Alphonse Picou

Alphonse Floristan Picou (October 19, 1878 – February 4, 1961) was an important very early American jazz clarinetist of New Orleans, Louisiana, who also wrote and arranged music.

Alphonse Picou was born into a prosperous middle-class Creole of Color family in downtown New Orleans. His parents were Alfred Picou and Clotilde (Serpas) Picou, who also had other children: Cecilia, Willie, Feriol, Joseph, and Philomene Picou. Cecilia married Alfred Forrestier on August 1, 1900. Alphonse Picou took to music early.

By the age of 16, he was working as a professional musician on both the guitar and clarinet, but then concentrated on the latter instrument. As his family frowned on music being a person's sole trade, Picou trained and worked as a tinsmith, including putting the copper sheeting on church steeples. Soon Picou was so much in demand as a clarinetist that he made most of his living from music.

He played classical music with the Creole section's Lyre Club Symphony Orchestra. He also played with various dance bands and brass bands, including those of Bouboul Fortunea Augustat, Bouboul Valentin, Oscar DuConge, Manuel Perez, Freddie Keppard, Bunk Johnson, the Excelsior Brass Band, the Olympia Brass Band and others. The light-skinned Picou, with majority European ancestry, sometimes worked with white bands as well in his youth, including at least on occasion with Papa Jack Laine. (This opportunity was not available to musicians with darker skin due to racial discrimination in the U.S. Southern States at the time.)

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