© Introduction. Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.
At the time of its publication in 1939, Jazzmen edited by Frederic Ramsey Jr. and Charles Edward Smith, it was heralded by impresario John Hammond as “The first book to tell the truth about the great Jazz improvisers, with wonderful contributions by Wilder Hobson, Otis Ferguson and others.”
In 1939, recorded Jazz had only been available for 20 years and written information and criticism about Jazz and its makers was very much in its nascent period of development.
In this regard, the publication of Jazzmen was a big deal as further corroborated by Whitney Balliett, the long-standing Jazz essayist for The New Yorker:
"Two books turned on the first generation of American jazz fans. One was Hugues Panassie's Le Jazz Hot and the other Fred Ramsey's and Charlie Smith's Jazzmen. Both remain valuable - Le Jazz Hot for its uncanny early insights, and Jazzmen for its enthusiasms and we-were-there immediacy. More, the often extraordinary photographs in Jazzmen became for many of us as real as the subjects."
And Dan Morgenstern then DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE OF JAZZ STUDIES, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY” offered this assessment of the book:
"Part history, part romance, this landmark of a jazz book has stood the test of time, not least because it was a labor of love. To read Jazzmen was a moving experience, and I suspect it still has the power to move a new generation of readers.”
The following piece on Joe Oliver may indeed be “part history and part romance,” but it is a fascinating - albeit it a sad - read about one of the pioneers of the early history of Jazz in New Orleans. And since it was written from the vantage point of a decade or so after these events occurred, the amount of detail about the Jazz scene in Chicago during the decade of the 1920s and the rise and fall of “King” Joe Oliver’s career is quite astonishing.
© Copyright ® Frederic Ramsey Jr., copyright protected, all rights reserved., the author claims no right of copyright usage.
IN 1885, thirty-two years before the last mattress had been carried out of the cribs of Storyville into the clean air and the last hymn had been sung, Joseph Oliver was born in a house on Dryades Street. He was raised in the Garden District; his first years were marked by a series of moving-days which took his family from Dryades to Eighth Street, from Eighth Street to First, then to Second between Saratoga and Franklin, finally to Nashville and Coliseum Avenue, where his mother died, in 1900. This left Joe under the care of his half-sister, Victoria Davis, who had nursed him when he was a baby. It was while they were living on Second Street that a man persuaded the family to let Joe play in a children's brass band he was forming. At this time, Buddy Bolden's Band was in its prime, and Bunk Johnson was "puffing on his cornet" in a way that made everyone "real crazy." Bunk remembers that first band in which Joe Oliver played. He says:
Now here is the name of the man who started Joe out on cornet, Mr. Kenchen. I do not know what year Mr. Kenchen started his young band but as close as I can remember, it was about 1899 or 1900 I might be wrong but that's as near as I can get to it, now I think that was just about the time Mr. Kenchen started his young brass band uptown, learning them how to read music. Now Joe was a poor cornet player a long time. . . .
Joe's family says he was "slow to learn music," but that he wasn't really "poor a long time." Then they tell of the time the Kenchen band played at a birthday party given for Joe's year-old niece. It was a swell affair, with the band in good form. When they heard Joe play on that day, they knew that he was learning how to handle a cornet. After they had played, the boys finished up a fine birthday cake that Joe's sister had baked and trimmed with burning candles.
The "young brass band" became so accomplished that Mr. Kenchen decided it was time to go on tour. Families of the fifteen- and sixteen-year-old musicians objected, but were overruled by the boys themselves, who were itching to go. They set off on a riverboat, and landed at Baton Rouge. Then rumors came drifting back down the river about their adventures, making the families frantic with worry. No definite news was received, but there was one persistent story about a fight they had with a gang of river bullies. It was said Joe had a bad forehead-wound caused by "a lick on the haid" delivered by a wicked broomstick wielded by the enemy. Confirmation of this came when Joe arrived in New Orleans with a scar over one eye which stayed with him throughout his life. After the trip, Joe settled down to less exciting work. He found a job as a butler for a family of white people. Bunk tells about it:
Walter Brundy and I, we used to go up to Second and Magazine where he was working on the premises, and I used to help Joe a great deal in his cornet playing. The music that Joe had was too hard for him to play. I would make Brundy talk to him, and I would steal it and bring it to our band and we would play it. Now here is the first orchestra Joe played with, that was the old Eagle Band. Now here is the name of the men who were in it when Joe got in the band: James Philip, drummer; Frank Duson, trombone, Joe Oliver, cornet; Frank Lewis, clarinet; Alcide Frank Vilion; Brock Mumford, guitar; Bob Lyons, bass. If I am not wrong, Joe played with them about two years to my knowing.
