Roots of jazz Chicago: Oliver and Armstrong
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The following tape recorded the presentation of the National Association of
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educational broadcasters.
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This is in this
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program we tell of King Oliver.
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Joe Oliver came to Chicago in 1980.
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He came up to Mississippi from New Orleans.
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He was the King when he left and became the King when he arrived.
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They brawling city jammed against the Southwestern shore of Lake Michigan.
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The Chicago River cuts through it like a giant crank the handle entering the lake the
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river bends sharply around the loops encircling quadrangle of elevated lines
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flowing down through the stockyards south of the loop bounded on the west by the
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yards and on the east by the lake in Chicago's negro district. This
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is where jazz was first heard when it came from the south since
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1911.
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The music of the South the music of New Orleans had been moving to Chicago
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since 1917 when the United States Navy closed Storyville
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after 20 years of notoriety. The musicians of New Orleans. Too many without
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jobs had been leaving in even larger numbers for the burgeoning
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cities of the north.
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I'm World War One. When the stock. Yes because the stockyards
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were busy you know what you call again the Hog Butcher of the world and it was more work. So Negroes
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came up nor many to work in the stockyards eyes they can nor the musicians came
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north too because back in those days the key audience for jazz was the negro maligns whites knew
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very little about a house out of the synthetic stuff they had heard of green and so
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when our team up north and he was one of the key bands of the time
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he brought a young trumpet man went on a million Armstrong and a young man named Johnny
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and baby dies and so Chicago became a very exciting city in the early 20s
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some of these musicians who moved to Chicago early with the itinerant piano
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players.
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Here is what the book jazz man has to say.
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There was music by a negro piano players who traveled from city to city getting
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their keep from the management and the pay from the clientele in tips and drinks
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a good town on the circuit. They had Chicago oftener and stayed longer.
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Toni Jackson Benjamin Harney and Jelly Roll Morton could be heard in the district regularly
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in the years around 1910 Doni Jackson had a band at the elite in 1910
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and wanted to go on Russell's in 1912.
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But by 1911 the wacky horn of jazz was there as the
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buddy BOWDEN of the Windy City Freddy kept ahd moved to town with the original
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Creole orchestra and later they played a tune for Chicago
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called Stuckey strut.
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That's the man
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the man who was afraid to report is everybody would
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be home.
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And.
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And
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Emmanuel Perez is Creole band visit in Chicago and the Negro
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newspaper The defender said that you heard Emanuel Prez's Creole band.
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Have you heard that wonderful jazz music that the people of Chicago are wild about the
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Original Dixieland Jazz Band led by Tom Brown was the first white
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Dixieland then and they popularized jazz in 1915.
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And in 1917 the New Orleans Rhythm Kings went north. But in
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1918 at the dreamland cafe. Playing From 8
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until 1 o'clock in the morning and at the Pekin cafe until 6:00 in the
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morning. The crown of jazz passed from Freddie can't Fahd to
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King of New Orleans.
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Joe Oliver Oliver was born in 1885 and only played in
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the children's brass band while in his teens. He did not enter a jazz group until around
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1995. For the next 10 years roughly he improved and when he
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joined Ortiz brown skin babies in one thousand fourteen or fifteen he was good enough to
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take over from papa might carry. It was only after he joined Henri that he
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eventually became King Oliver and shortly afterwards he went to Chicago where
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he found fame.
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Joe was a poor cornet player for a long time says bunk
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Johnson and Kid Ory said he was as rough as Peguy and
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he belonged to the second generation of New Orleans jazz man. He was not a pioneer
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but he developed a style and slowly a powerful tone which he
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augment it by the use of a variety of mutes might carry another
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muted cornet player says of Joe.
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He was the greatest phreak trumpet player I ever knew. He did most of his playing with
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cups glasses buckets and mutes. He was the best gut bucket man I ever heard.
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I called him freak because the sounds he made were not made by the valves but through these
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artificial devices.
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Go on.
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Uh.
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Huh.
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Joe came to Chicago in 1917 and for seven years success
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hounded his footsteps. He was really the king in
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1921 he played for a month in San Francisco and baby
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does drummer brother of Oliver's clarinetist Johnny Dodds
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join the band Inge Los Angeles direct from Fate Marable's
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riverboat band Joe was on the talk. He wasn't hard to get
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along with but he knew what he wanted of his bandsman and he meant to get it.
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Ramsey and Smith in the book Jasmine quote him as saying.
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I mean I want you to be a band man and a band man only and a warrior can for
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the welfare of the band in the line of playing your best at all times.
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They set on fire according to The Chicago Defender. But the band was
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homesick for the Windy City and they returned to play at the Lincoln Gardens on
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Thirty first Street people thronged to hear him and they had to
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rope off part of the dance floor and put in shit is for the listeners.
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And in 1922 King Oliver sent a Louis Armstrong
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and in his most recent book Satchmo Louis tells the story this way
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by the year nine hundred twenty two.
