Kid Thomas Valentine

Thomas Valentine, commonly known as Kid Thomas (3 February, 1896 – 18 June, 1987) was a jazz trumpeter and bandleader.

Kid Thomas was born in Reserve, Louisiana and came to New Orleans in his youth. He gained a reputation as a hot trumpet man in the early 1920s. Starting in 1926 he led his own band, for decades based in the New Orleans suburb of Algiers, Louisiana. The band was long popular with local dancers.

Kid Thomas had perhaps the city's longest lasting old-style traditional jazz dance band. Unlike many other musicians, Thomas was unaffected by the influence of Louis Armstrong and later developments of jazz, continuing to play in his distinctive hot, bluesy sometimes percussive style. He was always open to playing the popular tunes of the day up into the rock & roll era, as he thought any good dance bandleader should do, played everything in a style of a New Orleans dance hall of the early 1920s.

Kid Thomas Valentine started attracting a wider following with his first recordings in the 1950s. His band played regularly at Preservation Hall from the 1960s through the 1980s.

In the mid 1980s, as Thomas's strength started to wane, he hired Wendell Brunious, at first as second trumpet; Brunious took over most of the trumpet playing in Thomas's final year or so, though Kid Thomas continued to lead the band, keep rhythm with a slap stick, and blow the occasional chorus if he was feeling up to it.

Kid Thomas Valentine died in New Orleans.