His employers must have understood Joe's interest in music. Whenever he wanted to play, they accepted his substitute, a young boy whom he trained as butler. Playing with the Eagle Band, which was composed of older men for the most part, was hard on Joe. They sent him home from his first job with them, he "played so loud and so bad," according to one of the men who heard him on that day. The trouble with the Eagle Band was that it "flew high," and disregarded the written notes. Joe hadn't played this kind of music before, but it wasn't hard to work into it, for he had a natural feeling for this style. Soon he became known for a variation he played on the old hymn, Sing On; someone always requested it at any one of the many funerals and picnics held by the clubs and associations to which he belonged. Bunk was playing blues and stomps for all he was worth; Joe listened to Bunk, and came out a little later with a stomp of his own, called Dippermouth. Whenever a crowd caught sight of Joe Oliver in a street band, they "clapped and hollered at him" until he eased their minds with some choruses of Dippermouth. Bunk Johnson continues:
Now here is where Joe got well; when he crossed Canal Street and became a member of the Onward Brass Band with Manuel Perez, then he got real good and has been going ever since.
In the Onward Band, then later in his own band, Joe added a little more to his growing reputation. For the Oliver Band was the best brass band, the one that attracted the biggest army of kids, the one that always came last; for they had to clear the streets for Oliver when he came marching up under the hot summer sun, his cornet glistening while he played.
Like most enterprising musicians of that period, Perez, besides leading his own Onward Band, had a job in Storyville, at Rice's Hall. So it wasn't long before Joe Oliver "crossed Canal Street" as all the others had done. When he did cross, he found himself in a district that was working full time, wide open night and day, entirely different from his own respectable home territory. Some time went by before he got "real good." But there were so many dance halls and cabarets in and around "the district,” such as the 101 Ranch, Parker's, Fewclothes's, Tom Anderson's, Odd Fellows' Hall, Hope Hall, and Economy Hall which needed musicians, that a young man like Joe who wanted to play all the time just couldn't miss.
But first he had to prove his talent to these men who played in Storyville, for their ears were used to Bolden, to Bunk, Keppard, and Perez; these were the ones they talked about, the ones they admired. Joe was playing with a small band at the Aberdeen Brothers', a cabaret on the corner of Bienville and Marais Streets. With him were Big Eye Louis, clarinet; Deedee Chandler, drums; Richard Jones, piano. Jones says something got into Joe one night as he sat quietly in the corner and listened to the musicians who were praising Keppard and Perez. He was infuriated by their tiresome adulation; didn't they know that Joe Oliver could play a cornet, too? So he came forth from his silence, strode to the piano, and said, "Jones, beat it out in B Flat." Jones began to beat, and Joe began to blow. The notes tore out clear as a bell, crisp and clean. He played as he never had before, filling the little dance hall with low, throbbing blues. Jones backed him with a slow, steady beat. With this rhythm behind him, Joe walked straight through the hall, out onto the sidewalk. There was no mistaking what he meant when he pointed his cornet, first towards Pete Lala's, where Keppard played, then directly across the street, to where Perez was working. A few hot blasts brought crowds out of both joints; they saw Joe Oliver on the sidewalk, playing as if he would blow down every house on the street. Soon every rathole and crib down the line was deserted by its patrons, who came running up to Joe, bewitched by his cornet. When the last joint had poured out its crew, he turned around and led the crowd into Aberdeen's, where he walked to the stand, breathless, excited, and opened his mouth wide to let out the big, important words that were boiling in his head. But all he could say was, "There! that'll show 'em!"
After that night, they never called him anything but "King" Oliver. He moved fast, once he was on the way; soon he was leading the band at Lala's Cabaret. It was one of the best in New Orleans, with Lorenzo Tio, clarinet; Zue Robinson, trombone; Buddy Christian, piano; Zino, drums; and Oliver, cornet. Lala's was a landmark to all who came to Storyville; the lights that shone forth on warm summer nights from the corner of Marais and Iberville Streets drew crowds of tourists, just as the street lamp above drew moths and gnats. Inside the low, smoky room, the musicians sweated for their bread, delivering "gully-low" stomps and blues, the kind that the respectable "dicty" people pretended to hate, but yelled for as soon as they had a few drinks under their belts. When the dawn lights came up and the street lights began to flicker, when the last drunk had been swept out of the place, the jazzmen of Storyville came out of their dance halls and walked over to Pete Lala's. There they hung their hats, dug out their instruments, and blew in the dawn. When they had finished, they picked up their things and went slowly home through the silent rows of shuttered cribs and gingerbread palaces. At this hour, Marais Street smelled like a fetid marsh, as the musty odor of the good time flats rose and mingled with the morning mist.
By the time a war decree closed the pleasure domes run by the ladies of Basin Street, Joe Oliver had a name, he was a famous cornetist, a "King." Nevertheless, he had to find a place to play in, a dive where he could earn his living. For King Oliver, as well as for many another New Orleans musician, Chicago was the answer.
Chicagoans who lived by day first saw Joe Oliver when he was playing in a cart under the El pillars of the Loop. The city was keyed high with war-time tension, teeming with parades. Joe and his friends had volunteered to play for a campaign to sell Liberty Bonds. They hired a cart, climbed into it and put on a "New Orleans Jazz Jam" on Wabash Street for the crowds that swarmed through the Loop. The "tail gate" trombone was something new to Chicagoans, something they didn't forget. They began to inquire about this band, and to seek it out in its home territory on the South Side. For Chicagoans who lived by night, the band was not such a novelty; they had already discovered Joe playing in two South Side night spots.