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I had become so popular from playing in good Henri's band and the Dixie doe brass band
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that I too could go into any part of New Orleans without being bothered. Everybody loved
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me and just wanted to hear me blow. Even the tough characters were no exception. The tougher
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they were the more they would fall in love with my horn. Just like those good old hustlers
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during the hockey days. Joe Oliver had left New Orleans in
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1018 and he was now up in Chicago doing real swell. It kept sending me
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letters and telegrams telling me to come up to Chicago and play second coronet for him that
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I knew would be a real heaven for me. I had made up my mind that I would not leave
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New Orleans unless the King sent for me. I would not risk leaving for anyone else.
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I had seen too many of my little pals leave home and come back in bad shape. Often their
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parents had to send them the money to come back with. I had such a wonderful three years on the
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excursion boats on the Mississippi that I did not dare cut out for some unknown character who might
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leave me stranded or get me into other trouble and distract us brothers
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that made it impossible for me to risk spoiling everything by running off on a wild goose chase.
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After I had made all my arrangements I definitely accepted Joe's offer and
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thus they came about the first great combination of musicians to record jazz
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history. They existed for two years 1922 to
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1924 king of Ancona at Louis Armstrong on second
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cornet. Do tree trombone Johnny Dodds clarinet succeeded by
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Busta Bailey and Jimmy knew little hadan piano Baby Dodds drum
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and Bill Johnson or Bud Scott on the banjo.
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Rex Harris in his book Jazz says Louis was no less a
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second cornet than a soloist or ensemble player. And some of the two cornet breaks
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that electrified dancers and listeners alike were indeed masterpieces of timed accuracy
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drive and polish. When musicians talk today of playing by ear they
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seldom think in terms of the tremendous standards set by Oliver. He and Louis would
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work out a break or a bridge passage in a matter of seconds during the playing of the actual
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number.
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Thank you.
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Probably the first song Louie have a plate on the horn was home sweet home. He learned it
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on a cornet in the colored waifs Home for Boys where the age of 13 he was
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confined by a juvenile court for firing a 38 during a New Orleans
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celebration of New Years. Mr. Peter Davis taught Louis how to blow the
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cornet and eventually Louie led the waifs home band. They even
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played in a street parade or two. He heard Buddy Bowden play and pronounced his
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tone as rough.
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You had bunk Johnson and credits him with the best song he heard Freddie kept odd
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and said Freddy had his own little traits which always interested in amused me
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whenever he played in a street parade. He used to cover his fingers with a pocket handkerchief so
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that the other cornet players wouldn't catch his stuff. Silly I thought but that
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was Freddie and everybody ate it up. There was no doubt about it.
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He had Tom and Louie peddled code for the CAA Andrews Coke company.
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He peddled it with a mule and cart. Lots of poor people used to pick up coal
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along the railroad tracks and sell it for five cents a cart. In the early days
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and years later Louis made a recording of a song which depicts this activity.
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It's called cocotte blues and it features one of the greatest pairs of jazz
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musicians still alive. Louis Armstrong on trumpet and Sidney
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Vishay on soprano sax. And here it is.
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Some.
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Way or a.
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Few. We. All
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know. What.
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I. Don't know.
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Thank you.
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In 1918 King all of the left New Orleans was Chicago and as Louis
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Armstrong was leaving the railroad station after seeing him off. Louis had a code of code to
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deliver a Kid Ory called to him. You still go in that corner and Little
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Louie fill the shoes of Joe Oliver in New Orleans in 1918
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Louis stopped delivering coke and later he began played with pompous Elliston in the
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tuxedo brass band and with great Marable on the riverboat Sidney. And by
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nineteen twenty two he was in Chicago and he was with the king King all of us.
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And he says in the closing paragraph of his book Satchmo I had hit
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the big time I was up north with the greats. I was playing with
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my idol the king. Joe Oliver my boyhood
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dream had come true at last.
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The two kings of the cornet played jazz together in Chicago and they are
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shootin the jazz. The term which means very little about
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music but a whole world about life during the 20th. Louis
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played with Joe for two years and then left the King went to New York and
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eventually lost his teeth and his spirit and his money. He died a
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pauper but Louis went right on blow and his songs are as
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brilliant today as they were 30 years ago.
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This has been Program number eight in a series on the roots of jazz in the United States
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in program number nine more of Louis Armstrong and of other negro
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artists in Chicago. The roots of jazz is written and produced by Norman Cleary.
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As the song technician is the reader.
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And this is Norman Cleary speaking.
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This is the end of the Radio Network.
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This program has been transcribed using automated software tools, made possible through a collaboration between the American Archive of Public Broadcasting and Pop Up Archive. Please note that no automated transcription is perfect nor is it intended to replace human transcription labor. If you would like to contribute corrections to this transcript, please contact MITH at mith@umd.edu.