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On Thursday, October 28, 2010, the city of New Orleans lost a great man and a wonderful musician. The world will not be the same without Walter Payton Jr.

Born and raised in New Orleans’ Uptown neighborhoods, Walter’s first brushes with Preservation Hall came in the early sixties when Allan Jaffe would lend him his sousaphone for gigs with the Eureka, Apollo, and Olympia Brass Bands. After receiving advanced instruction from Robert Rohe at Xavier College, Walter went on to perform on several hit records, including Lee Dorsey’s “Working in a Coal Mine” and Aaron Neville’s “Tell It Like It Is.”

Walter Payton also served as a teacher in the New Orleans public school system for twenty-five years, where he had the opportunity to instruct a young Ben Jaffe in the ways of the bass.