The story of how Joe Oliver got two jobs at the same time is one of rivalry between members of two famous New Orleans bands. The whole thing began when the Original Creole Band, a group of jazz pioneers that had left New Orleans in 1911, had balked at having to play a new, long series of road engagements. They wanted a place to sit down in, some cabaret that would keep them from the grind of one-night stands. Bill Johnson, their string bass player, angled for such a job, and was successful in obtaining an offer of steady work at the Royal Gardens Cafe, to become effective when and if he could recruit a band. With this promise behind him, he called on Jimmy Noone, clarinet; Eddie Venson, trombone; Paul Barbarin, drums; and Lottie Taylor, pianist. That was good, but not quite good enough to make the grade. They had to have a cornetist, a really first-rate one, because there was a group of New Orleans musicians over at the Dreamland Cafe that mustn't get a chance to cut their stuff. Then they thought of Joe Oliver, who seemed right for the job. So they sent off a telegram, knowing that if King Joe came up, they needn't worry about anyone else.
Unfortunately, as soon as the word leaked out that he was on his way, the gang at the Dreamland decided that they wanted Joe, too. Sugar Johnny, their cornetist, had burned himself out with liquor and ladies. So Lawrence Dewey, the leader, hatched a plot to bring Oliver into his band. On the day Oliver arrived, he and Sidney Bechet, an old friend of Joe's, would meet him at the station and make
a big fuss over him; as a result of this display of friendship, Joe would just naturally join their band in the Dreamland. The final details were in order the night before Joe's arrival. Lawrence didn't gamble on the chance that Sidney might get out of bed in time to meet an early morning train; he persuaded Bechet to spend the night in his home, where he could be sure to wake him in time. The dawn of the next day found them both up, anxiously hurrying over to the station to carry out their plan. They received a rude shock when they came up on the platform. For there, standing half-asleep behind one of the pillars, was Eddie Venson, of the Royal Gardens faction. Quickly, they ducked out of sight behind another pillar, pretending they had never seen Eddie Venson, or anyone like him. Just as they did this, the train pulled in. Each faction moved swiftly forward, no longer able to dodge behind pillars. The two groups met at King Oliver, who was neutral ground, at least for the time being.
"Why, hullo, Venson, where did you come from?" " 'Morning, Dewey, didn't count on meetin' you here!" Joe didn't know what that meant, but he found out. Both the Dreamland and the Royal Gardens needed a "King" on cornet, and there was only one to go around. This called for serious deliberation; so they all went to the nearest bar for a drink. Their solution, which had a lasting effect upon the course of Chicago jazz, was profoundly simple. Joe joined both bands.
Officially, Venson won his point, for he had completed an orchestra, with the King as his cornetist. And this group did open shortly after in the Royal Gardens. Yet Oliver doubled at the Dreamland with Dewey and his New Orleans Jazz Band.
Other cornet players had come to Chicago before Joe, but they all had to take a back seat as his reputation spread out from the South Side. Freddie Keppard dropped in at the Royal Gardens to see how the new orchestra was getting along.
A battle of cornets followed, a duel that was a triumph for Oliver. It was agreed, in the words of Richard M. Jones, that "Joe Oliver beat the socks off Keppard when he got to Chicago."
Every week brought a new triumph for Oliver.
This was the time of Chicago's high-tide post-war fever; of crowds that flocked down to hear the amazing Creole Jazz Band that was setting the tempo of the South Side; of the Royal Garden Blues, first composed and played by this orchestra in the building that is now a Government flop-house; of Prohibition that was no prohibition; of house-rent parties that started early and broke up late, perhaps the next day, perhaps the day after. It was great to be a cheerful, successful cornetist from 'way down the river, when it was just right if you could loaf all day long, then go to work and blow the insides out of the Royal Gardens while the dancers yelled for more and more and more. With all this excitement around him, Joe remained the same mild, kind-hearted person he had been in New Orleans, and held on to the simple things he had always liked. His only excesses were in the way of food; for breakfast, he ate huge portions of hominy, washed down with a large pitcher of water. At lunchtime, he took a crack at his favorite meal: half-a-dozen hamburgers and a quart of milk. Once a man saw him putting away one of these lunches, and bet that he couldn't eat a dozen pies at one sitting. Joe took him up, side-bets were placed, and he began. He didn't crack a smile until the eleventh pie, then paused to look at the surrounding circle of eyes that were getting bigger and bigger; at this, the stranger was sure of victory. But the twelfth pie went down on the next round. The chagrined loser was astounded. Between meals, Joe liked to play pool, while Sundays always found him out at the ball park with the children he invariably took with him.
