Lee Collins is one of the underrated and lesser-known New Orleans trumpet players, of whom Danny Barker has said that he was a sweetheart of Albertine McKay in the "District", who kept him "steady" by always carrying a .38 special loaded with dum-dum bullets!

He had a band in the 1920s which was based in New Orleans, but which also took around the surrounding towns for special engagements.

These sides might profitably be compared with those made by Louis Dumaine's Jazzola Eight two years earlier. These have veered from the typical New Orleans collective work and have ventured far into solo-ridden Jazz which became fashionable by 1929 - there is much in them comparable to the Harlem small-band Jazz of that time.

Taken from the book Recorded Jazz: A Critical Guide by Rex Harris and Brian Rust.