Lykes Brothers, the steamship company, just brought Milton Batiste— See his picture in there?	3:41
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	3:53
Harold Dejan	Kay said, "Man, you want to go to London?" I said, "Do I want to go to London?" I said, "Sure." I said, "I've been to London last year." I said, "Yeah, I want to go." We went there with the Sutton Travel Directors Concert promoting business for the South to the North. I went and asked the Vice President of Lykes Brothers, could I get off, and he said, "Yeah, you can go." He said, "We got an office everywhere you go." Yeah. He said, "You'll be our outside man for the company," he said, "You'll be our ambassador," he said.	3:54
Kate Ellis	Wait. Ambassador for who?	5:03
Harold Dejan	For Lykes Brothers. He said, "You'll be our ambassador." Everywhere I went, they had an office, the Lykes Brothers, all the European countries I went.	5:04
Kate Ellis	And it's called Lykes Brothers?	5:19
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	5:20
Kate Ellis	Tell me about that. What's Lykes Brothers? Do you need more water?	5:20
Harold Dejan	Cut that.	5:21
Kate Ellis	The Lykes Brothers were the steamship company, and that's when you were playing— I saw a picture of you on that boat, which would go from New Orleans to New York. That was the Lykes Brothers?	5:27
Harold Dejan	No.	5:36
Kate Ellis	That was something different?	5:37
Harold Dejan	That was— What steam company that was? That wasn't Lykes Brothers.	5:39
Kate Ellis	It was a different steamship company.	5:46
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	5:53
Kate Ellis	When you would take those boats, you'd play on those boats, right? You performed for passengers on the boats?	5:54
Harold Dejan	Oh yeah, we were playing at night. We would play for a dance and in the daytime, we might play during lunchtime. Oh, yeah, that was fun.	5:59
Kate Ellis	I bet it was fun.	6:12
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Then when we'd to New York, we didn't have nothing to do.	6:13
Kate Ellis	Well, you didn't play in New York when you got up there?	6:19
Harold Dejan	No. All I played on the East side, West side, the boat would be landing in New York. Way down in New Orleans, they'd be coming in.	6:24
Kate Ellis	Wait, say that again. In New York, you'd get to New York and you didn't have any kind of— What? I don't understand why you didn't play in New York.	6:35
Harold Dejan	No, no. They were loading passengers on and then loading freight on and unloading the freight. The boat just carried freight and passengers.	6:41
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. So in other words, you just didn't have time to stay in New York.	6:54
Harold Dejan	Yeah, I stayed in New York three days, and had nothing to do.	6:55
Kate Ellis	So what did you do?	7:10
Harold Dejan	See New York.	7:10
Kate Ellis	Okay. What else did you do?	7:10
Harold Dejan	Then a fella, he used to play banjo with me here, by the name of Danny Barker, he was in New York. He was in New York and he used to take us around.	7:10
Kate Ellis	Show you around the city?	7:26
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah. Then after a couple of times, I was a New Yorker.	7:27
Kate Ellis	Oh really? You knew the territory.	7:29
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah.	7:29
Kate Ellis	So when you went over to London, you'd take the ship over.	7:39
Harold Dejan	No, I flew.	7:43
Kate Ellis	Okay, but with the Lykes Steamship Company—	7:45
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah, no, no. No, they had an office everywhere I went in Europe.	7:48
Kate Ellis	Okay.	7:51
Harold Dejan	They told me I was an ambassador and that if I needed anything, just go to the office and tell them who I am. So I never go to the office, I didn't need them.	7:57
Kate Ellis	You didn't need them?	8:07
Harold Dejan	No. One time, one of the Vice-Presidents came there and said, "I'll take you to dinner, give you anything you want," I said, "But I don't have enough time, man. I got things to do." I wanted to be with my friends. I had a lot of friends I made in Europe.	8:09
Kate Ellis	How many times have you traveled to Europe?	8:36
Harold Dejan	I've been on 32 European trips when I was with the band. The band already made 36.	8:38
Kate Ellis	I see.	8:44
Harold Dejan	I made 32 with the band.	8:47
Kate Ellis	With the band, with your band, huh.	8:51
Harold Dejan	You see, the first band I made up, I had Emanuel Paul, Kenny Letty, Kid Sheik Colar, Louis Nelson playing trombone. I had a bass player by the name of Minor and Allan Jaffe. Then my trumpet player, Ernie Kendrick, he laid on a bed, and he can't play the parades no more. Just then, I played with a band called Minor's Brass Band. I played with them and I'd seen Milton Batiste, I said, "Damn, that's who I need."	8:54
Kate Ellis	You liked Milton Batiste?	9:52
Harold Dejan	Yeah, I said, "That's who I need." I told him, I said, "Do you want to come in my band?" "Man, you're joking." I said, "You think I'm joking? Come on." He said, "When do we got our first job?" It was a Sunday." I said, "First job is Tuesday, Carnival day."	9:56
Kate Ellis	Carnival day?	10:21
Harold Dejan	I broke him good.	10:23
Kate Ellis	I guess you did. Then you made him assistant director.	10:28
Harold Dejan	Assistant, yeah. He was a pretty good boy, a fella, you know what I mean? He was full of business, I said, "Well," so he started learning, he started writing contracts out there, Batiste.	10:29
Kate Ellis	He did?	10:46
Harold Dejan	Yeah, less that I had to worry about.	10:47
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	10:48
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	10:48
Kate Ellis	He could handle the business side of things.	10:50
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	10:52
Kate Ellis	How was it dealing with— It sounds like you've had a lot of fun, that you have played all over the place and people love your music, of course.	10:53
Harold Dejan	Yes.	11:03
Kate Ellis	How's the business? How was the business side of all of it?	11:04
Harold Dejan	The business side of it was lovely, beautiful. The business side, that was everything, we made good money.	11:08
Kate Ellis	Did you?	11:18
Harold Dejan	Sure.	11:19
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh, mm-hmm. So you were paid well throughout your—	11:20
Harold Dejan	Oh yeah.	11:28
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	11:28
Harold Dejan	Oh yeah.	11:29
Kate Ellis	Did you belong to the Musicians Union?	11:32
Harold Dejan	Oh yeah, all my life.	11:41
Kate Ellis	Yeah. How'd they help you?	11:47
Harold Dejan	I got my gold card in there.	11:47
Kate Ellis	Your gold card—	11:48
Harold Dejan	Yeah, from Musicians. You see, after being there a certain length of time, you get a gold card, so I don't have to pay no more dues.	11:48
Kate Ellis	Oh.	11:48
Harold Dejan	But now, they started, and now you have to pay it, like half of the dues.	11:55
Kate Ellis	Really?	11:57
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	11:57
Kate Ellis	So now you've got to. What was good— This was the Black Musicians Union, obviously.	11:59
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah, at first.	12:09
Kate Ellis	And then later on, it merged with the White one.	12:09
Harold Dejan	They merged, yeah.	12:12
Kate Ellis	What did the Musicians Union have to offer you?	12:12
Harold Dejan	Well, the Musicians had to offer me— Just, they give me plenty of jobs, me.	12:16
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	12:24
Harold Dejan	They used to give me plenty of jobs.	12:27
Kate Ellis	Oh.	12:29
Harold Dejan	They had good benefits, so much when you die, abou ten thousand dollars I guess, something like that.	12:30
Kate Ellis	Ten thousand dollars?	12:37
Harold Dejan	Yeah, something like that.	12:41
Kate Ellis	When you die?	12:41
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	12:41
Kate Ellis	Wow.	12:41