Two years of this life, mixed with the work at the Dreamland and the Royal Gardens, rolled by; then in 1920, an offer came from the Dreamland. If he could organize his own band, he could play there all the time, and give up the work at the Royal Gardens. So he recruited his players. One of the first persons he chose was the pianist Lil Hardin, a bright young girl who had come up from Memphis in 1917 to continue musical studies begun at Fiske University, and had been sidetracked into jazz, almost without realizing what had happened. Lil had been playing with the old Dreamland orchestra. Besides "Lilly," as the boys called her, Joe took on Honore Dutrey, trombone; Minor Hall, drums; Ed Garland, bass. Noone struck out on his own, leaving them without a clarinet. A few nights later, a new face appeared in the Dreamland when a serious-looking young man came strolling over to the stand where the members of the band were sitting, and began to undo the newspaper wrapping from a long bundle under his arm. When he came to the last layer of paper, Johnny Dodds took out a shiny, black, B Flat clarinet, smiled shyly as King Joe shook his hand and asked him how he'd liked the train ride from New Orleans to Chicago.
This new orchestra came into the Dreamland every night at 9:30; by 10 o'clock, King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band were going fast and hard. They didn't stop until 1 A.M., when they packed instruments and moved seven blocks down the street to the Pekin Cafe. The rambling hulk of the old Pekin Theatre had been a respectable place, once; but it was remodeled into a night-club, with a large, comfortable bar on the ground floor and a cabaret in the room overhead. The down-grade days of the Pekin Theatre were up-grade for the Pekin Cafe, with a large gangster patronage that wasn't squeamish about spending money. They gave out their best in brawls that shook the floors and left the glassware in shattered bits. Bathtub booze was easy to get; the fights it inspired meant anything from relatively harmless gin-bottle tossing to gunplay. No one ever thought of restraining these outpourings of feeling.
Perhaps the members of the Creole Jazz Band wanted to get away from the bullet-laden atmosphere of the Pekin, perhaps they felt a need for a different brand of excitement; whatever their reasons, the end of May, 1921, saw the little group heading for California.
The contract with the Pergola Dancing Pavilion of San Francisco called for a seven-piece orchestra, consisting of Joe Oliver, Honore Dutrey, John Dodds, Lillian Hardin, Minor Hall, Edward Garland, and James Palao: "said band shall play continuously, dance music as played in so-called 'nickel dances,' as directed by the party of the first part, between 8 and 12 P.M." The contract covered a six-month period extending from June, 1921, to December. At the end of this time, Lil returned to Chicago for a vacation from nickel dances. Minor Hall left, too, because he and Joe hadn't been able to get along very well. If anyone fell out with the King, it was up to that person to get out at the same time; that is how Joe kept discipline in his small, close-knit unit. "This is a matter of business," he once wrote, "I mean I wants you to be a band man, and a band man only, and do all you can for the welfair of the band in the line of playing your best at all times." When Hall left, Joe asked Baby Dodds, Johnny's brother, if he wouldn't like to give up his work on the steamboat St. Paul and play with the Creole Band. Joe never had any trouble replacing a player who left, because he was on top; any one of a number of his New Orleans friends was always glad of a chance to join him.
The band swept on to Los Angeles with a full complement of Dodds brothers. There, Jelly Roll Morton asked the group to join him for a night at the Wayside Park. Los Angeles cake-walkers had never heard anything like the music of the Creole Jazz Band before; they flocked to hear the strange, compelling sounds that came from the familiar bandstand, while word of the new triumph filtered back to the Defender, Chicago's Negro newspaper:
King Oliver set Los Angeles on fire. He was offered all kinds of inducements to stay, and the highest salary ever offered anyone. All Los Angeles says he's the greatest, and some hot babies have been here the past year.
But "the highest salary ever offered anyone" wasn't enough to keep the men away from Chicago. They came back after an absence of a year, and moved straight into the Lincoln Gardens Cafe. This was nothing but the old Royal Gardens with a fresh coat of paint and a new name.
At this time, Chicagoans who knew their jazz were unanimous in their opinion that King Oliver was the greatest cornetist ever to play in Chicago. There was only one challenge ever put up to this fact. That was a rumor, a story about a young fellow called Louis Armstrong. When King Oliver left New Orleans, he had seen to it that "little Louis" succeeded him as cornetist at Lala's Cabaret. Now they said that Louis was doing more than just "making good" on King Joe's old job. That seemed to be a fine thing to Joe. He was proud of Louis, and of what he had done for him. Let him come to Chicago, then, and they could give the town an idea of what two cornetists from New Orleans could do. So a wire went to Louis; it caught him in mid-afternoon of a hot July day, just as he had finished marching with the Tuxedo Band for a funeral. Louis didn't have to be persuaded; he was in a hurry to get to Chicago. When he arrived at the Lincoln Gardens, Louis made all the stories that had preceded him come true.
