Lucius Carl Watters (December 19, 1911 – November 5, 1989)[1] was a trumpeter and bandleader of the Yerba Buena Jazz Band.
Jazz critic Leonard Feather said, “The Yerba Buena band was perhaps the most vital factor in the reawakening of public interest in traditional jazz on the west coast.”[2] Watters was born in Santa Cruz, California, United States, on December 19, 1911 [3] and raised in Rio Vista, California.
[4] At St. Joseph's military academy in Sacramento, California, he belonged to the drum and bugle corps, where he was chosen "most promising bugler.
[4] Back in California, he assembled jam sessions with Bill Dart, Clancy Hayes, Bob Helm, Dick Lammi, Turk Murphy, and Wally Rose.
[4] The band found steady work at Sweet's Ballroom in Oakland, slipping in pieces of traditional New Orleans jazz into the repertoire until Watters was fired.
King Oliver in 1923 played "rich polyphony and rocking but relaxed tempo", without individual solos,[7] also called "collective improvisation".
The Rough Guide concludes: “(they) had gone about as far as they could go: the revival had been launched worldwide and they had broadcast and recorded regularly for ten years.”[5] Watters left music and became a carpenter, cook, and a student of geology.
[10] In 1963, he came out of retirement to perform with Murphy at an anti-nuclear protest in California to prevent a nuclear plant from being constructed at Bodega Bay.
[4][6] He recorded an album for Fantasy with Rose, Helm, Bob Mielke, and Barbara Dane called Blues Over Bodega.
Dining its ten year existence, the Yerba Buena Jazz Band recorded for several small labels.
In 1949 and 1950, after Scobey and Murphy had left the band, several recordings were made at Hambone Kelly's for Norman Granz that resulted in 39 sides that were mostly released on Mercury, and later on Clef, Down Home, and Verve.