AN AMERICAN MUSICIAN
New Orleans' "Storyville" district was legislated into being in 1897, just as ragtime music was sweeping the US. The young black musicians who found tenuous employment in the bordellos there were typically looking for extra money to supplement poorly-paid day work. Many would also work playing music at the plantations on paydays, travelling by train with companies that put on evening picnics and dances. Buddy Bolden regularly worked Yazoo & Mississippi Valley trains between New Orleans and Baton Rouge
The Acme Packet river-boats started transporting freight and passengers out of Rock Island IL in the early 1880s, and soon could be seen along the Mississippi from St. Paul to New Orleans. By 1900, though, they couldn't compete with the speedier railroads, so owner John Strekfus began transitioning his business to passenger "excursions".   His riverboat JS (launched in 1901) was the first Mississippi riverboat outfitted to provide day-trips to customers who wanted scenery, dancing, and dining; there were no staterooms, while a large dance salon occupied the main cabin.
Danny Barker claimed musical entertainment on riverboats began with passengers gathering to hear songs of the roustabouts. Strekfus began modestly on the JS with a piano while he played violin himself; the boat was also equipped with a steam-calliope operated from the main boiler which could be heard for miles, advertising the arrival of the steamer.   Strekfus hired black pianist Charlie Mills in 1903 to lead a four-piece band. Mills took a job in New York in 1907 and was replaced by the calliope player, Fate Marable.
Marable (1890-1947) was born in Paducah KY to formerly-enslaved parents; he learned to play piano and to read music from his mother. When he was hired to lead the dance-band by Strekfus, he was given the responsibility of hiring band members. Over the years Fate scouted talent at the Storyville clubs, hiring clarinetist Johnny Dodds and his brother, Warren "Baby" Dodds, Johnny St. Cyr, "Pops" Foster, and young Louis Armstrong.
Marable was known as a demanding taskmaster, musicians (many of them joined his band with no ability to read music) used to jokingly refer to working with Marable as "going to the Conservatory" because he insisted on reading skills and flawless performances. Every day the band practiced for two hours, and he had the boat-captain time the songs during rehearsal. According to Foster, every night they started playing at 8:00, going until 11:30 with two brief intermissions. The program was always fourteen songs; the selection would change but "those fourteen numbers just had to be up there..."
But Marable also recognized talented players and gave them scope to show their ‘stuff’ during performances. Many young performers who worked for him went on to prominent careers, crediting Fate for their musical development.
Employment on riverboats offered these musicians one of their most stable engagements and was a milestone in many careers. Armstrong later described life on the road in the South: "Lots of times we wouldn't get a place to sleep. So we'd cross the tracks, pull over to the side of the road and spend the night there. We couldn't get into hotels. Our money wasn't even good. We'd play nightclubs and spots which didn't have a bathroom for Negroes." It was very different on the river, where they had meals, facilities for hygiene and sleep, and a new town every day.
If "jazz came up the river" during the post-WW1 Great Migration, it was Fate who brought it. Local musicians in St. Louis, Chicago, and other towns where the riverboats stopped jumped at the chance to listen to the New Orleans band perform (and even to rehearse). The Marable band's exciting music, talented performers, and the meticulous performances set new standards. It was spoken of as the "best dance band in the U.S.A."
Fate Marable remained on the riverboats until 1940. He settled in St. Louis, playing solo piano at the city's Victorian Club. He died of pneumonia at the beginning of 1947.
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