Don Albert

Albert Dominique, the nephew of illustrious New Orleans jazz legend Natty Dominique, changed his name to Don Albert and actually had as much to do with the Texas jazz scene scene as he did with the land of swamps and gumbo. Nonetheless, a few notes from one of his solos or lead parts will almost always bear the trace of the early years he spent in his hometown parade bands, prior to hitting the road for the first time with Trent's Number Two Band. In 1926, he was playing as a teenager in Troy Floyd's Band at the Shadowland Ballroom in San Antonio, a scene that dripped with atmosphere. For the next three years this was the trumpeter's milieu, playing big band music with a beat equal parts New Orleans and Kansas City and backing up a variety of blues singers at recording sessions--all of it done in his new professional identity of Don Albert. Floyd, who featured the trumpeter on instrumentals such as "Shadowland Blues" and "Dreamland Blues", was apparently the one who advised the name change.

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