With a name resembling a collision of signs in a French train station, Sidney Desvignes was an excellent trumpeter who could boast of early membership in such historic jazz ensembles as Leonard Bechet's Silver Bell Band, with whom he played as a teenager, the Maple Leaf Orchestra, the Excelsior Brass Band and Ed Allen's Whispering Gold Band. He also played on riverboats through the '20s, often in combos led by Fate Marable. All told, this is a pedigree that would be hard to rival in New Orleans. The George Desvignes Orchestra itself cranked up in the summer of 1926 and was largely associated on land with St. Bernard's Country Club and on water aboard the S.S. Island Queen.

There was a brief effort by this leader to create a big band sound in the early '30s, still from a New Orleans base. In a surprise move, Desvignes finally left New Orleans in the '50s, bringing his love of traditional jazz out west and opening his own nightclub in Los Angeles to absorb some of the possible prosperity. Desvignes did not live long enough to experience the Dixieland fad of the '60s, however. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi