When Henry "Kid" Rena's (pronounced ruh-NAY) name comes up, albeit infrequently, in the annals of New Orleans jazz, he's usually identified as a 'must've been' or an 'also-ran'. "Must've been' in the sense that New Orleans legend records that he was able to play up around high "c" for eight minutes or more without coming down- if so, nothing of this ability appears in audible documents of Rena. And an 'also-ran' in that New Orleans legend is rife with anecdotes about Kid Rena backing down in cutting contests with other legendary Jazz trumpet voices, namely Buddy Petit and Chris Kelly. One such story has Rena bowing out to Kelly in an impromptu bout held in a pouring rainstorm.
But unlike Petit or Kelly, Rena's playing survives on record, and Rena was an important figurehead in New Orleans Jazz in the crucial decade of the 1930s, when Jazz in New Orleans nearly died out completely.
Henry "Kid" Rena was born on August 30, 1898 and is said to have taken lessons from Manuel Perez. When Louis Armstrong took a job on the S.S. Capitol, Rena replaced him in Kid Ory's band. Rena was with Ory until the latter departed for Los Angeles in 1922, then Kid Rena began his own "dixieland band" later that year. Shortly the Rena band won a loving cup at the Jerusalem Temple fromCelestin's Tuxedo Jazz Band. Rena's Dixieland Band played every hall in New Orleans in the coming years and even made the trip to Chicago three or four times in 1923-4. At some point he took over leadership of the Eureka Brass Band, and departed from them when he founded his own Brass Band circa 1932.
read more: http://www.redhotjazz.com/kidrena.html
Early NO revival recorded in NO in 1940 this tune seems to be based around "Gatemouth" - Henry "Kid" Rena tpt, "Big Eye" Louis Nelson clt, Alphonse Picou clt, Jim Robinson tbn, Willie Santiago g, Albert Glenny sbs, Joe Rena dms.
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