Harold Dejan	Well, I mean, it costs about that much to make a funeral.	12:41
Kate Ellis	Well, it sure does, but that's still— For a union to provide that.	12:48
Harold Dejan	Yeah, I've been in the union since— Oh, Jesus Christ, since Hex was a puppy.	12:56
Kate Ellis	Since what? Since what was a—?	13:06
Harold Dejan	Since Hex was a puppy.	13:11
Kate Ellis	I never heard that.	13:17
Harold Dejan	Yeah. I mean, I don't know if the benefit is that much. I just figured it was like that.	13:18
Kate Ellis	Right, you were just, and as a musician, you just knew. It just made sense.	13:29
Harold Dejan	Yeah. And they got something going on right now, like if somebody wants to hire a band, and they can't afford to pay for a band, some cover, some people for a benefit or something like that. They give them a band and they pay them.	13:33
Kate Ellis	Oh, is that called The Project?	13:56
Harold Dejan	The Project.	13:57
Kate Ellis	The Project, okay.	13:57
Harold Dejan	That's right, that's right.	13:57
Kate Ellis	Okay. All right. I've got to ask you something and I know that it's not what you want to talk about a whole lot, but let me just ask you this—	14:04
Harold Dejan	I'll talk about anything. Don't worry about talking about it.	14:10
Kate Ellis	I know. I know, but obviously I'm interested in some of the racial aspects of the music business in New Orleans, how things were shaped. Did you think the Black musicians got paid as much as White musicians did?	14:14
Harold Dejan	The charges, yeah.	14:33
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	14:34
Harold Dejan	If they charged them, I'm sure.	14:35
Kate Ellis	If the Black musicians charged them the same as the White musicians.	14:37
Harold Dejan	That's right, that's right. In fact, I charged more than all of them, me.	14:40
Kate Ellis	Really? More than the White musicians?	14:43
Harold Dejan	Sure. You can't say that because you don't know what people charged.	14:43
Kate Ellis	Right, yeah.	14:43
Harold Dejan	But I mean, I always charged over the scale, I can tell you that.	14:44
Kate Ellis	Okay, right.	14:56
Harold Dejan	And I know if some White musician would charge over the scale, they'd die.	14:58
Kate Ellis	You said, "A scale," but before the musicians unions merged together, was there a different Black musicians pay scale from the White musicians pay scale?	15:05
Harold Dejan	No, no, no.	15:16
Kate Ellis	It was the same scale, it was a standard scale before they merged?	15:18
Harold Dejan	Like a lady commented on there, she asked how much it cost to play for one hour or an hour or a half, I told her, a thousand dollars. Then she said, "Well, suppose I want you for three hours?" I said, "Well, about eighteen hundred or two thousand," like that. She said, "All right. I'm going to call you a week ahead of time." I said, "All right." But she called, she paid, if she don't call, she don't pay it.	15:21
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	16:01
Harold Dejan	You see? It's like that, but I overcharged her.	16:04
Kate Ellis	You— ?	16:09
Harold Dejan	Sure, I overcharged her. The scale for about an hour is about seventy dollars a man or something like that.	16:10
Kate Ellis	So you overcharged her? Why did you overcharge her?	16:19
Harold Dejan	No, that's my price.	16:21
Kate Ellis	Okay. Right. Well, especially because you've got a big band there.	16:27
Harold Dejan	Well, I wouldn't bring but seven pieces.	16:31
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	16:33
Harold Dejan	She would talk right, "I can't afford this," "I can't afford that," well, I'll have to cooperate with her.	16:44
Kate Ellis	So you'll work with her, you'd work with her.	16:53
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	16:54
Kate Ellis	If somebody said, "I can't pay you that much money for a band—	16:55
Harold Dejan	But I'm going to still charge them the scale.	16:58
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh, you would not go below scale.	17:02
Harold Dejan	No.	17:04
Kate Ellis	But you might not go as much over the scale.	17:05
Harold Dejan	That's right.	17:06
Kate Ellis	I see, I see, yeah.	17:07
Harold Dejan	I mean, that's the way it go. I mean, I never asked another band how much you're getting? I don't care what they're getting. I bet you, I'm getting mine.	17:10
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. That's what important, that's what you need.	17:26
Harold Dejan	Yeah, because I'm going to satisfy them. They want to be satisfied.	17:26
Kate Ellis	Yeah, yeah.	17:32
Harold Dejan	I know I'm going to satisfy them.	17:33
Kate Ellis	Well, you were talking about earlier when you said that you played at Carnegie Hall in New York, you said, I don't know, ten, fifteen years ago. I said, "How'd it go?" And you said, "We tore it up."	17:36
Harold Dejan	Yeah. That's right. Half the people are out of their seats, jumping out of their seats. We made a last— We came off the stage and paraded around.	17:54
Kate Ellis	In Carnegie Hall?	18:03
Harold Dejan	That's right.	18:03
Kate Ellis	You paraded around the audience?	18:03
Harold Dejan	That's right. Everybody jumped up.	18:04
Kate Ellis	I bet.	18:09
Harold Dejan	They had to two elderly artists from New Orleans, "Oh child, let's get up here." Yeah.	18:12
Kate Ellis	They knew what to do.	18:22
Harold Dejan	Yeah, then we played Carnegie Hall. We played that show that Jaffe put on. What's the name of the show? All That Jazz, we put that on at Carnegie Hall and we made a few Army choruses and everything, but they wouldn't pay the price. Kenny Booker wanted that show and take a man, take them there, but they wouldn't pay the price.	18:23
Kate Ellis	Wait, who wouldn't pay the price?	19:16
Harold Dejan	The booking agent that wanted to take the show over.	19:19
Kate Ellis	Oh, I see.	19:24
Harold Dejan	So we just played where the government sent us for Carnegie Hall and a couple of Army forces they would send us.	19:29
Kate Ellis	When was this?	19:45
Harold Dejan	Well, about twelve or fifteen years ago.	19:45
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. Huh. So tell me a little bit more just to hear about your coming up time; you came up in the Treme, and you were playing music. What schools did you attend when you were coming up?	19:54
Harold Dejan	Well, I went to Joseph A. Craig School.	20:05
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh, that was elementary?	20:08
Harold Dejan	Yeah, then I also went to— I went to St. Mary's Academy.	20:10
Kate Ellis	After that? For high school?	20:22
Harold Dejan	Before that.	20:24
Kate Ellis	Before that?	20:25
Harold Dejan	I went to St. Mary's and then I finished at Veneral School out on Durbin and Veneral.	20:26
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	20:33
Harold Dejan	But the Joseph A. Craig School, it was named Bayou Road School. They changed it to Joseph A. Craig.	20:38
Kate Ellis	It was named, what was the name?	20:43
Harold Dejan	It was named Bayou Road.	20:43
Kate Ellis	That's the first one it was called?	20:43
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	20:43
Kate Ellis	Bayou Road School.	20:43
Harold Dejan	Yeah, Bayou Road.	20:43
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. And so the Vendiel School was the high school?	20:57
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	20:59
Kate Ellis	Did you finish high school?	21:00
Harold Dejan	Yeah, no. No. I went to 10th grade and that was it. I was making too much money.	21:04
Kate Ellis	I was going to say, you were popping. That's when your musical career took off, huh?	21:06
Harold Dejan	That's right. I'm glad I had a chance to go to 10th because I'd have been sad news.	21:11
Kate Ellis	Yeah. You learned to read and write and do all that.	21:22
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah. I did everything I wanted to do.	21:29
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	21:29
Harold Dejan	I kept a good job and everything.	21:29
