When we came across the scrapbook you’re about to see, it was empty, so we decided to fill it with our own memories of Boô, using the wonderful objects and eclectic treasures that the team found in the suitcase that was discovered in barn 6.
The 369th Infantry Regiment, originally formed as the 15th New York National Guard Regiment
before it was re-organized as the 369th upon its federalization and commonly referred to as the
Harlem Hellfighters, was an infantry regiment of the New York Army National Guard during The
Great War. The regiment mainly consisted of African Americans, amongst other ethnic groups. Of
the black American soldiers who survived the trenches at the Second Battle of the Marne, several
came to England following the Armistice and settled in the west Midlands for 18 months during the
period 1919-1920 before leaving to return to Harlem and New Orleans.
One of those soldiers spent several months in Hereford, intrigued by the beauty of the cathedral, its
Norman and gothic architecture, the Mappa Mundi and the lyrical, rolling Herefordshire countryside.
His name was Zutty Singleton, born in Bunkie, Louisiana in 1898. Zutty was a jazz drummer who was
baptised Arthur James. He acquired the nickname Zutty a Creole patois word, for “cute, as a baby.
He started his professional career in 1915 and became part of Louis Armstong’s legendry Hot Five
and Hot Seven line ups who recorded and performed with Zutty in 1928-1929. So we thought it
appropriate to play their version of Clarence Williams’ and Fats Waller’s Squeeze Me, as the
soundtrack to our Memories of Boô, recorded in 1928 with Fred Robinson (trombone), Louis
Armstrong (trumpet), Jimmy Strong (tenor saxophone), Jdon Redman (clarinet), Mancy Carr (banjo),
Earl Hines (piano) and Zutty on drums.
