Joe "King" Oliver

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Joe "King" Oliver, (December 19, 1885 – April 10, 1938) was a bandleader and jazz musician.

Joseph "King" Oliver was born in Abend, Louisiana near Donaldsonville, and moved to New Orleans in his youth. Oliver played cornet in the New Orleans brass bands and dance bands and also in the city's red-light district, Storyville. The band he co-led with trombonist Kid Ory was considered New Orleans' hottest and best in the 1910s. Oliver achieved great popularity in New Orleans across economic and racial lines, and was in demand for playing jobs from rough working class black dance halls to white society debutante parties.

According to an interview at the Tulane's Hogan Jazz Archive with Oliver's widow Stella Oliver, in 1919 a fight broke out at a dance where Oliver was playing, and the police arrested Oliver and the band along with the fighters. This made Oliver decide to leave the Jim Crow South.

After travels in California, by 1922 Oliver was the jazz "King" in Chicago (see: Jazz royalty), with King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band performing at the Royal Gardens (later renamed the Lincoln Gardens). Virtually all the members of this band had notable solo careers. Personnel was Oliver on cornet, his protegé Louis Armstrong, second cornet, Baby Dodds, drums, Johnny Dodds, clarinet, Lil Hardin (later Armstrong's wife), on piano, Honore Dutray on trombone, and Bill Johnson, bass and banjo. Recordings made by this group in 1923 demonstrated the serious artistry of the New Orleans style of collective improvisation or Dixieland music to a wider audience.

In the mid and late 1920s Oliver's band transformed into a hybrid of the old New Orleans style jazz band and the nationally popular larger dance band, and was christened "King Oliver & His Dixie Syncopators". Oliver started to suffer from gum disease which started to diminish his playing abilities, but remained a popular band leader through the decade.

Unfortunately, Oliver's business acumen was less than his musical ability. A succession of managers stole money from him. He demanded more money for his band than the Savoy Ballroom was willing to pay, and lost the gig. In similar fashion, he lost the chance for an engagement at New York City's famous Cotton Club when he held out for more money; young Duke Ellington took the job and subsequently catapulted to fame.

The Great Depression was harsh to Oliver; he lost his life savings when a Chicago bank collapsed, as he struggled to keep his band together on a series of hand-to-mouth gigs until the band broke up and Oliver was stranded in Savannah, Georgia, where he worked as a janitor at Wimberly's Recreation Hall (526-528 West Broad Street) and died in poverty at a rooming house (508 Montgomery Street).

[edit] Oliver's Music

As a player, Oliver was extremely interested in altering his horn's sound. He pioneered in the use of mutes, including the plumber's plunger, derby hat, and bottles and cups in the bell of his horn. His recording "WaWaWa" with the Dixie Syncopators can be credited with giving the name wah-wah to such techniques.

Although Oliver performed mostly on cornet, the instrument is virtually identical to the trumpet. Some think that Oliver should be on the historical list of the greatest jazz trumpet innovators: Buddy Bolden, Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis.

Oliver was also noted as a composer, having written Armstrong's early hit, "Dippermouth Blues", as well as "Sweet Like This", "Canal Street Blues", and "Doctor Jazz", the latter virtually the theme song of Jelly Roll Morton, a frequent collaborator.

Louis Armstrong nicknamed Oliver calling him "Papa Joe". Oliver gave Armstrong the first cornet that Louis was to own. Armstrong called Oliver his idol and inspiration all his life. In Armstrong's autobiography, "Satchmo - My Life in New Orleans", he writes about Oliver:

It was my ambition to play as he did. I still think that if it had not been for Joe Oliver, Jazz would not be what it is today. He was a creator in his own right.