Kate Ellis	Who taught you how to read music?	21:36
Harold Dejan	Lorenzo Teal.	21:39
Kate Ellis	He did? Okay.	21:40
Harold Dejan	He and Shalani.	21:48
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	21:48
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Shalani was a man, he wrote his own theory book.	21:49
Kate Ellis	His own theory book?	21:53
Harold Dejan	Yeah, twenty-five cents he charged for it. He wrote a whole theory book, like you buy them in the store right now.	21:54
Kate Ellis	Yeah. And he charged twenty-five cents for it?	22:02
Harold Dejan	That's right.	22:04
Kate Ellis	Wow, was it a good book?	22:06
Harold Dejan	Oh yeah. I had one around here before my daughter and my granddaughter moved here. They moved so many things and displaced them, I wanted to keep that book to show people.	22:07
Kate Ellis	Yeah, I wish. I'd love to see it. She doesn't know where it is now?	22:23
Harold Dejan	Oh god, no.	22:28
Kate Ellis	Oh, no. Huh. There was something I was going to ask you about that. You had mentioned earlier, I think it was off tape, that you actually did work for your father for a while.	22:31
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	22:45
Kate Ellis	When was that?	22:46
Harold Dejan	Oh, when I was a kid. I was between twelve and fifteen, sixteen years old, like that.	22:47
Kate Ellis	What would you do for him?	22:58
Harold Dejan	Well, first I would bring the bulls around, and then he find out I could drive.	23:02
Kate Ellis	Do you mean drive the bulls, you mean?	23:09
Harold Dejan	Yeah, I was driving the double-team wagon.	23:11
Kate Ellis	Right.	23:14
Harold Dejan	Then he found out I could drive them trucks when he got them trucks. I didn't tell him I could drive though.	23:15
Kate Ellis	You didn't tell your father you could drive?	23:23
Harold Dejan	No, but he bought us a car one time, and I checked myself there. I told him I could drive better than him.	23:28
Kate Ellis	Better than he could?	23:40
Harold Dejan	I could. He let me drive and let my little brother drive, and then one of the drivers told him, "You didn't know Harold can drive? Harold can drive all these trucks."	23:44
Kate Ellis	So what? He put you to work?	23:56
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	23:57
Kate Ellis	Is that right?	23:57
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	23:59
Kate Ellis	He said, "Son—"	23:59
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	24:01
Kate Ellis	"I've got a little work for you."	24:02
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah. I didn't mind, I didn't mind. When I told him I could drive the trucks, and the big trailer, you know the big trailer?	24:06
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	24:16
Harold Dejan	He had one of them big trailers and then one day, one of the drivers, I'd seen one of the drivers was in a bar, stagging like that—	24:16
Kate Ellis	Staggering?	24:25
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	24:25
Kate Ellis	Like he was drunk or something?	24:25
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Yeah, he was drunk.	24:25
Kate Ellis	Okay.	24:25
Harold Dejan	So I got the keys from him and didn't say nothing, so I got in the big trailer and brought that trailer home, and I backed into the yard, into the place where it belonged. My stepbrother saw, "You riding, coming in here, driving this big trailer." [indistinct 00:25:01] So anytime, he needed somebody, I had to go.	24:37
Kate Ellis	You had to go and do it for him because you knew how to do it.	25:05
Harold Dejan	Yeah. I didn't care.	25:07
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	25:08
Harold Dejan	But I lived a beautiful life all my life. I have very few people that have made me mad, and if they made me mad, they didn't know about it. Yeah.	25:08
Kate Ellis	Tell me about your wife, where did you meet her?	25:34
Harold Dejan	Oh, we used to go to school together.	25:37
Kate Ellis	Which school?	25:38
Harold Dejan	Bayou Road.	25:42
Kate Ellis	Oh, uh-huh.	25:44
Harold Dejan	She had nice long plaits, I used to pull them.	25:45
Kate Ellis	Did you really?	25:48
Harold Dejan	Sure. She had beautiful hair. I pulled her hair, and she'd, "Ow." The teacher would put me— Sit me in another seat. So I used to take her home. I couldn't take her home every day because daddy might be— See us. You leave her off at the corner and I'd say, "See you tomorrow."	25:49
Kate Ellis	Wow, and you were kind of young then, when you met her.	26:23
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	26:26
Kate Ellis	You must have been— ?	26:38
Harold Dejan	Oh, I was maybe ten, twelve years old, something like that.	26:38
Kate Ellis	Wow.	26:38
Harold Dejan	But when she got grown, she went away with the Bandanna Girls Show.	26:38
Kate Ellis	She was in a show? It was the Bandanna Girls?	26:47
Harold Dejan	Yeah. So when she came back, I said, "Mm-hmm," I went to the entertainers one night and I met her. I said, "How long have you been in town?" "I just got in town today." I said, "Why are you happening to keep me at bay?" "I've been writing you." I said, "That's all right. Nobody didn't tell me." I guess my mama got the letters and throw them away.	26:49
Kate Ellis	Oh really? She wrote you letters that you never saw, huh?	27:23
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah. I married her.	27:23
Kate Ellis	You married her.	27:23
Harold Dejan	Sure. That's my girl. I was married before though, but when she came back, I got a divorce right away.	27:36
Kate Ellis	Oh, you mean when your second wife?	27:44
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	27:48
Kate Ellis	When she came back from the show, you divorced your first wife.	27:49
Harold Dejan	Fast.	27:53
Kate Ellis	Fast? Why? What was wrong with the first wife?	27:54
Harold Dejan	She was all right. She was all right, but nobody couldn't take Rose's place.	27:57
Kate Ellis	Really?	28:03
Harold Dejan	That's right. She died right in this room, where I sleep at. She was walking out the kitchen to the room, and she got an attack and she fell. So I called him right away, Dr. Miniar.	28:04
Kate Ellis	The guy in that picture with you?	28:27
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah.	28:28
Kate Ellis	Dr. Miniar?	28:28
Harold Dejan	Yeah. I called him and he said, "She got a heart attack." She died just that fast.	28:33
Kate Ellis	That was it. She basically just dropped out, huh?	28:41
Harold Dejan	That's it.	28:41
Kate Ellis	That was about six years ago?	28:42
Harold Dejan	Yeah, about.	28:43
Kate Ellis	That must have been rough.	28:44
Harold Dejan	Yeah, it was rough because that was my right hand.	28:47
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	28:54
Harold Dejan	I mean, I did anything I wanted to do, she never fussed with me. I bought her anything she wanted. She had that television as soon as it come out, I bought her one.	28:54
Kate Ellis	You bought that one.	29:12
Harold Dejan	I know four other people that had one.	29:12
Kate Ellis	So you had a— That's a big old television.	29:17
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah.	29:20
Kate Ellis	You bought that for her?	29:21
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	29:22
Kate Ellis	And she let you do what you wanted as far as—	29:23
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Well, I played music and if I had to make a little creep, I'd take my saxophone.	29:27
Kate Ellis	Say it again? If you— ?	29:33
Harold Dejan	Don't put that.	29:33
Kate Ellis	What?	29:33
Harold Dejan	I don't want to say that.	29:35
Kate Ellis	Oh.	29:40
Harold Dejan	Well, since we were going to school, I'd steal a kiss from her, and even, when we'd go home. I couldn't go around the house, her big ugly father would come to the door. He looks a little mean. He'd come to door.	29:41
Kate Ellis	Oh, when you couldn't go to her house. She had a brother?	30:00
Harold Dejan	No, her daddy.	30:02
