'The cornet / trumpet players named Kelly were two, Chris Kelly, of whom there are no records and photographs and whose band played all over Louisiana, and Guy Kelly, who began his career playing with the Toots Johnson Band in Baton Rouge ....... ' (Carlo Simonettic, YouTube).

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"New Orleans, through the years, had some thirty-odd halls, each one incorporated, and most of them are active and standing today. Each of these halls had a different class distinction based on colour, family standing, money and religion. The most exclusive was the Jean Ami, which very few jazzmen ever entered - down to the Animal Hall, where even a washboard band was welcome if they could play the blues.

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So, Chris Kelly, who was dark of colour, low on finance, Baptist from birth, and cultured in the cornbrakes, never gave a thought to blowing his horn in the Jean Ami Hall and a dozen other amusement places.

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Chris could play slow, lowdown gut-struts until all the dancers were exhausted and dripping wet. His masterpiece was Careless Love, preached slow and softly with a plunger. He always played it at twelve o'clock, just before intermission. He'd blow a few bars before knocking off, and his fans would rush about, seeking their loves because that dance meant close embracing, cheek-to-cheek whisperings of love, kissing and belly-rubbing.

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The dance would always end up in a fight by some jealous lover who was dodged or who couldn't be found at Chris' signal. The moment the fisticuffs started, he would knock off a fast stomp that sounded like Dippermouth Blues .....

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Now, there was a caste system in New Orleans that's died out now. Each one of those caste systems had its own trumpet player, and Chris Kelly played for those blues, cotton-picking Negroes, what they called in the old days, 'yard and field' Negroes .......Chris would come on the job with a tuxedo, a red-striped shirt, a black tie, a brown derby, and a tan shoe and a black shoe. Whatever he picked up in the house before he left, that's what he wore. And nobody said anything to him because they wanted to see him. ...."

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Danny Barker in Hear Me Talkin' To Ya  Edited by Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff (1955)​