The home of the Lincoln Gardens Cafe was a tall, thin building, with scrolls cut in the stone of the sharply peaked gable where it lapped onto the second story. The facade of the two top floors bulged with lumpish balconies that looked dourly down on 31st Street through swollen, bay-window eyes. Underneath these eyes, two round, ugly arches drooped over the entrance to the ground floor. Once inside those arches, weary wanderers through Chicago's night life received a shock that stiffened their backs, as the low-down voice of the bayou came blasting forth at them from the horns of Joe Oliver and Louis Armstrong.
For this cry from the faraway swampland tore at faint hearts as they passed through the dark, narrow hall. The entrance-hall led into a large, dimly lighted room whose edges faded off under a balcony built out from the second story. The dancers on the floor bounced with rhythm as the cornet team polished off a break.
There were no waltzes played at the Lincoln Gardens; the customers liked the Bunny-hug, the Charleston, the Black Bottom. A stomp ended; a minute's silence broke in on the din, then Joe tooted a few notes down low to the orchestra, stomped his feet to give the beat, turned around, and they were off on a new piece, first impatient for a release from the stiffness of the opening bars, then relieved to be tearing through fast and loud in their own way. Lil Hardin hit hard on her four beats to a measure, while the deep beat of Bill Johnson's string bass and the clearly defined foundation of Baby Dodds' drum and high-toned, biting cymbal filled out the "bounce" and kept the others sweeping forward. This motion led to a climax, a point beyond which the breathless pace of the music seemed doomed to fall, unless something would intervene. Then Joe and Louis stepped out, and one of their "breaks" came rolling out of the two short horns, fiercely and flawlessly.
These breaks puzzled audiences that crowded around the stand at the Lincoln Gardens. No one understood how Joe and Louis could play together without looking at each other, or without written music at all, yet run through a break and not clash on a single note. They never did discover how this happened. They watched the team while it was in action, and failed to see any signals. It was a mystery. But it was easy for Louis and "Papa Joe."
A chorus or two before they rose to play, Joe leaned over to Louis and half-sang, half-whispered the tune of the next break in his ear. When the time came, he nodded to Louis, and they cracked it out without a miss. As for knowing when the time had come, that was something you couldn't write down, it had to be felt. This stunt required two men with remarkably keen ears. That's what Jelly Roll Morton means when he talks about King Oliver:
My God, what a memory that man had. I used to play a piano chorus, something like King Porter or Tomcat, and Oliver would take the thing and remember every note. You can't find men like that today.
There wasn't much music on the stands, just a few scribbled-over sheets with no titles at the top. Joe had them torn off, because he didn't want the other musicians who came to listen to know what his men were playing. The white band at the Friars' Inn had already put one over on him. These men had carefully listened to the way the Creole brethren played the Jazzin' Babies Blues, then recorded it as an original tune of their own. Their only "original" contribution was the title, Tin Roof Blues.
However, the thing that counted more than the melody with King Oliver's men was their way of playing in and around it in duels of expression. This form of improvisation stimulated intensity of expression from each player. Today, it is almost a lost art, buried in large dance orchestras of technically proficient readers who cling desperately to a written score. The Creole Band never worried much about scores, it didn't have to, with musicians who knew how much to contribute in the way of solos, and when to stop. Each had a true feeling for the right notes at the right time. There was not so much interest in showing off individual talent, as in creating well-balanced ensemble music, and the powerful effect that inevitably comes from such playing. It was here that Johnny Dodds played an important part in holding the music together. The clear notes of his clarinet sang against the pattern set by the others at one moment, then blended with it, providing a splendid background for solos. His tone was full, complemented by perfect control in the upper register, a stumbling-block for most clarinetists.
Another contributor to the unusual strength of the ensemble work was Honore Dutrey, the trombone player. Dutrey freed the trombone from the requirements set for it as a foundation instrument that backed up the rhythm section with an "oompah" that rivaled the tuba, and in so doing, added a powerful voice to the Creole Jazz Band. With King Oliver playing first cornet and Louis Armstrong second, no more voices were needed. The rhythm section could be counted on for a clear, forceful beat unmarred by any display of purely technical virtuosity. The band gained from the absence of saxophones, for the players of this instrument could hardly be said to have developed a hot style at that time. It is no wonder, then, that this Creole Jazz Band left a clear impression on the minds of all who heard it, as can be seen by a note published years later in the Chicago Defender:
King Oliver, whose name today brings pleasant memories, was located at the Lincoln Gardens Cafe and Dance Hall. With his little six-piece band he startled white musicians. From all over the city they would gather to hear King Joe blow those weird, soulful tunes. He was really a profitable asset to the place. Later on, he brought Louis Armstrong, a green-looking country boy with a big forehead, thin lips and robust physique. This newcomer brought us an entirely different style of playing than King Joe had given us. He was younger, had more power of delivery, and could send his stuff out with a knack.
