Monk Hazel on Snoozer:
New Orleans drummer Monk Hazel was backstage when Snoozer met Paul Whiteman on Oct. 28, 1928.
There’s a little story there: like I tell you, Snoozer used to come over from Bogalusa to be in town. They [were] playing the St. Charles Theatre. In the band is Bix, Trumbauer, Izzy Friedman; that’s the only jazz men in the band. So we all go to the concert……So Norman Brownlee and I, we wanted Whiteman to hear Snoozer. And I had known Whiteman from Parenti’s band….Anyway, Brownlee and I called Paul and told him we wanted him to hear this Snoozer. So Snoozer didn’t have a guitar – he didn’t bring a guitar with him—so we went up to the hotel, to the Bienville, and got Joe Capraro’s guitar, and we brought it and we went backstage. We had Snoozer play for Whiteman. He knocked Whiteman out. Whiteman would listen. He’d play a thing, especially that—did you ever see how he used to play ‘Tiger Rag’?…He’d wave his hand like this, and he’d pick with his fingers, wouldn’t even touch the strings with this hand; he’d be waving it in the air, and he’d make a break, you know. And the damnedest things would come out of that thing…..Whiteman would listen, man, and he’d run up– the theatre was brick walled – he’d run up and he’d hit his shoulder up against it, boom, against that brick wall like that, every time Snoozer would knock him out. So he told Snoozer, he said, ‘You’ll hear from me.’
– Monk Hazel to Bill Russell on July 16, 1959, courtesy Hogan Jazz Archives