In addition to music, drummer Herlin Riley, R&B legend James “Sugar Boy” Crawford Jr., organist Betty Ann Lastie Williams and trumpeter Warren “Porgy” Jones had something else in common.
Yvonne Busch was their teacher.
“Busch taught thousands of students,” Al Kennedy wrote in the 2002 book “Chord Changes on the Chalkboard: How Public School Teachers Shaped Jazz and the Music of New Orleans,” “and she influenced many to become professional musicians.”
Born in 1929, Busch grew up in Tremé. She left home at 11 to attend Piney Woods Country Life School in Mississippi, where she learned how to play the alto horn, trumpet and drums. By 12, she was traveling across the country as the trumpeter with the school’s all-female bands, International Sweethearts of Rhythm and Swinging Rays of Rhythm.
After returning to New Orleans, Busch attended Gilbert Academy, where she learned the baritone horn and the trombone. In 1947, she became the only woman to play in the Southern University Jazz Band.
Busch’s teaching career began at Grunewald School of Music. She worked as a traveling music teacher for five years, before she became the first band director at Carver Senior High School in 1958.
“I wanted my students to be able to pick up any music, read it, and perform it right there,” Busch said. “Every time we went to State … my band always received first place in sight reading.”
Named Carver’s Teacher of the Year in 1962, Busch retired in 1983. She died in 2014.
“Through her public school classrooms and band rooms, she created a musical legacy that includes jazz and classical musicians, rhythm & blues performers and gospel singers,” her obituary states. “She also mentored an impressive list of former student-teachers … who are now passing on the music traditions she instilled in them.”
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