| Joseph "King" Oliver |
...
| King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, Chicago, 1920's Joseph Oliver was born on a plantation in Abends, LA in 1885, but moved to New Orleans as a young child. He started playing in the bars and brothels of Storyville at a young age. At one time, he and Kid Ory had a band. Oliver's reputation grew and people started referring to him as the "king." |
| By 1923, Oliver had sent for Louis Armstrong to come to Chicago to play in his Creole Jazz Band. All of the men pictured above were born, raised and first played their music in New Orleans. Above, Oliver is 4th from left, Buster Bailey, 3rd from left, Zue Robertson, 3rd from right, Louis Armstrong, 2nd from right, Rudy Jackson, right and Lil Harden, seated (by this time, Armstrong and Harden were married). Louis Armstrong called Oliver "Papa Joe" and said that he was greatly influenced by his music. |
| A young Louis Armstrong, left, and King Oliver King Oliver moved to New York in the 1920's, but a change in the way jazz was being played, some bad decisions and, eventually, bad health followed him. He ended up in Savannah, GA, no longer able to play to support himself. Louis Armstrong ran into Oliver there not long before he died. Armstrong said, "A little time after we left Savannah, the owner of a bar, an old fan, gave Joe a job cleaning up, emptying those cuspidors like the ones he used to tap his foot on...pretty soon, he died. People said it was a heart attack, but it was a broken heart. That's what killed Joe Oliver." Oliver was buried in an unmarked grave in Woodlawn Cemetery, New York. (From Tom Morgan at Offbeat.com) |
