If folklore legend Paul Bunyan was a musician, he would had to have been from New Orleans. Otherwise it is hard to find a music scene where the tales of historic musicians approach the grandeur of a typical saga involving the giant lumberjack. Manuel Fess Manetta passes the first test of an early New Orleans musical giant, having been born not only prior to 1900, but prior to 1890. From there the story might be sopped in gumbo gravy, but it is no tall tale at all, rather simply the truth. Manetta did indeed master a half dozen musical instruments, most of them from entirely different families of musical instruments. He could play two different brass instruments at the same time, even when he got to be more than 70 years old.

His entire family apparently played brass instruments as well, a dolloping out of instinctive talent that seems as common in New Orleans as police corruption. Jazz tourists can check out the family home at 331 Alix Street, where Manetta resided for 20 years beginning in 1913. Initially his musical instincts were to slip past the brass, beginning with violin and guitar but picking up his first professional paycheck as a pianist. A few years before moving to Alix Street he had added cornet, saxophone and trombone. Manetta was sure to be heard with New Orleans brass bands such as the Eagle Brass Band and the Tuxedo Hall Brass Band; listeners could just never be sure what axe he would be wielding. Record collectors may find him on violin on one side, piano on another. His talents were considered to be amazing. According to some accounts, when Buddy Bolden -- the ultimate New Orleans jazz legend -- needed to assemble a really special band for bigger events, he would put Manetta in charge.

There were also periods when Manetta was absent from New Orleans. A famous tour bandleader, Kid Ory, took him to the west coast in 1919, but Manetta's responsibilities as violinist with this ensemble soon shifted to a tour as pianist in the Martels' Family Band. He also worked with riverboat groups, for example hiring on as pianist with bandleader Ed Allen. From the mid-'20s onward the multi-instrumentalist stayed pretty close to Louisiana, in demand for the orchestras of Oscar Celestin, Arnold Du Pas, Manuel Manole Perez and others. Prior to his death in the late '60s, Manetta's reputation was not only as a great musician but perhaps the greatest of all instructors in the nuances of New Orleans jazz. He never retired from performing. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi