Fresh Air
Best Of: Jazz Clarinetist Doreen Ketchens / 'White Lotus' Actor Natasha Rothwell
Sat, 08 Mar 2025
We're joined by a New Orleans institution — clarinetist and vocalist Doreen Ketchens. She's got several nicknames — "Lady Louie," "Queen Clarinet," and "Miss Satchmo," all of after her biggest idol, Louis Armstrong. Like the jazz great, Ketchens has the gift of hitting long, high notes. She and her band, Doreen's Jazz New Orleans, have performed on the corner of Royal and St. Peter's Street in the French Quarter for almost four decadesWe'll also talk with Natasha Rothwell. She returns to HBO's The White Lotus as Belinda, a spa manager who was duped in Season 1 by a wealthy visitor played by Jennifer Coolidge.Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Last Seen, a book about newly-freed Black Americans in the 1860s who took out ads to find lost family members.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: Who is Doreen Ketchins and why is she significant?
From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. Today, we're joined by a New Orleans institution, clarinetist and vocalist Doreen Ketchins. She's got several nicknames, Lady Louie, Queen Clarinet, and Miss Satchmo, all after her biggest idol, Louis Armstrong. Like the jazz great, Doreen has the gift of hitting long, high notes.
She and her band, Doreen's Jazz New Orleans, have performed on the corner of Royal and St. Peter Street in the French Quarter for almost four decades. And we'll also talk with Natasha Rothwell. She returns to HBO's The White Lotus as Belinda, a spa manager who was duped in season one by a wealthy visitor played by Jennifer Coolidge.
And book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Last Scene, a book about newly freed Black Americans in the 1860s, who took out ads to find lost family members. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend.
If you're a super fan of Fresh Air with Terry Gross, we have exciting news. WHYY has launched a Fresh Air Society, a leadership group dedicated to ensuring fresh air's legacy. For over 50 years, this program has brought you fascinating interviews with favorite authors, artists, actors, and more. As a member of the Fresh Air Society, you'll receive special benefits and recognition.
Learn more at whyy.org slash fresh air society.
This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. And if you're ever in the French Quarter in New Orleans, chances are you've spotted my guest today, clarinetist and vocalist Doreen Ketchins. For over 30 years, she's performed on the corner of Royal and St. Peter Street, four days a week, sometimes 12 hours a day, with her band, Doreen's Jazz New Orleans.
Doreen Ketchins has many nicknames, Lady Louie, Queen Clarinet, and Miss Satchmo, nods to her passionate performances of Dixieland and traditional jazz, and for her ability to hit and hold high notes for long periods of time, like the great trumpeteer Louis Armstrong. Ketchins has performed for four U.S. presidents, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter.
And initially, she played classical clarinet before her late husband, Lawrence Ketchins, introduced her to jazz while the two were students at Loyola University. Lawrence was an accomplished musician in his own right, too. As part of Doreen's band, he played the tuba, valve trombone, drums, and piano, becoming a major attraction for his ability to play the sousaphone and drums at the same time.
A few years ago, Ketchins fulfilled her dream of performing at the Kennedy Center. She's also played with orchestras around the world. Doreen Ketchins, welcome to Fresh Air. Thanks for having me.
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Chapter 2: What are the origins of Doreen Ketchins’ musical career?
I want to offer my sincerest condolences on the loss of your husband Lawrence who just died this past January and I had the pleasure of going down the rabbit hole of watching your performances and aside from being utterly captivated I was also just taken by what felt like magic watching the two of you performing together. Are you still performing?
Yep. I mean, I don't want to get haunted for the rest of my life, you know. That's what he'd do. He used to always tell me, you know, you got to play no matter what. So that's what I'm doing. And it's working. It's working. I get strength from just... thinking about the times he's been in the audience, you know, and giving me a nod, you know, one way or the other.
Chapter 3: How did Doreen Ketchins' husband influence her music?
It seemed like there was such a great love between the two of you, and your love language was the music. You all performed together for many decades, and I think maybe a beautiful way to start our conversation is to actually hear a little bit of the two of you. I watched this video of you two performing for the New Orleans Jazz Station, WWOZ, and
And there you are, playing the clarinet and singing, and Lawrence was playing sousaphone and the drums at the same time. I don't actually think I've ever seen that in my life. I was thinking, how? Can I play a little bit of that performance? Yes, please. The song is House of the Rising Sun.
They call the rising sun. It's been the run of many a line. And now I know who I want.
That was my guest today, Doreen Ketchins and her late husband Lawrence playing House of the Rising Sun. Doreen, what a remarkable performance. I mean, as I mentioned, Lawrence is playing the drums and blowing into that sousaphone, which is a type of tuba, at the same time. How did he figure out that he had that talent?
We had drummer problems. And the drummer didn't show up, and he was tired of it, you know, and we were on the street. He said he wasn't that good anyway. I bet you I could play just as good as him and play the tuba. And so he sat behind the drums, and he took one stick in his left hand, and he just started to do it. I mean, just like that, and it was there.
He can't play rolls and stuff like that, so he does the inflections, you know what I mean? So... If you're just listening to the drummer, you know, there's a lot of space in there. But if you're listening to the group, then he fills in all of these spaces that you would normally hear the drummer do. It's just amazing, you know.
But Necessity is the mother of invention, and he invented the tuba drummer.
One thing I noticed is that you've got a growl that, you know, it's not only present in your singing voice, but we also heard it while you were playing the clarinet. How do you do that? Like you make your clarinet growl.
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Chapter 4: What makes Doreen Ketchins' clarinet playing unique?
People have asked me about that growl a lot. So I did it actually. I did some videos on it on YouTube during the pandemic when I was going absolutely crazy because I couldn't go out and play. But there are two ways of doing a growl. There's one with the throat, you know, like that, like you're gargling. And there's another one with a tongue, like a Spanish R, you know.
And both of them basically sound the same when I do them. But you pick one, you know, and I picked the Spanish R because I thought the transition to and from was smoother. And that's how I do it. I just, that's how I do it. That's it.
You know, to watch you perform, you really are, you're like putting your whole body into it. Your eyes are closed. And I mean, I guess that's not unusual. I mean, when you are like intensely focused on your instrument, I've heard you say when you're playing, you're constantly digging for more information within yourself.
And I was like, wow, really taken by that, but also wonder more of what you mean.
I mean, just like with anything else, you know, if you're a parent, you want to be a better parent than your parent, even though you had a great parent, you know. But I just don't want to fall into a rut. People are growing up listening to what I'm doing, what I did, and, you know, I want to be above that. It's flattering.
In some senses, you know, it's insulting because people steal your licks and everything else and they don't acknowledge it, you know. But it's still, you know, you want to stay ahead of the game. You want to be the best. Louis Armstrong is like a big influence on me. And I have listened to what I thought up until the other day, actually.
I thought I listened to everything that was out there about Louis Armstrong. But there's always something new, you know. But I can hear the same song over that I've heard for hundreds of times and find something new inside of it.
It's amazing. Is there a favorite Armstrong? I know that's like asking, is there a favorite child? But is there a favorite song of his that you love or you go back to often?
Yeah, that is like asking about a child, you know what I mean? Because there's some that strike me in certain ways and others that strike me in others, you know? I mean, when you say that, you know, La Vie en Rose comes to mind, and probably because my daughter hates it. Oh, really? Why? She says. Yeah.
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Chapter 5: How did Doreen Ketchins transition from classical to jazz?
Yeah, so, you know, I was like, he said, well, why don't you take a listen and, you know, let me know what you think. And I'm like, okay. And see, I wasn't enthused because that's homework, you know. In addition to everything else I had to do, now I got to go to the library because, you know, you can't just take out your phone and go and look for, you know, I got to go to the library.
I got to check this out and all this other stuff. But I did because I knew he was coming back, you know, and I listened and I heard a lot of clarinetists, you know, George Lewis, you know, Pete Fountain and, you know, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw. And I respected what they did, but we were different.
You know, I was concentrating more on tone and technique and they were more concentrated on jamming, you know, bending the notes and not really concerned about tone and stuff like that, you know, so it wasn't my thing. And so, you know, a few days later, he knocked on the door again, and he said, well, what did you think? And I was like, you know, it's really not my thing.
I can appreciate what they're doing, but it's not my thing. And he said, well, you're entitled to your opinion. And as I tell you that, I can still see him saying that. Before he closed the door. And I just, I thought the world was going to end because I just made Mr. Marcellus angry, you know. He wasn't angry. He was just chilling, you know. And then I went to Loyola.
And just to cut the story short, I was practicing in the practice room. And, you know, there was a knock on the door. And I looked at the door. It was in a cubicle. So, you know, the doors were glass. This gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous dude was knocking on the door. And I'm like, may I help you? And he said, almost verbatim, I kid you not, he said, you know, you sound really good on that clarinet.
You know, you ought to try playing some jazz. And I was like, okay.
So that's how I started playing the jazz. Is it possible for you to play us something to give us an example of the difference between the classical clarinet that you were really into before Lawrence and then what you ultimately came to do?
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Chapter 6: What is 'Last Seen' and what themes does it explore?
For instance, countering the lost cause myth that enslaved people were settled on southern plantations and Texas cotton fields, the ads, which often list multiple names of white owners as a finding aid, testify to how black people were sold and resold. The ads that hit hardest are the ones that illuminate what Giesberg refers to as America's traffic in children.
Selling children away from their mothers, she says, was the rule of slavery, not the exception. Clara Bashup's story opens last scene. Bashup had been searching for her daughter and son for 30 years when she took out an ad in 1892 in the African-American newspaper, The Chicago Appeal. Here are some portions. I wish to find my daughter patience green.
I have no trace of her since she was sold at Richmond, Virginia in 1859. She was then 12 years of age. John William Harris, my son, went with some servants after the surrender. He was 14 years old. Both belonged to Dick Christian, in name only, by whom they were sold. The language of Bashup's ad is direct and somewhat defiant.
Giesburg comments on the words in name only that Bashup appended after the name of Dick Christian, the man who owned her children. Against this legal right, Giesburg says, Clara Bashup asserted a moral and emotional one. In comparison, Giesburg unpacks the language of a human interest story aimed at white readers about Bashup's search. That story ran in the New York World newspaper.
There, Patience is described as the missing child of an aged mother, and Dick Christian is a country gentleman. Giesburg says that white papers everywhere were publishing similar stories that threw a thick blanket of nostalgia over the history of slavery.
Another ad that speaks volumes is one posted in 1879 by Henry Tibbs in the Lost Friends column of a New Orleans paper, The Southwestern Christian Advocate. It opens, Mr. Editor, I desire some information about my mother. Tibbs recalls being put in a jail with other boys prior to being sold away. I cried, he writes.
Tibbs says he was told that if he would hush, the slave trader would bring my mother there the next morning, which he did. Mother then brought me some cake and candy, and that was the last time I saw her. Throughout Last Seen, Giesburg steps back from these individual ads to give readers the larger historical context that made them necessary.
For instance, she reminds readers that no federal agency existed to help freed people locate loved ones after the Civil War ended— Instead, there were things like the grapevine telegraph, which she describes as a sophisticated system of surveillance by which enslaved people kept track of one another. And there were the ads, many of which were read aloud in black churches.
Those ads testify to the inner strength of people like Henry Tibbs, who was still placing ads in search of his mother when he was 55 years old.
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