JOE "KING" OLIVER
(1886 - 1938)
Joe "King" Oliver -- a
legend in Jazz history. As a trumpet player, he
was strongly influenced by Buddy
Bolden whom he imitated, but Oliver soon became
a Jazz stylist in his own right. In the end, the
designation of "king," which Bolden had long assumed,
became Oliver's -- particularly after one memorable
night in Storyville.
On that occasion, Oliver walked up and down Iberville
Street playing on his trumpet the most varied and
fanciful improvisations and defiantly pointing the
mouth of his trumpet toward the cabarets and
honky-tonks where such Freddie Keppard, trumpet, and
Emanuel Perez, cornet, held sway. They say that
on that night, lovers of Jazz music began to drift out
of all the honky-tonks to follow Joe Oliver on his
march through Storyville into the Aberdeen Cafe where
he was then performing. They overcrowded the
place to listen to Joe Oliver playing for hours at a
stretch.
Before he left for Chicago in 1918, Oliver had played
with various groups in which some of New Orleans best
loved Jazzmen could be found. Oliver was the
benefactor of young Louis Armstrong, and much that
young Armstrong learned about playing the trumpet in
his apprentice years in New Orleans was learned from
Oliver. As Armstrong later recalled: "We
got all of King Oliver's extra work. Joe was
looking out for this boy."
David Ewen - All the Years of
American Popular Music
