Henry "Kid" Rena (August 30, 1898 – April 25, 1949) was an American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

trumpeter, who was an early star of the New Orleans jazz scene.

Biography

He was born in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

, United States. Rena may have taken lessons from Manuel Perez as a youngster. He and Louis Armstrong played in the same waif's home band, and when Armstrong joined the band on the ''S.S. Capitol'', Rena was named his replacement in

Kid Ory Edward "Kid" Ory (December 25, 1886 – January 23, 1973) was an American jazz composer, trombonist and bandleader. One of the early users of the glissando technique, he helped establish it as a central element of New Orleans jazz. He was ...

's band in 1919. He played with Ory until 1922, when Ory moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

; that year Rena formed his own band. This ensemble played all the New Orleans jazz houses regularly and played

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

in 1923–24. He led the Eureka Brass Band in the late 1920s, remaining with them until 1932, when he formed his own brass band. Rena was hit hard by the Great Depression, and he eked out a living locally in New Orleans playing old-style jazz as it waned in popularity in favor of

swing jazz Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands ...

. In 1940, Heywood Hale Broun asked Kid Rena to record. Eight recordings were made in total, done at the Hotel Roosevelt and recorded by local radio station WWL on August 21, 1940. Rena's prowess as a live soloist was legendary, but by the time he recorded, he had lost much of his technical ability, and the recordings were of poor quality. Joe Rene (Kid Rena's brother and drummer on the session) said that Kid refrained from playing high notes on the recording session because "he didn't want anyone to get his style". The recordings are widely regarded as the first recordings of the revival of the New Orleans style in the 1940s. The records were released on Delta Records, a label only used to release these eight recordings as four singles. Later, Circle Records acquired the masters, and the material was reissued by

Riverside Records Riverside Records was an American jazz record company and label. Founded by Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer, Jr, under his firm Bill Grauer Productions in 1953, the label played an important role in the jazz record industry for a decade. Riverside ...

as albums. In the 1990s the material, alongside some previously unreleased rehearsal recordings, appeared on compact disc from American Music Records. Rena never recorded again; he was an

alcoholic Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomina ...

, and failing health led him to stop playing in 1947. He died two years later, at the age of 50.

References

External links

* Scott Yanow, Kid Renaat

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

Kid Rena (1898-1949)
at the Red Hot Jazz Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Rena, Kid 1898 births 1949 deaths American jazz trumpeters American male trumpeters 20th-century American musicians 20th-century trumpeters Jazz musicians from Louisiana 20th-century American male musicians American male jazz musicians Eureka Brass Band members