Kate Ellis	Oh, her dad?	30:04
Harold Dejan	I wasn't worried about her brother.	30:05
Kate Ellis	Huh. So you couldn't take her home.	30:07
Harold Dejan	No. But I would say that I loved her. Yeah, she was all right.	30:10
Kate Ellis	Wow.	30:17
Harold Dejan	When I bought this house, I didn't have no money. We came to look at the house, I was figuring on buying one one day, get a few dollars. She saw the man and she said, "How much do you take if we put a down on this house?" He said, "How much you got?" She said, "FIve dollars." So I put five dollars down on this house, but I finished paying for it about a year, ahead.	30:21
Kate Ellis	Oh, a year later you finished paying?	30:58
Harold Dejan	No, I finished paying for it a year sooner than I was supposed to.	31:01
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. I see.	31:05
Harold Dejan	I didn't have no money in my pocket then.	31:10
Kate Ellis	Right. When did you buy this? When was that? Around what year?	31:12
Harold Dejan	Thirty-seven years ago.	31:17
Kate Ellis	Thirty-seven years ago.	31:17
Harold Dejan	That's right.	31:18
Kate Ellis	Wow, huh.	31:19
Harold Dejan	I bought a house on St. Anthony's Street before this.	31:28
Kate Ellis	St. Anthony?	31:32
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	31:33
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	31:33
Harold Dejan	Then when I came out here, I'll never forget that, she told the man, "I got $5 in my pocket," and he said, "Give me that." He took it, yeah.	31:33
Kate Ellis	The money, and that was it.	31:49
Harold Dejan	We put a deposit on the house.	31:49
Kate Ellis	Wow.	31:49
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	31:49
Kate Ellis	That's great. You can't do that these days.	31:57
Harold Dejan	No.	31:59
Kate Ellis	Yeah, wow.	32:07
Harold Dejan	He was an agent, him. He was selling houses and everything, and he knew the score.	32:08
Kate Ellis	He knew the score?	32:13
Harold Dejan	Yeah, he knew what to do. He went for the ones that he bought himself, because I told him I'd bring the money to him the next day. I brought it to him.	32:14
Kate Ellis	Did he know who you were?	32:27
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah.	32:28
Kate Ellis	He knew your reputation?	32:29
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah.	32:30
Kate Ellis	So he might not have done that with a stranger.	32:32
Harold Dejan	No. You see that television right there?	32:35
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	32:36
Harold Dejan	One day that television went bad, and my wife said, "Oh jeez, I got to see my shows." She called Culture, and told him, "Bring me a television right away." He said, "Well, wait, wait, wait. You're talking about right away, Miss. Why do you want to tell me right away?" I guess she gave him the name and address and said, "As soon as my husband comes home, he'll come pay for it." When I come home, she had her television and I went by Culture and made arrangements to pay for it. They gave it to her too.	32:38
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh, because they knew who you were?	33:18
Harold Dejan	Yeah, I guess so.	33:20
Kate Ellis	Yeah, huh. Wow.	33:25
Harold Dejan	I told them, I said, "You did something I've never seen people do."	33:25
Kate Ellis	Huh. So tell me, when did you go into the Air Force?	33:28
Harold Dejan	Huh?	33:35
Kate Ellis	When did you go— Didn't you say you were in the Air Force?	33:35
Harold Dejan	In the Navy.	33:37
Kate Ellis	I mean, in the Navy, that's right.	33:37
Harold Dejan	1942.	33:37
Kate Ellis	Were you drafted?	33:37
Harold Dejan	I was going to be drafted, because my brother went in the Navy, see?	33:45
Kate Ellis	Your brother did?	33:50
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	33:50
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	33:50
Harold Dejan	He went with the band on the Lakefront, and they was making another band to go Algiers.	33:54
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry, say that again?	34:01
Harold Dejan	My brother was in a band at the Lakefront.	34:06
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	34:09
Harold Dejan	But they was making another band to go to Algiers.	34:09
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	34:12
Harold Dejan	So I said, "You know what," I told my wife, I said, "It's time. There ain't nothing wrong with me." I said, "Before the Army drafts me, I'm going to get in the Navy." So I went and got in the Navy. I stayed in the training station 16 weeks.	34:15
Kate Ellis	Training station, 16 weeks.	34:34
Harold Dejan	Yeah, every time we're supposed to come to Algiers, they tell us, the Chief, he had to recruit another band, so we just had to stay there all that while.	34:38
Kate Ellis	You mean, Algiers, right across the river?	34:57
Harold Dejan	Yeah, that's where they sent us after we left the Great Lakes. He was in the Great Lakes before.	35:01
Kate Ellis	That's where you were before?	35:11
Harold Dejan	Yeah, the Great Lakes, they sent us to the Great Lakes before.	35:13
Kate Ellis	For the training?	35:15
Harold Dejan	The training, yeah.	35:16
Kate Ellis	But then to Algiers.	35:16
Harold Dejan	I've been to Algiers for the whole duration.	35:19
Kate Ellis	For the two years?	35:24
Harold Dejan	Yeah, for 1946.	35:25
Kate Ellis	For four years then?	35:29
Harold Dejan	Yeah, then '42, '43, '44, '45. It was '46, I got out. Yeah.	35:30
Kate Ellis	And you're playing in the band the whole time that you were stationed there?	35:39
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah.	35:40
Kate Ellis	I mean, I don't understand, what did you do during that four years you were stationed in Algiers?	35:43
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	35:48
Kate Ellis	Never sent overseas. I mean, you just—	35:48
Harold Dejan	Yeah. I was stationed in Algiers.	35:52
Kate Ellis	And you played in the band?	35:52
Harold Dejan	Yeah, we played music, played concerts for the Admiral every day that people come to the Admiral's house. Truthfully, the Admiral's house was way about the next corner.	35:52
Kate Ellis	So the Admiral's house was nearby?	36:13
Harold Dejan	Nearby the end of the park back there, you could barely could see his house, but he wanted that band to play while his guests come to his house. I guess, somebody probably heard the music. I thought was funny to me.	36:15
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	36:33
Harold Dejan	But then we played an hour for an Admiral, while the guests was coming to his house.	36:34
Kate Ellis	And that's what you did for four years was play.	36:42
Harold Dejan	I didn't do all of that. We commissioned every ship coming in.	36:46
Kate Ellis	You'd commission?	36:51
Harold Dejan	Well, I mean, we played for the christening of a ship.	36:52
Kate Ellis	Oh.	36:56
Harold Dejan	They christened it. See, we was right down on the river.	36:57
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	37:08
Harold Dejan	We could christen every ship that they brought in there. One day, one of the Chiefs heard a little tapping. So right before we had to go commission a ship, we caught three German prisoners setting dynamite. We brought them, put handcuffs on them and brought them to trial. We tried to get them something to eat and everything. We couldn't say that until we come out of the service.	37:08
Kate Ellis	You couldn't tell anybody.	37:59
Harold Dejan	No, no. They asked us, no. We were playing maybe the National Anthem, (singing).	37:59
Kate Ellis	You mean, that's would have happened?	38:06
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	38:06
Kate Ellis	Was that a running joke with you all?	38:10
Harold Dejan	No. That was no joke, shucks. Because we did that to go to the waters, we could have gotten killed right here.	38:12
Kate Ellis	By these three Germans.	38:22
Harold Dejan	Sure, sure.	38:23
Kate Ellis	Wow, huh.	38:24
Harold Dejan	I never told nobody that story.	38:24
