ABSTRACT: 00:53 Kent explains that his big band was assembled at the absinthe bar in New Orleans in 1978, and that this is his thirty-ninth appearance at Jazz Fest. He confirms he’s been recording since he was fifteen years old, signing with Montel under the name Duke Royal. 01:53 Kent reflects on his childhood. He grew up by Tipitina’s in a musical household, with a piano-playing father and an older brother who was a musician and would bring him to gigs. Upon moving to Broad Street, he started frequenting the Pimlico, where he’d go stand outside to hear music starting around age ten. 03:12 Kent reveals how he got into singing: after moving to Baton Rouge following his father’s death, he was teased for his New Orleans accent, and took to hiding in the choral room to play piano and sing. A teacher heard him and signed him up for the talent show, his first performance. Soon after he was asked to sub in for a friend’s sick singer, who was fired after the band saw how he did on the gig. 05:21 Kent explains his relationship to Blood, Sweat & Tears, who he joined on part of their ’74-’75 world tour, unable to record with them due to clashing contracts. 06:57 Kent explains that he got a recording contract with Lou Adler while with the band Cold Grits, who released a regional single to boost working. The album never came to be, because “business got sideways,” which he regrets – he followed the band’s lead because they, as the staff rhythm section for Criteria Studios, had far more recording experience than he did at the time. 09:27 Kent says that right after Cold Grits, he formed a band of Louisiana musicians he wanted to work with called The Real Thing. They worked at the Ivanhoe on Bourbon Street for a year and a half before fizzling out. Then, trying to plot his next step, Kent got the call from Blood, Sweat & Tears. That was not his first touring experience, having done the Midwestern circuit and toured in California. 11:45 Kent explains that upon returning to New Orleans in 1977, he basically assembled a band on a lark, citing personnel to a magazine interviewer before he’d spoken to any of them. However, this band – with Johnny Vidacovich, James Singleton, Michael Pallera, and Charlie Brent – is still together forty years later. He explains that major acts, including Billy Eckstine and Etta James, would come sit in with them, at either the Absinthe Bar or the Blues Saloon, where he had a gig starting at two thirty AM. 15:51 Kent extols the pleasures of being able to stay home and work, having found the touring schedule/schedule grueling, doing twenty-two one-nighters a month with Blood, Sweat & Tears. Living in New Orleans also gave him the bonus of many musicians coming through, in effect finding him so that he didn’t have to go find them. He has maintained his band, which, at ten pieces, is rather big, by working fifty weeks a year, five nights a week. He expresses his gratitude for having been able to make a living playing what he wants to play, with the help of the arrangements of the late Charlie Brent. He developed his taste for playing with a big horn section partly from the influence of Bobby Bland. 21:46 Kent explains that his friend who was Billy Eckstine’s road manager is who set them up, sending Eckstine to go see Kent’s band, which he began doing regularly, becoming good friends with Kent. 23:26 Kent tells how the proximity of the clubs where he was in residence to the Blue Room, where the likes of Billy Eckstine would play, helped, as people often came through, including the Four Tops, who he one night turned to find backing him. 24:12 Kent lists some of the personnel that came through his band, Trick Bag, over the years. 26:13 Kent shares the fact that, tied by his producer Mike Post, he tried out acting on Steven Bochco’s Cop Rock, which though a flop in the US was a cult hit in Europe. He also tells how Post, as a producer, would say he didn’t want to tell him how to sing, and would just come in to do composites once three tracks had been laid down. 29:09 Kent admits to being hardheaded, explaining that his will was the main influence over what he chose to play. Fortunately, he had sufficiently good bands to be able to pull that off. 30:44 Demonstration “You Are My Sunshine” 34:46 Kent attributes the staying power of R&B to the fact that “it’s real,” calling the music he grew up on the greatest ever. He says it moved him hard, and not just him, but the world. He explains that he once did a gig at a standard club that expected conformity; it was a brief gig he intends never to repeat. 36:16 Kent attributes his staying power to his love of the music, and the charge of playing to audiences that shared that love. He describes himself as “chomping at the bit” every night to go to work. 38:25 Kent says the one other thing he wants, after his career, is to “croak in the middle of a high note on stage.” 39:17 Demonstration “Do You Know What It Means (To Miss New Orleans)”