Fortunately, the period during which the "newcomer" was "sending his stuff out with a knack" was one of great activity in the recording studios. King Oliver and his orchestra waxed their initial set of records for the Paramount Company, but these sides were not the first to go on sale. The first to be released were made while the band was touring through southern Indiana, and had dropped in for a few days of recording at the studios of the Starr Piano Company in Richmond. They cut a total of ten sides, one right after the other. There was nothing but a horn for the men to play into, for this was before the days of electrical recording. Even under the best of circumstances, it was difficult for the engineers to get a proper balance of instruments, as may be seen from the instruction sheet which they gave the musicians:
We start work by making a short test which is immediately played back to the performer from the wax and from that we begin to judge positions and tone and arrangement of music and everything that is necessary to make a good record. After the faults have been found we try another test wax and still another, etc.—if necessary will use one hundred test waxes in a date although this would be almost a physical impossibility—however, when we have played back a wax that sounds perfect, we begin to make a master—we make three masters of each number tested out.
When the King Oliver Jazz Band cut loose in the small studio on the warm April day chosen for the session, it nearly smashed the recording machinery on the first test. So the engineers had to do some quick figuring over "positions and tone and arrangement of music" before the date could proceed. They saved the day by moving the real threats to their machinery, Joe and Louis, twenty feet away from the horn. Under these conditions, Louis Armstrong recorded a solo for the first time in his life, exactly as it can be heard today by anyone lucky enough to possess a copy of the Gennett Chimes Blues.
In June, 1923, the Spikes Brothers announced that they had copies of this record for sale in their Los Angeles store. As soon as the market quickened with the demands made throughout the United States for these records, the Paramount Company proceeded to press its masters. The Okeh Company then announced in the Defender:
King Oliver's Jazz Orchestra, Chicago's big favorites, make first Okeh records. For years, King Oliver's Band has served up jazz to thousands at the Lincoln Gardens, Chicago's dazzling cabaret, but man alive, can't these boys play it, say it in true blues harmony. Why, they are the ones who put jazz on the map.
The Columbia Phonograph Company was next, with four new sides and the claim that "Nobody ever heard music like these boys can play it."
But after February 1924, the only way to hear music "like these boys can play it" was to purchase the records made in the previous year. For the band "that put jazz on the map" was completely broken up shortly after the last Columbia recording session. Many reasons have been given for this split at a time when the band was in its prime. Some say that the regular members of the band complained bitterly because Joe arranged for a second recording session with Gennett, but used different musicians for the date. Yet when the records were issued, the company was still using the name "King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band," which the original group had made famous. It was said, too, that Oliver could no longer play with his former force. Joe felt this, himself. It came home to him every time that Louis Armstrong put a cornet to his strong lips and blew with all the wind his young lungs could force through the mouthpiece. At 24, Louis could put the freshness and vigor of youth into his playing. Joe Oliver had been 24 years old in 1909. He realized this, and as there was no resentment in his nature, he was proud of his second cornetist. When Louis arrived in Chicago, Joe had talked about him with Lil Hardin, and opened her eyes to the ability of the "green-looking country boy." Louis called Oliver "Papa Joe" because of the kind treatment he received from him. When other musicians talked about Armstrong, and asked Joe what he could do with a second cornetist who was going ahead so quickly, Joe smiled quietly and said: "As long as he's in my band, he won't hurt me." He was right. As long as Louis' youth and strength worked for him every night, he had nothing to fear.
Possibly the others in King Oliver's Orchestra felt that he wasn't giving Armstrong a chance to forge ahead, possibly they were tired of playing under one man for so long. Whatever their reasons, when Oliver wanted to go on a tour through Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania early in 1924, the Dodds brothers and Dutrey voted to stay behind to fill the job left open at the Lincoln Gardens when Oliver left. Louis and Lil Hardin stuck with Joe and made the trip. For his tour, Joe added new players, including Buddy Christian, banjo; John Lindsay, bass; Albert Nicholas, clarinet; and Rudy Jackson, clarinet and saxophone. Jackson later joined "Duke" Ellington. This was the first large orchestra Oliver ever had.
When he returned to Chicago in June, the Dodds-Dutrey combination moved out of the Lincoln Gardens into The Stables, where it stayed for several years. At this time, Armstrong left King Joe. This was something that had been brewing for months. In February, Lil and Louis had been married. Lil was ambitious for her husband, and had obtained an offer for him from Ollie Powers, who promised to give Louis more money, and a chance to play first cornet. Louis made the shift, leaving Joe terribly disturbed. As Lil stayed on with Oliver, she was subjected to many worried inquiries. Whenever Lil told him that Armstrong was doing very well, he grunted, pretended he didn't care, then said, "What does Louis think he's gonna do there, all by himself, without us? He'll find out, he'll have to come back." But Louis Armstrong never had to come back.
When Fall came, business was not what it had once been at the Lincoln Gardens, and the management decided to stay open for the three best nights of the week, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, but to close the rest of the time. So on September 6, 1924, the Defender carried a notice Joe had inserted:
AT LIBERTY. The celebrated KING OLIVER'S JAZZ BAND 8 men playing 15 instruments. Open for engagements in or out of Chicago. Joseph Oliver, 3033 South State Street, Chicago.