Kate Ellis	Wow. You were the band that would play for folks coming for the Navy people.	38:28
Harold Dejan	Yeah, and then we played parades.	38:35
Kate Ellis	Oh, the Navy parades.	38:42
Harold Dejan	Every day, not every day, but once a month or something like that, they have a celebration for the Navy, parade on Canal Street, something like that.	38:43
Kate Ellis	Was this a segregated band?	38:53
Harold Dejan	Sure, it was a mixed band.	38:55
Kate Ellis	It was a mixed band?	38:58
Harold Dejan	Well, of course.	39:00
Kate Ellis	Well, but you know that in the Army, some of the soldiers were segregated.	39:00
Harold Dejan	The bugler, right now, of the band, his name is Andy Mill, I got a call on my table that he sent me and asked me how I'm doing, tell me what he's doing.	39:05
Kate Ellis	And he was the bugler in the band?	39:21
Harold Dejan	He's a White boy, yeah.	39:22
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. But I only ask because the soldiers were segregated.	39:25
Harold Dejan	Oh, we were segregated in a way, but there was that White bugler. We had a White Chief. Listen to this; when President Roosevelt was coming over there, I told my boss, I said, "Sit anywhere you want to sit in the show." They never told the band nothing. I told them cooks in the kitchen, all them boys, I said, "Sit anywhere you want to sit in the show." I said, "The President's coming here today," but I said, "There'll be no segregation today." Man, I seen them get the signs off, just, "For Colored Only, Colored Only."	39:30
Kate Ellis	They took all the signs down?	40:24
Harold Dejan	Sure.	40:24
Kate Ellis	Because Roosevelt didn't want you to be segregated?	40:26
Harold Dejan	That's right. From then on, they sat anywhere they want to sit.	40:29
Kate Ellis	Ever since, after that?	40:34
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	40:35
Kate Ellis	That's so funny. So this was the Chief. Who was the Chief? This was a Chief who said this to you?	40:35
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Chief Fulks.	40:45
Kate Ellis	Chief—	40:47
Harold Dejan	No wait. No, no, Chief Cooper.	40:48
Kate Ellis	Chief Cooper, who obviously was White.	40:50
Harold Dejan	Yeah, born in Vancouver.	40:56
Kate Ellis	He said, "Roosevelt's coming."	40:56
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	40:56
Kate Ellis	So when he said, "Sit anywhere you want," for the cooks and stuff—	40:56
Harold Dejan	The cooks, they had a little sign about four seats in the back of the show.	40:59
Kate Ellis	Where cooks could sit?	41:04
Harold Dejan	Not cooks, just Colored Only.	41:04
Kate Ellis	Okay, I see. They took that out.	41:04
Harold Dejan	Yeah, it went for me too if I sat there, but I went and sat in the front row all the time.	41:10
Kate Ellis	You always sat— You ignored those signs.	41:17
Harold Dejan	They never told us nothing.	41:18
Kate Ellis	You mean, those people in the band?	41:19
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	41:19
Kate Ellis	The band always got to sit where they wanted.	41:21
Harold Dejan	Yeah, they never told us nothing.	41:23
Kate Ellis	But as far as the Navy personnel were concerned, the Blacks sat in the back, had to sit in the back when there was any kind of entertainment?	41:24
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	41:34
Kate Ellis	And the cooks and everything. I mean, the cooks were Black. That's so—	41:35
Harold Dejan	Well, they had White cooks too, but I said the cooks, but that was mostly the ones that would come to the show.	41:40
Kate Ellis	The Black cooks would?	41:51
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah.	41:52
Kate Ellis	Oh, huh. That must have been a sight to see, them taking the signs down for Roosevelt.	41:57
Harold Dejan	I laughed at them.	42:03
Kate Ellis	You laughed at them.	42:05
Harold Dejan	I mean, because I never go to sit back there.	42:08
Kate Ellis	Right.	42:09
Harold Dejan	In other words, that's where we stayed all day. We rehearsed on the stage there, and the dressing room, we stayed there. I never did go out of my barracks, I mean, when I was in the Navy, because I stayed at my house.	42:13
Kate Ellis	Oh, on St. Anne?	42:29
Harold Dejan	The band was with my brother at the Lakefront, my brother was in charge of the band, but he wasn't the Chief. He was an assistant to the Chief. Well, they was getting ninety dollars a month more than we was getting.	42:31
Kate Ellis	To play for the—	42:47
Harold Dejan	No, because they didn't have no place for them to stay at the Lakefront.	42:48
Kate Ellis	So they got ninety dollars extra because they needed a place to stay.	42:56
Harold Dejan	Yeah, they went home every night. I went home every night too. I never slept in the Navy barracks one time.	42:58
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. I was going to ask you about that, if you had to stay at the barracks or if you could go home every night.	43:08
Harold Dejan	Yeah, I went home every night.	43:13
Kate Ellis	So this was just kind of a permanent job that you had for three or four years—	43:16
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah.	43:22
Kate Ellis	— while you were enlisted.	43:22
Harold Dejan	That's right.	43:27
Kate Ellis	It could have been worse, that's not so— Huh. Wow.	43:27
Harold Dejan	Yeah, but it was all right. It was all right. I never did keep my pass. I know some fellas got their pass to go to the Navy base and buy shoes and clothes.	43:31
Kate Ellis	You never bothered with that?	43:50
Harold Dejan	I was glad to get out.	43:52
Kate Ellis	You were what? Glad to— ?	43:53
Harold Dejan	Yeah, I was got to get out.	43:53
Kate Ellis	Yeah. So that was— Uh-huh.	43:55
Harold Dejan	They asked me to stay. The Chief said, "Why don't you stay and distribute the instruments whenever they come here. You know where the instruments, and everything." "I'm going, Chief."	43:57
Kate Ellis	You were like, your time was up?	44:23
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	44:23
Kate Ellis	Huh, wow.	44:23
Harold Dejan	They were trying to transfer us somewhere in Angola somewhere.	44:23
Kate Ellis	So you thought you better get out while the getting was good.	44:34
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah. Then I come out, I got the treat to the Army Band in the Army, so I just got out there before the music playing.	44:34
Kate Ellis	Wow.	44:43
Harold Dejan	We used to play parades and everything.	44:48
Kate Ellis	Wow.	44:54
Harold Dejan	Anything else you want to ask me?	44:54
Kate Ellis	Let me ask you a couple more questions from these forms and then we can wrap it up, unless there are other things that you want to tell me that I haven't asked you about?	44:57
Harold Dejan	Yeah, well, you ask me and anything you ask me, I'm going to say it, I'm going to tell you.	45:13
Kate Ellis	Okay. Well, let me just ask you some basic stuff here. I'll turn the tape off for part of this. Your brothers and sisters are named Lopez?	45:14
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	45:22
Kate Ellis	L-O-P-E-Z?	45:23
Harold Dejan	L-L-O-P-I-S.	45:24
Kate Ellis	L-L-O-P-I-S?	45:26
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	45:28
Kate Ellis	Let's see, your father, your mother was married—?	45:31
Harold Dejan	A second time.	45:34
Kate Ellis	Oh, I see. Okay. So of all of these 10 brothers and sisters, what number are you? If your brother is the oldest one?	45:40
Harold Dejan	Well, I'm mid, I come after, me, Leo, and then Aurora.	45:51
Kate Ellis	Okay. So you're the third.	46:07
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	46:07
Kate Ellis	You're number three, okay. And everybody was born in New Orleans?	46:08
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	46:09
Kate Ellis	All right.	46:10
Harold Dejan	I'm the third Dejan.	46:12
Kate Ellis	Okay.	46:13
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	46:13
Kate Ellis	Okay.	46:13
Harold Dejan	It's them two.	46:20
Kate Ellis	You've had two—	46:21

