St. Cyr, Johnny (actually, John Alexander)

St. Cyr, Johnny (actually, John Alexander ) famed early jazz guitarist, banjoist; b. New Orleans, La., April 17, 1890; d. Los Angeles, Calif., Junel7, 1966. His father, Jules Firmin St. Cyr (died: 1901), played guitar and flute. Johnny began playing on a homemade, “cigar-box” guitar, then graduated to a real instrument. He formed the Consumers’ Trio (namedafter a local brewery), then began gigging with Jules Baptiste and Manuel Gabriel (c. 1905–08). While working during the day as a plasterer, heperformed with many legendary New Orleans groups, including Freddie Keppard’s Band (and also with Keppard in the Olympia Band), Papa Celestin, Kid Ory, Armand Piron (c. 1914), pianist Arthur Campbell (1915–16), King Oliver’s Magnolia Band, and Armand Piron (1917-early 1918). St. Cyr finally gave up his day job to join Fate Marable playing on the riverboats that traveled up and down the Mississippi (summer 1918 until summer of 1920). By fall 1921, he was back in New Orleans, again working as a plasterer for the next two years, he did occasional parade work and played with various leaders. He moved to Chicago in September 1923, played briefly with King Oliver, then spent two months in Darnell Howard’s Band before joining Doc Cooke’s Dreamland Orch. (from January 1924 until November 1929). During this period he regularly doubled at various late-night clubs including a spell playing with Jimmie Noone at the Apex. However, St. Cyr is best remembered for participating in many freelance recording sessions with Louis Armstrong (the legendary Hot Five and Hot Seven groups) and Jelly Roll Morton, among many others. St. Cyr left Doc Cooke in November 1929, and gigged in Ind. before returning to New Orleans via Chicago. St. Cyr worked as a plasterer throughout the 1930s and 1940s while he continued regular part-time playing. The New Orleans revival of the late 1940s-early 1950s brought him out of retirement; in 1955 he settled in Calif, to work with Paul Barbarin.St. Cyr guested with many bands, played regularly with the New Orleans Creole Jazz Band in Los Angeles (1959), then played with and later led the Young Men of New Orleans during the early 1960s, a gig that included a stint onthe miniature river steamer “Mark Twain” at Disneyland. St. Cyrsurvived a bad car crash during the summer of 1965, but was forced by illness to restrict regular playing during the last years of his life. He died of leukemia in 1966.

Discography

Johnny St. Cyr and His Hot Five (1957).

—John Chilton , Who’s Who of Jazz/Lewis Porter