Brian Pavlich
John Dupaquier fell in love with music as a child.
Growing up in New Orleans, “I would listen to records, sing, whistle,” he recalled in a recent interview. “Everybody knew I was attracted to music.”
At ten, Dupaquier took piano lessons from a student teacher at Newcomb College on the Tulane campus. “We had a piano at home, a secondhand upright. I lived on Claiborne Avenue and could take a city bus to Newcomb. The teacher was getting her degree in music education, and I was her guinea pig. Later I studied with a private teacher.”
Dupaquier and his younger brothers and sister spent summers with their maternal grandmother, who owned a boarding house in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
When Dupaquier was twelve, the family moved to Bay St. Louis. “I had a cousin who played baritone horn in the school band,” he said. “I was in seventh grade and he was in high school. He took me to the band director, and I started playing with them, mostly overtures and march music. I played euphonium, which is a small tenor tuba. It’s a wonderful instrument. Some of the prettiest parts are written for it. I still have one at home in my studio/garage.
“I played it through high school, then I started getting interested in piano again. The band director started a popular-music band that I played with.”
With a navy base in Gulfport, an air force base in Biloxi, and an army base in Hattiesburg, the band attracted servicemen looking for entertainment.
“All the real musicians were in the service,” said Dupaquier. “These soldiers and sailors loved to dance. We’d spend the summer playing in dance halls. That continued up into college.
"I played euphonium, which is a small tenor tuba. It’s a wonderful instrument. Some of the prettiest parts are written for it. I still have one at home in my studio/garage."
“I started LSU in 1947 at 18. I had joined the navy reserve my senior year in high school, so my first three years I lived in the navy barracks on campus—six of us in one room.
“I had a student job at the Field House running errands for Dean French [Dean of Men Arden O. French]. I got fifteen dollars a month, and I got fed. They had coffee and doughnuts, toasted sandwiches, and a lot of ice cream.”
Dupaquier earned extra money playing piano. “My second or third year of college, word got around. Weekends, I’d play for dances, some at the Field House. We each made about ten or twelve dollars. That was in 1948, ‘49. A dollar went a long way.
“It cost thirty-five dollars a semester to go to LSU. But I had to pay a hundred dollars out-of-state fee because I came from Mississippi.
“I talked to Dean [John] Hunter, who told me he’d waive the fee if I registered to vote. So I went downtown and registered to vote and didn’t get charged the fee.”
Going to school straight through, Dupaquier earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in piano. He met his future wife, fellow piano student Hilda Beth Prater from Lake Charles, at the music school.
[Read about another life spent in music: "Jimmy 'Duck' Holmes and Bentonia Blues"]
“She treated me to lunch twice and then couldn’t get rid of me,” he joked.
He married Beth in 1953. They set up housekeeping in an apartment above Ball’s Drugstore on Highland Road just off campus.
Brian Pavlich
Shortly after graduating with master’s degrees in 1954, Beth and John moved to a house in University Acres, south of campus. Married for sixty-three years, until Beth died in 2016, the couple raised three children and taught generations of piano students—Dupaquier still teaches a couple.
The living room still holds the back-to-back baby grand pianos he and Beth used. “We got them so we could play together,” he said. “There are a lot of pieces for two pianos.”
Dupaquier rides his bicycle in the neighborhood and drives his 102-year-old neighbor Julia Hawkins to Coffee Call once a week. He plays regularly at Charlie’s Place, for adults with Alzheimer’s disease, and at Sunrise Assisted Living on Jefferson.
About a year ago, he joined the Florida Street Blowhards, which plays traditional jazz. He plays banjo unless he is needed to fill in on keyboard.
The living room still holds the back-to-back baby grand pianos he and Beth used. “We got them so we could play together,” he said. “There are a lot of pieces for two pianos.”
Writer Sam Irwin, public-relations director of the American Sugar Cane League and Country Roads contributor, started the group when he decided to return to music after a long spell away from it.
“I was a trumpet student in college for two years,” Irwin said. “Then I changed majors and got a master’s in history. I put my trumpet up on the shelf for twenty years. One day I was listening to Nicholas Payton playing ‘Egyptian Fantasy.’ He made it sound so easy I thought I could do it. I started practicing.
“Six months later I put a note on the NextDoor website and got hooked up with [clarinetist and saxophonist] David Seymour. We found a drummer, Zach Farris-Bourque. Philip Vincent plays bass guitar, and Terry Byars plays keyboard. We called it the Florida Street Blowhards because several of us lived near Florida Street.
“In July 2016 I went to the New Orleans Traditional Jazz Camp for a week with a hundred students of all ages. I learned more about what we were playing. I didn’t even know it was called traditional jazz. We got to do a second line through the French Quarter. While I was there, I got hats made for the Blowhards to wear when we do second lines.”
The group has a standing gig at Poor Boy Lloyd’s restaurant on the second Friday of each month. They also play for wedding receptions, and they rode a float in the first Mid City Gras parade last February.
“We have about ninety tunes in our repertoire,” said Irwin. “We rehearse at my house in Melrose every Saturday, and sometimes we have a public rehearsal at the Spanish Town Market. I’m the roadie, manager, and music director.
[For a story about a fancy piano: "Travelin' Man, Travelin' Piano"]
“We play old classics, tunes like ‘Rose Room’ by Benny Goodman. The first time we played it, John said, ‘We call that a businessman’s bounce,’ because it’s easy to dance to.”
“That’s what we called two-beat music when I played with [Baton Rouge optometrist and trumpeter] Joe Lamendola,” said Dupaquier, who was a member of his Rampart Street Six until Lamendola retired.
“You don’t have to be an expert dancer. Kind of like Lawrence Welk,” he said, humming a few bars of “Champagne Music.”
“It’s dance music for people who aren’t real young,” said Dupaquier, who occasionally plays with a group called The Last Straws. “I fall into that category myself.”
“John’s from the generation when traditional jazz was evolving into swing dance music,” said Irwin. “He can tell stories about where they played. The bands he played with would all play by ear. We use sheet music. He’s teaching us, and we’re teaching him.
“There’s always going to be a market for traditional music,” summed up Irwin. “It’s fun music, happy music.”
For information about upcoming Blowhard events, check the Facebook page, facebook.com/FloridaStreetBlowhards. Ruth Laney can be reached at ruthlaney@cox.net.
