Yerba Buena Jazz Band

[2] In the late 1930s, cornetist Lu Watters was playing commercial dance gigs in the San Francisco area.

[3] Back in California, he assembled jam sessions with Bill Dart, Clancy Hayes, Bob Helm, Dick Lammi, Turk Murphy, and Wally Rose[3] to play traditional jazz.

[2] In 1938, he formed a band that included Hayes, Helm, Squire Gersh, Bob Scobey, and Russell Bennett.

[3] 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.

He brought in pianist Forrest Browne, who taught the band music by Jelly Roll Morton.

"[5] It went on hiatus in 1942 when Watters entered the U.S. Navy but reunited at the Dawn Club after World War II.

[3] In 1949 the band performed with visiting musicians Kid Ory, James P. Johnson, and Mutt Carey.

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.

[17] In 2001, Giants of Jazz, a label based in Italy, released a CD called San Francisco Style: Lu Watters Yerba Buena Jazz Band: Clancy Hays, vocals, containing 20 of the three dozen sides by the band from December 7, 1949 through the last recordings from mid-1950.