The Austin High School kids were embryonic musicians who just couldn't wait for the shell to hatch. They incubated under the New Orleans jazzmen who had come up the river when their home grounds were ruled off limits by the clean-up element among Crescent City reformists.

So they naturally wound up in Caponeville, where the customers liked their gin straight with 12 choruses of "Ballin' the Jack" for a chaser.

The gin was straight all right--straight from the tub.

The Austin kids first heard New Orleans jazz when a copy of the Friars Society Orchestra "Tin Roof Blues" found its way into the juke box at the Poodle Dog, which was the local version of McBride's without the beer.

In fact, it was a soda fountain, but if the Chicago boys heard me say that, even 20 years later, they'd kill me.

Well, Teschemacher heard Leon Rapelle's clarinet and threw away his violin. After hearing Rapelle in person, Teach was so discouraged that he almost threw the clarinet away, too.