Before this date, Joe had never had particularly good luck. But by sticking close to his idea of being "a band man, and a band man only," he had managed to reach the top of his profession, and to gather together an orchestra that deserved all the fame and money that came to it. Henceforth, he was trailed by misfortunes which dogged him and pulled him down. This never stopped him; he went on trying to organize one band after another, sometimes meeting with fair success, only to have someone else come along and draw the musicians in his orchestra away from him. Whenever everything seemed to be going fairly well, there was sure to be some particularly unfair blow from an unexpected source. At times it must have seemed that regardless of how hard he tried, the cards were stacked against him. Yet he was so cheerful during his misfortunes that few people ever suspected what was happening.
The first discouraging set-back occurred while he was trying to recruit a new band. The Lincoln Gardens planned to bring in the crowds again with a "bigger and better" interior, to be shown at a gala "opening" to be held on Christmas Eve. Luis Russell, Paul Barbarin, Albert Nicholas, and Barney Bigard were with Charlie Cook at Harmon's Dreamland Casino; they agreed to play with Joe when the opening at the Gardens materialized. The Gardens opened on Christmas Eve, but someone was careless, a fire flamed up, and before the evening was over, the interior was completely gutted.
This left every musician to shift for himself. Joe found work as featured soloist with Peyton's Symphonic Syncopators, at the Plantation Cafe, where he was billed as "the world's greatest jazz cornetist." It was all right to be a featured soloist, but it wasn't like having a band of your own. The other musicians teased him about his work under another man. Peyton, who was quite friendly to Joe, nevertheless couldn't refrain from stressing his unaccustomed position as leader of an orchestra that Joe Oliver played in. One night when Joe had finished a set and was preparing to light a cigarette on the stand, Peyton came over to him and said, "Hey, Joe, you can't smoke here in my band, you know. If you want to smoke, you have to go outside while you're workin' for me." The "world's greatest jazz cornetist" slowly rose and went out to finish his cigarette.
Happily, the "symphonic" days didn't last long. At the end of February, 1925, the Symphonic Syncopators left the Plantation, and Joe was able to secure the men he had wanted for so many months. Luis Russell, piano; Cobb, bass; Scott, banjo; Barbarin, drums, made a strong rhythm section; Nicholas and Bigard were an excellent reed team, while Ory played the kind of "tail gate" trombone Joe always liked to have beside him. This band became so popular that outside offers began to come in. They played in May for a dance at Crane College. In August, Faggen, an Eastern manager, wanted Oliver to bring his band to the Rosemont Dance Hall, "a beautiful ballroom in Brooklyn, playing the leading attractions of the country."
In April, 1926, the Vocalion Company contracted for a series of recordings. "All of them are red-hot, and they'll come out soon," was the way the Defender described the test pressings. They came out soon, but they weren't all red-hot. The Dixie Syncopators was a large orchestra; it could not play the swiftly moving, well-integrated jazz that comes from smaller groups. With the possible exception of
Sugar Foot Stomp, the sweeping phrases, breaks, and ensemble passages with which the early Creole Jazz Band had so astounded its audiences do not come forth from the grooves of these records. Yet Joe was fairly well pleased with them, as may be seen from a letter he wrote to Buddie Petit in May:
Dear Sir:
I recieve your letter which was quite a surprise to hear from you. At the same time, I was glad to get a line from you. I'm always glad to hear from my old friends and know that they are doing fine. Yes, I'm in the big windy city, and doing pretty good for an old man. Only trying to hold my end with the youngsters, that's all. You ask me about Louis eh? Well, he work across the street from me, but I seldom see him. Have you heard my late record Snag It on the Vocalion record? It isn't a very good recording, as they released the wrong number. See we make three master records and they select the best one of the three to put on sale. My luck were they picked the worst one. At that the record is selling like hot pies.
If you've got a real good blues, have someone to write it just as you play them and send them to me, we can make some jack on them. Now, have the blues wrote down just as you can play them, it's the originality that counts. By the way, what become of Bunk? I would like very much to hear from him. Well, I won't take up any more of your time. I will close hope to hear from you real soon.
Sincerely yours Jos. Oliver
With Louis playing at the old Sunset Cafe, 35th Street could boast of having two "Kings of Hot Jazz on the Cornet" in the same block, with a fire department waiting around the corner to rush in and cool things off when the music became too hot. At least, that's what they claimed in the Defender. This same sheet then assumed the solemn duty of warning all musicians against the day when jazz would be on the way out. "They're getting ready for the grey-haired days," Dave Peyton thundered, "at last the boys are beginning to see the handwriting on the wall. Luis Russell and Bob Schoffner of King Oliver's Band are studying musical theory."
