Louis Chauvin was an American ragtime pianist, singer, and composer from St. Louis. Active in the city's early ragtime community, he performed with Sam Patterson and collaborated with Scott Joplin on “Heliotrope Bouquet,” the work for which he is chiefly remembered. He died in Chicago in 1908 at the age of 24.
Background
Ethnicity:
Family records describe Chauvin as a musician from a mixed African American and Mexican, Spanish, and Indigenous family background.
Louis Ignatius Chauvin was born on February 24, 1884, in Saint Louis, Missouri, into a family connected with the city's Black Catholic community. His parents, Charles and Henrietta Chauvin, had a large family whose members remained associated with St. Elizabeth Parish. The parish was among the institutions supporting African American Catholic life in St. Louis during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The 1900 census recorded Chauvin, under the surname variant “Shovan,” as an eighteen-year-old musician living in St. Louis. Family and parish research identifies him as the same Louis Chauvin who later performed with Scott Joplin and Sam Patterson. His musical career developed in the St. Louis ragtime environment surrounding Tom Turpin's Rosebud Café and related entertainment venues.
Career
Chauvin became known in St. Louis as a pianist and singer with an unusually strong reputation among fellow musicians. He was part of the circle that gathered at Tom Turpin's Rosebud Café, a saloon and performance venue that functioned as an important meeting place for early ragtime musicians. Joe Jordan, Sam Patterson, and other performers were associated with the same musical community.
Chauvin and Patterson performed together as the vaudeville duo Chauvin and Patterson and helped form the Mozart Comedy Four. In 1903 they assembled the musical revue Dandy Coon, and they also composed The Moon Is Shining in the Skies. Their partnership brought Chauvin into traveling entertainment and popular song as well as instrumental ragtime.
In 1904 Chauvin and Patterson performed in St. Louis during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the world's fair held from April to December of that year. A performance sponsored by the St. Elizabeth Parish branch of the Catholic Knights of America took place at Turner's Hall on April 6, shortly before the exposition opened. Chauvin and Patterson also appeared at the Old Saint Louis beer hall on the fairgrounds' Pike.
Chauvin later collaborated with Scott Joplin on Heliotrope Bouquet, published by the Stark Music Printing and Publishing Company in 1907. The surviving music indicates that Chauvin supplied the first two sections while Joplin completed and harmonized the piece. Chauvin made no known phonograph recordings, and he died in Chicago on March 26, 1908, after a short life in which only a small number of his compositions were published.
Achievements
Chauvin co-composed Heliotrope Bouquet with Scott Joplin, contributing the musical material associated with the work's first two sections. Published in 1907, the piece became the principal surviving testament to Chauvin's compositional ability.
Works
musical revue
Dandy Coon
(Musical revue assembled by Chauvin and Sam Patterson for ...)
(Song co-composed with Sam Patterson and published during ...)
1903
Babe, It's Too Long Off
(Song with music by Chauvin and words by Elmer Bowman, pub...)
1906
Religion
Chauvin was raised in the Catholic community of St. Elizabeth Parish in St. Louis. He was baptized there on March 9, 1884, and confirmed on May 17, 1896, linking his family to one of the city's historic Black Catholic institutions.
St. Elizabeth Parish served African American Catholics in St. Louis during the period when the city's Black Catholic communities were developing religious, educational, and social institutions despite racial segregation. The parish's Catholic Knights of America branch later sponsored a 1904 performance by Chauvin and Sam Patterson.
Personality
Sam Patterson remembered Chauvin as physically delicate in appearance but energetic and strong in conduct. Patterson also described him as intensely devoted to the piano and as a musician whose improvisations could quickly disappear because he did not write them down.
Physical Characteristics:
Sam Patterson described Chauvin as approximately five feet five inches tall, weighing no more than 145 pounds, with fine features and long, tapering fingers.
Quotes from others about the person
Sam Patterson recalled that Chauvin could compose several strains in a single sitting, possessed distinctive harmonic ideas, and was far ahead of his contemporaries in musical conception.
Interests
Music & Bands
Ragtime and piano music.
Connections
Chauvin's principal documented musical connections were with Sam Patterson and Scott Joplin. Patterson was his performing partner in the Chauvin and Patterson duo and the Mozart Comedy Four, while Joplin was his collaborator on Heliotrope Bouquet.
Chauvin was also associated with Tom Turpin's Rosebud Café and with the wider St. Louis ragtime circle that included Joe Jordan. His family remained connected with St. Elizabeth Parish, whose Catholic Knights of America branch sponsored one of his 1904 performances.
Father:
Charles Chauvin
Mother:
Henrietta Mills Chauvin
She and Charles Chauvin raised a large family connected with St. Elizabeth Parish in St. Louis.
Collegue :
Sam Patterson
Chauvin's performing partner in the Chauvin and Patterson duo and the Mozart Comedy Four; they also co-created Dandy Coon and co-composed The Moon Is Shining in the Skies.
Collegue :
Scott Joplin
Collaborated with Chauvin on Heliotrope Bouquet, published in 1907.
References
Henrietta Mills and Her Family
Family and parish research documenting Louis Ignatius Chauvin's birth, baptism, confirmation, family background, St. Louis musical activity, 1904 performances, death, and burial.
2019
Louis Chauvin Biography
Biographical account of Chauvin's St. Louis performances, partnership with Sam Patterson, collaboration with Scott Joplin, published compositions, and death in Chicago.
Heliotrope Bouquet. A Slow Drag Two-Step
Catalog record for the sheet music co-authored by Scott Joplin and Louis Chauvin and published by the Stark Music Printing and Publishing Company.