Kate Ellis	Okay. They're both born in New Orleans. Do you remember when they were born?	0:01
Harold Dejan	No.	0:06
Kate Ellis	Loretta and Lavetta.	0:13
Harold Dejan	I can find out.	0:14
Kate Ellis	Oh.	0:14
Harold Dejan	Loretta!	0:14
Kate Ellis	How many grandchildren do you have?	0:16
Harold Dejan	Oh, Jesus Christ, a gang of them.	0:18
Kate Ellis	A bunch?	0:21
Harold Dejan	How old Loretta is, your sister?	0:24
Loretta	My sister, she'll be sixty-six.	0:29
Harold Dejan	What? And how old you is?	0:29
Loretta	I'll be sixty-five.	0:31
Harold Dejan	Oh Lord.	0:36
Kate Ellis	When were you born, in '29?	0:38
Loretta	No, she'll be sixty-five. I mean, she's sixty-six. She'll be sixty-six, and I'll be sixty-five.	0:42
Kate Ellis	So you were born—	0:46
Loretta	In '30.	0:48
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay.	0:48
Loretta	And she was born in '29. She was born March the twenty-fourth, 1929.	0:49
Kate Ellis	Is she still living?	0:56
Loretta	No, she's dead.	0:57
Kate Ellis	When did she die?	0:58
Loretta	Oh, God.	1:12
Harold Dejan	About six or seven years ago.	1:12
Loretta	She died about twelve years ago.	1:13
Harold Dejan	That long?	1:17
Loretta	Uh-huh.	1:17
Harold Dejan	What?	1:17
Loretta	She was about fifty-five when she died, something like that.	1:17
Kate Ellis	Wow, that's [indistinct 00:01:20]. How many grandchildren does he have? Do you think?	1:18
Harold Dejan	She got them all.	1:23
Loretta	He's got four grandchildren. Eight great-grandchildren.	1:23
Harold Dejan	Oh, all right.	1:26
Loretta	And eighteen great-great-grandchildren.	1:32
Kate Ellis	You have eighteen great-great grandchildren.	1:35
Harold Dejan	Whatever she said.	1:38
Loretta	I have four children, eight grandchildren, and eighteen great-grandchildren.	1:42
Kate Ellis	Wow. That's amazing. That's a big family. Now, you lived in New Orleans all your life, even though you've traveled—	1:46
Harold Dejan	All my life, yeah, all my life.	2:09
Kate Ellis	And then you told me this a minute ago. As far as your school, you first went to St. Mary's Academy.	2:15
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	2:24
Kate Ellis	St. Mary's Academy. And then you went to Joseph A. Craig, which was the Bayou School.	2:24
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	2:33
Kate Ellis	And then finally to the Bienville school?	2:46
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	2:48
Kate Ellis	Until tenth grade. And then as far as your work history, you've been a musician all your life?	2:54
Harold Dejan	Yeah. And I went to Louisiana State College of Mortuary Science.	3:04
Kate Ellis	Of what?	3:09
Harold Dejan	Louisiana State College of Mortuary Science, studying embalming.	3:12
Kate Ellis	Oh, you studied embalming?	3:19
Harold Dejan	Sure.	3:21
Kate Ellis	Louisiana College.	3:23
Harold Dejan	I think I got that. They flew them up there somewhere.	3:25
Kate Ellis	Why did you study embalming?	3:29
Harold Dejan	Well, because I like to do it.	3:31
Kate Ellis	You like embalming bodies, so you've done that?	3:34
Harold Dejan	Sure.	3:37
Kate Ellis	Dead bodies?	3:37
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	3:37
Kate Ellis	What made you interested in that?	3:37
Harold Dejan	Well, some of my family have been doing it for many years. So I'd be around them, so I just wanted do it. That's all.	3:45
Kate Ellis	I see. So some of your families were morticians?	4:01
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	4:04
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. Did you ever work as a mortician?	4:06
Harold Dejan	No.	4:09
Kate Ellis	But it was just something that you learned how to do?	4:09
Harold Dejan	Yeah, I learned how to do it. I did it, but I never worked at it.	4:11
Kate Ellis	I see. When was this?	4:14
Harold Dejan	Oh, in the '50s somewhere there. Sometimes was [indistinct 00:04:32].	4:27
Kate Ellis	So you went to the Louisiana College of Mortuary Science in the '50s?	4:31
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	4:35
Kate Ellis	And you got a diploma?	4:37
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	4:40
Kate Ellis	As a mortician?	4:40
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	4:41
Kate Ellis	But let me just get something straight. You didn't need to have a high school diploma to get your morticians training?	4:42
Harold Dejan	No, no, no. I got it from being in the Navy. I got it because I was in the Navy, I guess.	4:51
Kate Ellis	Oh, you got like a high school diploma from the Navy?	5:07
Harold Dejan	Yeah. No, I got that mortician degree because I was in the Navy.	5:12
Kate Ellis	Oh. Did you go to the College of Mortuary Science in the '40s or in the '50s?	5:26
Harold Dejan	'50s.	5:29
Kate Ellis	Okay.	5:29
Harold Dejan	Nine months, I think.	5:35
Kate Ellis	Nine months of training? Wow.	5:37
Harold Dejan	We used to go to Tulane University and get one on the floor, kick him out the way, give them another one.	5:40
Kate Ellis	Kick the body out the way?	5:48
Harold Dejan	Sure. Side them out the way. Get another one.	5:51
Kate Ellis	And embalm that body. Where'd you get the bodies from?	5:53
Harold Dejan	At the vault. Take them out the vault and high them up and put them on the floor. Whether it was a woman or man and whoever it might be. And then we used to go to the man that had the college. He had a place. And we used to go by his place and do the embalming sometime.	5:57
Kate Ellis	You'd go by— Wait, the man who had the mortuary college, you'd go to his house?	6:31
Harold Dejan	No, his place of business.	6:34
Kate Ellis	His place of business. And you would do embalming at his business. Who was the guy? Who was that?	6:36
Harold Dejan	Willie.	6:43
Kate Ellis	Willie.	6:43
Harold Dejan	Yeah. He got an undertaker parlor on Jackson Avenue. I think he is dead now.	6:43
Kate Ellis	What was Willie's last name?	6:55
Harold Dejan	I don't know. All I see down the sign Willie's Mortuary.	6:57
Kate Ellis	It was Willie's mortuary. Black or White?	7:04
Harold Dejan	Black.	7:09
Kate Ellis	Oh, interesting. So that was kind of a side interest that you had.	7:14
Harold Dejan	What?	7:24
Kate Ellis	It was sort of an interest in addition to [indistinct 00:07:29].	7:24
Harold Dejan	Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I want to take it up because I said someday I might open me a place.	7:28
Kate Ellis	You might what?	7:35
Harold Dejan	Someday I might open me a please.	7:36
Kate Ellis	Oh, I see.	7:36
Harold Dejan	But it's too late now, but I had that in my mind.	7:36
Kate Ellis	Wow. So it was called Willie's Mortuary.	7:49
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	7:51
Kate Ellis	On Jackson.	7:52
Harold Dejan	You see my cousins and my step uncles and all that had an undertaker parlor.	7:54
Kate Ellis	I see. Where were their undertaker parlor?	8:03
Harold Dejan	Cardinal Peace was on St. Phillip and Liberty. And then they opened a big place on Du Main and Claiborne.	8:11
Kate Ellis	Du Main and Claiborne?	8:22
Harold Dejan	Yeah. But—	8:36
Kate Ellis	What was the name of the place they opened on Du Main and Claiborne?	8:37
Harold Dejan	Carl and Llopis.	8:39
Kate Ellis	Cool.	8:39
Harold Dejan	C-A-L-R. There's two of them that owned the place.	8:39
Kate Ellis	Oh, and that L-L-O-P-I-S.	8:40
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	8:42
Kate Ellis	I see. Wow. Huh. When I write here that you are a musician, I'll say self-employed. Should I write that?	8:44
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	8:53
Kate Ellis	Okay. From about 1920 until now.	8:54
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	9:04
Kate Ellis	Because that's right around the time that you started.	9:05
Harold Dejan	Yeah, that's right.	9:06
Kate Ellis	So now, you told me this earlier that you're singing on Sunday nights at Preservation Hall because you can't play saxophone right now.	9:13
Harold Dejan	That's right. Not until I get better.	9:25
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Now, this next question is going to be the most difficult to answer in a way. The question is, have you ever received any awards or honors? And this whole house is full of awards and honors.	9:26
Harold Dejan	That's right.	9:45
Kate Ellis	So I'm not sure which ones I should write down.	9:45
Harold Dejan	You see that big trophy?	9:50
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	9:53
Harold Dejan	I got that from the Budweiser people.	9:53
Kate Ellis	It was a trophy from Budweiser.	9:57
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	9:59
Kate Ellis	For—	10:00
Harold Dejan	And the Tambourine and Fan Club.	10:04
Kate Ellis	Okay.	10:09
Harold Dejan	You can put that down.	10:09
Kate Ellis	Budweiser.	10:10
Harold Dejan	And the city gave me an award of that.	10:10
Kate Ellis	It was a City of New Orleans—	10:17
Harold Dejan	That's right.	10:18
Kate Ellis	Hey, while I'm thinking about it, well, actually, I'll ask it in a second. City of the Orleans Award. Let me see what this is. Well, it's a beautiful award. It's huge. Huh?	10:23
Harold Dejan	You very seldom see anybody else with an award like that.	10:43
Kate Ellis	Yeah. It's incredible. And it was given to you in 1988?	10:46
Harold Dejan	That's right.	10:48
Kate Ellis	So the trophy from Budweiser, tell me the the Tambourine and what?	10:53
Harold Dejan	Tambourine and Fan gave me one of them trophies. And then, what's the name of? Whatever, when I was king.	10:57
Kate Ellis	When you were king.	11:13
Harold Dejan	King for the— What's the name of that?	11:21
Kate Ellis	Oh. The—	11:21
Harold Dejan	Money Wasters.	11:21
Kate Ellis	Oh, king of the Money Wasters.	11:21
Harold Dejan	Yes. They gave me one. He gave me a award too, the Money Wasters.	11:22
Kate Ellis	Tell me about the Money Wasters Award again.	11:30
Harold Dejan	They gave me one, and the Calendar Girls gave me a award.	11:31
Kate Ellis	Who?	11:34
Harold Dejan	Calendar Girls.	11:35
Kate Ellis	Calendar Girls.	11:39
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	11:46
Kate Ellis	Who are the Calendar Girls?	11:46
Harold Dejan	Well, they got one of them trophies up there from them. The girls had got a club, and then they have a parade and things. It's like the money Wasters.	11:47
Kate Ellis	Tell me what the Money Wasters Club was.	11:57
Harold Dejan	Well, they just call themself the Money Wasters because— I don't know. I really don't know what reason.	12:00
Kate Ellis	But it was a social club?	12:13
Harold Dejan	A social place.	12:14
Kate Ellis	So you'd get together and you'd have a parade?	12:15
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Every year they'd have the annual parade. So I was king twice. See my— How they call them in there?	12:18
Kate Ellis	Your what? Want me to unhook you?	12:26
Harold Dejan	Yeah. What do they call that, where the king have the wand?	12:32
Kate Ellis	Oh, I'm much sure.	12:33
Harold Dejan	You see sticking between them trophies up there.	12:36
Kate Ellis	Oh, I see that. That baton?	12:40
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	12:41
Kate Ellis	That's what that was?	12:42
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	12:49
Kate Ellis	Okay. Oh, so there just—	12:49
Harold Dejan	And several schools gave me awards too.	12:51
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	13:04
Harold Dejan	And I got that big mug from Berlin, Germany. And I got that medal that you see, that's from Africa.	13:05
Kate Ellis	So a medal from Africa.	13:18
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	13:19
Kate Ellis	Can you tell me any organizations that you belong to? Organizations or social clubs that you've belonged to?	13:34
Harold Dejan	Well, I was at the Young Man Olympia, but I'm not in it now.	13:40
Kate Ellis	What was it?	13:45
Harold Dejan	Young Man Olympia.	13:46
Kate Ellis	What's that?	13:47
Harold Dejan	That's an organization that parades every year, and yeah.	13:48
Kate Ellis	So parades every year.	13:49
Harold Dejan	Yeah. And the Money Wasters.	13:55
Kate Ellis	Which was another kind of similar organization?	14:01
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	14:03
Kate Ellis	Were these all Black organization? Were these Black clubs?	14:06
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Well, you don't want know the Masonic Lodge I belonged to, do you?	14:09
Kate Ellis	Yeah, sure.	14:22
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Prince Hall.	14:25
Kate Ellis	What?	14:26
