Ice Cream-Louis Nelson

Ice Cream Silver Leaf Jazz Band 1978

Each year during the Jazz and Heritage Festival the Silverleaf Jazz Band would visit and play in New Orleans and consequently met many of the local veteran New Orleans players, like Jim Robinson or Louis Nelson. The producers of the Peter Appleyard shows were always looking for featured guests so Louis Nelson was an obvious choice to be featured with the Silverleaf band.

Louis Nelson
Although a hero to many followers of the New Orleans revival movement, Louis Nelson was an erratic trombonist, capable of playing with great warmth and then slipping way out of tune during his next chorus! To his fans he could do no wrong while detractors saw little value in his playing. The truth naturally lies somewhere in between. Nelson started playing music on the alto horn before permanently switching to trombone. He was active in the New Orleans jazz scene of the 1920's, working with Kid Rena, the Original Tuxedo Orchestra and for 15 years with Sidney Desvigne's big band. He was closely associated with Kid Thomas Valentine (starting in 1944), George Lewis and the many musicians in the 1960's who played at Preservation Hall. Louis Nelson toured and recorded with the Legends of Jazz

Silverleaf Jazz Band was one of the best New Orleans styled jazz bands in town, if not in Canada. These guys understood the spirit of New Orleans. Leader Dennis Elder on drums was a top notch New Orleans drummer. Big bass drum, one tom, one snare and one riding cymbal, that was all he needed. Brian Williams on clarinet and alto loved both George Lewis and John Handy. Don Chapman, Manfred Koch on trumpet and trombone completed the frontline, where John Matheson piano, Bobby (B.B.) Boyle banjo and Dave "Pops" Maynard bass kept that rhytm group swinging.