Lionel Ferbos | Jazz trumpeter, 103

Jazz musician Lionel Ferbos, 103, died Saturday at his home in New Orleans. His granddaughter, Lori Schexnayder, said the trumpeter died peacefully, surrounded by friends and family.

Mr. Ferbos performed all over his hometown of New Orleans and its suburbs for decades. His ability to read music made him an in-demand musician for gigs that took him to parks, schools, churches, dance halls, and even prisons. He also performed at his 102d birthday party and at every New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival until last year.

He was believed to be the oldest working jazz musician, performing regularly until last year. He turned 103 on Thursday. He had recently become too weak to hold his trumpet, but family members would occasionally hold it to his mouth so that he could blow into it, Schexnayder said.

Though he performed almost exclusively in the New Orleans area, Mr. Ferbos made eight tours of Europe with the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra, a group formed in the 1960s to revive the old music unearthed in the jazz archives at Tulane University.

He was also part of the original stage band of the off-Broadway hit One Mo' Time, though he dropped out of it in the '70s when it moved to New York. He didn't want to leave New Orleans, where he met his wife, Margarite Gilyot. The couple married in 1934 and remained so for 75 years - until her passing in January 2009.

Manual labor was as much a part of his life as music. Like many musicians of his time, Mr. Ferbos had a day trade. He worked for decades as a metal maker, first in his father's French Quarter workshop, then eventually taking over the family business and building his own workshop. - AP