Harold Dejan	Prince Hall Masonic Lodge. That's it.	14:26
Kate Ellis	Okay. Young Man Olympia, the Money Wasters, Prince Hall Masonic Lodge. Oh, and then you belong to the Musicians Union?	14:38
Harold Dejan	Oh, yeah, yeah.	14:49
Kate Ellis	Which is—	14:49
Harold Dejan	496 and 174.	14:52
Kate Ellis	496.	14:53
Harold Dejan	And 174. I think it's 174. That's the White part.	15:01
Kate Ellis	The 174 was the White part?	15:09
Harold Dejan	I think so.	15:10
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Any other? Let's see, you were in the US Navy. I got to write that in here.	15:12
Harold Dejan	Yeah.	15:19
Kate Ellis	1942 to '46. Any other hobbies?	15:24
Harold Dejan	And in the Three 33rd Army Band.	15:25
Kate Ellis	It was called Three 33rd?	15:30
Harold Dejan	Army Band.	15:32
Kate Ellis	Three—	15:32
Harold Dejan	That's after I come out the Navy.	15:34
Kate Ellis	Three 33rd Army Band. Uh-huh. Let's see. Any other hobbies or interests or anything like that?	15:40
Harold Dejan	I better not say it.	15:55
Kate Ellis	Better not say it. Go on, say it.	15:59
Harold Dejan	No, I'm joking.	16:02
Kate Ellis	Oh. All right. Let me ask you— Were you going to say something?	16:03
Harold Dejan	No.	16:08
Kate Ellis	But you were thinking it. Uh-huh.	16:08
Harold Dejan	Yeah, I was thinking something.	16:08
Kate Ellis	What were you thinking?	16:09
Harold Dejan	Nothing worthwhile.	16:14
Kate Ellis	Nothing worthwhile. All right. Let me get one more thing from you. It sounds like you've really enjoyed your life. Tell me what you've enjoyed about performing.	16:23
Harold Dejan	I enjoyed the people. Everywhere I played that the peoples enjoyed it so much. In other words, everywhere I went, I could go back. There'd been a whole lot.	16:37
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	16:56
Harold Dejan	Because some people play some places, and they swear that they didn't want to see him no more. Yeah.	16:57
Kate Ellis	But they always wanted you to come back?	17:07
Harold Dejan	All over. See, Europe, Italy, everything, everywhere. We played in Italy and the Pope cup out his wind and clap his hand.	17:11
Kate Ellis	Really?	17:21
Harold Dejan	Yeah. Him now, I got his picture. And when he came here, we played for him where he was at. They got his thing up there. Right [indistinct 00:17:40]. They took it all down at the lake. Well, when he got ready to leave, he made the security guard get out of the way so he could shake my hand.	17:22
Kate Ellis	The Pope did.	17:51
Harold Dejan	That's right.	17:51
Kate Ellis	You're kidding.	17:51
Harold Dejan	That's right.	17:51
Kate Ellis	That must have been quite a moment for you.	17:51
Harold Dejan	That's right.	17:51
Kate Ellis	Considering you're a Catholic.	17:51
Harold Dejan	That's right. Yeah. He get out of the way and they shake my hand and a couple of other boys in the band.	17:51
Kate Ellis	Wow. Huh. That's amazing, Huh. Well—	18:28
Harold Dejan	Well, I can't say [indistinct 00:18:30], all I can say is I played for Kings and Queens. And you mentioned it I played for—	18:30
Kate Ellis	You played in the White House.	18:40
Harold Dejan	Yeah, I played for White House Correspondent dinner, but they have it at a hotel. I never played at the White House. I had a chance to, but I didn't do it.	18:41
Kate Ellis	Well, that's all the questions I have. Again, unless there's something I haven't asked you about that you think is important that I haven't—	19:00
Harold Dejan	No, no. I think it was about to cover everything probably. I played, I took lesson [indistinct 00:19:26] like that. And God knows I had a good time everywhere I went.	19:14
Kate Ellis	Really?	19:35
Harold Dejan	When the people is happy, you happy.	19:39
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	19:42
Harold Dejan	It's like that lady called the other day. She heard the band at the presentation hall, wanted me to play for her Daughter's wedding and all that, things like that. That was nice.	19:44
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	19:58
Harold Dejan	Because the only one she had [indistinct 00:20:04]. Only time she catch my band is on Sunday nights. And when my band is out of town, I'd be there with another band. I make sure they'd be a good band.	20:02
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Right.	20:18
Harold Dejan	I used to sing pretty good years ago, but I lost my voice. But I'm hollering. I'm making the money.	20:21
Kate Ellis	You're saying you're what?	20:31
Harold Dejan	I said I used to sing pretty good one time. I can't say I sing pretty good now, I'd be lying.	20:34
Kate Ellis	Oh, but you're still singing.	20:42
Harold Dejan	But then they enjoy it. It's hard.	20:43
Kate Ellis	They still want you there.	20:47
Harold Dejan	Yeah. That's right.	20:48
Kate Ellis	Yeah. Well, all right. On that note, we can finish this.	20:49
Harold Dejan	If you think anything else, just let know.	20:49
Kate Ellis	Okay. I will.	20:49
Harold Dejan	Call up.	20:49
Kate Ellis	Okay. Thank you.	20:49
Harold Dejan	Say "Oh, I forgot, sir."	20:49
Kate Ellis	I probably will.	20:49
Harold Dejan	Yeah, I'll said, "All right. What is it?"	21:07

Item Info

Title:

Harold Dejan interview recording, 1994 August 06

Date:

August 6, 1994

Creator:

Dejan, Harold Andrew

Contributor:

Ellis, Kate

Description:

Name: Harold Andrew Dejan; Date of birth: 1909-02-04; Place of birth: New Orleans, LA; Occupation(s): musician; Residence: New Orleans, LA
Informant ID: 531; Interviewed by: Kate Ellis.

Occupation:

Musician

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-2004

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-1203
RL00170-CS-1204
9b907e7b-f35a-47d5-9037-45a09e8d000b
behindtheveil
a0e506f3-3de7-4207-af8a-247d38e52ef7
ark:/87924/r4mp56x20
a0e506f3-3de7-4207-af8a-247d38e52ef7

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4mp56x20

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Harold Dejan interview recording, 1994 August 06

Transcript

Item Info

1. Harold Dejan administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Harold Dejan interview recording, 1994 August 06

Transcript

Item Info

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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