Louis Nelson Deslile

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Big Eye" Louis Nelson Deslile (28 January 1885 - 20 August 1949) was an early jazz clarinetist. He also played string bass, banjo, and accordion professionally on occasion.

Nelson Deslile was born and spent most of his life in New Orleans, Louisiana.

He studied clarinet with the elder Lorenzo Tio, and was working professionally in Storyville music venues by the age of 15. He developed an early style of hot playing in the earliest days of jazz, and was an important influence on such later New Orleans jazz clarinetists as Johnny Dodds and Jimmie Noone.

In his early career "Big Eye" often played a C clarinet, as opposed to the more common Bb; the C was also used by other New Orleans clarinetists of the era, such as Alcide Nunez.

In the 1910s he toured with Freddie Keppard and Bill Johnson in the Original Creole Orchestra.

He made his only recordings in his later years in the 1940s, by which time he was often in poor health and from contemporary accounts past his playing prime, but still capable of producing some beautiful phrases; the recordings are available on compact disc on American Music Records. Nelson Deslile's playing is more blues influenced and fluid compared to the more stattico and raggy playing of older New Orleans clarinetist Alphonse Picou.