Hopping at the Roosevelt Hotel

Bunk Johnson, 1939

The Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans was certainly hopping during the war. Seventy years ago today on 2 October 1942, New Orleans jazz legends trumpeter Bunk Johnson and clarinetist George Lewis recorded Big Chief Battle Axe for WSMB broadcasting station (New Orleans’ first professional radio station founded in 1925).

Listen to the recording here.

For more on the Roosevelt, see what was happening there  a week prior to this recording.