Peyton's reputation as a prophet must have increased considerably when in January, 1927, Schoffner received a short, specific note:
Dear Sir and Bro:
I wish to inform you that two weeks from the above date you will be available for any engagement you may secure, as your services will be no longer required with King Oliver's Dixie Syncopators. Kindly accept this as a legal two weeks notice. Wish you
luck and success.
fraternally yours,
Joseph Oliver
Peyton was right, too, when he talked about the "grey-haired days." Musicians were hard hit, not by old age, but by their own depression, which came two years before the business crisis. Republicans were still very sure there really was a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage, but somehow this didn't apply to musicians. The nation-wide installation of talking movie machinery was putting them out of work, and nothing was being done about it.
Even the relatively good position of the men at the Plantation was far from ideal. The contract called for work during the week from 9:30 P.M. to 4:30 A.M., and on Saturday nights the hours were even longer. Joe found it difficult to hold his men. Albert Nicholas and Darnell Howard threatened to go to China to follow Teddy Weatherford, who had discovered that American sailors far from home were willing to pay good money to hear hot jazz. Joe wrote to New York and asked Rudy Jackson if he and Buster Bailey wouldn't come on to Chicago and work for him. They never came.
In spite of his heavy schedule at the Plantation, Joe decided to enter the field of music publishing. A notice in the Defender of April, 1926, said that "King Oliver, writer of Snag It, can be seen in his office at the Plantation from 2 to 4:30 every afternoon." Joe had always shown an interest in writing down melodies as he heard them sung or played in the South. He often adapted traditional blues themes and songs for his orchestra to play. Later, when some of these early themes were recorded by the Creole Jazz Band, he and Lil Hardin arranged them, obtained a copyright, and they were then published. The title to these melodies was never really clear, as many of them had been sung in Texas, on the Gulf Coast and in the South generally, long before jazz bands developed in New Orleans. Yet it is true that Joe Oliver took as important a part in spreading the influence of these blues as anyone, certainly as much as the other notators who claim priority in this field. A proof of the validity of his early work is to be had in the frequency with which some of the themes he first introduced keep recurring. Five years after he had copyrighted and recorded a melody entitled Camp Meeting Blues, Oliver was very surprised to hear a record by Duke Ellington's Orchestra, Creole Love Call, which was built around the theme of the older Camp Meeting Blues. Looking at the label, he saw that Ellington, Miley, and Rudy Jackson were listed as composers, but his own name was omitted. The same thing happened later when a group of white musicians made a record which they titled, appropriately enough under the circumstances, Apologies, for apologies were certainly due to Oliver for use of his Dippermouth theme. Yet the name of the composer-arranger on this label simply reads "Mezzrow." Later still, the Bob Crosby Orchestra released a record, Dixieland Shuffle, which is closely patterned after the earlier version the Creole Jazz Band made for the Okeh Company, Riverside Blues. Again, Oliver's name is absent. In this way his name has been unnecessarily blotted out and forgotten. This is a not unusual occurrence in jazz, where it is hard to pin down the source of any melody, and where melodies are more often heard as improvised by individual players, and not as written.
While holding office hours at the Plantation, Joe composed another tune, Doctor Jazz, which he advertised in Chicago by hiring a cart, placing his band in it, and playing the new tune wherever a crowd gathered. This was probably the last time a New Orleans band played in a wagon. Late in January, 1927, the doors of the Plantation Cafe were closed. Joe sent out several letters, all similar to the one below, which was addressed to a booker in Cleveland, Ohio:
Dear Sir:
I have been located at the Plantation Cafe since I played the week engagement for you at the South Main Garden. At present the Plantation has closed for a period of six weeks for remodeling. I am at leasure [sic] should you or any of your clients have anything to offer. I would highly appreciate any favor you can render.
I have eleven men, a red hot singing and jazz combination as well as playing all the standard and special arrangements. Hoping an early reply.
Respectfully yours,
Joseph Oliver
This letter-writing campaign produced a nibble from the "Jean Goldkette Orchestras and Attractions, Inc.," who wrote asking him to hold the first week in May open for bookings. Oliver answered, "My intention is not to renew my contract with the Plantation Cafe so I will be available for any other engagement that you might have that will meet my approval." He was still dictating his own terms. Then Faggen, who had not forgotten the orchestra, wrote and offered Joe a two-week engagement in Harlem's Savoy Ballroom, to begin May 9. Then the Goldkette Attractions booked a tour to St. Louis and Detroit. Everything was set, Joe and his men were ready to go on the road to New York. Before he left, he played for his friend Peyton, who has recorded what he heard on this last night:
There is but one King Oliver, the Supreme Sultan of Jazz. When he played Oh, How I Miss You Tonight, he cried and moaned on his $500 trumpet of gold. Encore'd four times, he was a sensation. He's the biggest man in the orchestra world.
With this send-off, King Oliver, his orchestra, and his "$500 trumpet of gold" left for Missouri, where Joe got a wire from Faggen asking him why he had not sent any advance publicity material. He answered it with a night letter:
Just receive wire, out of town at time of its arrival. All writeups and Photos destroyed in Plantation Cafe fire (stop) Can have cut forward you from St. Louis if desired (stop) Inform me what band we will alternate with so I can get line on stuff to use (stop) Will do utmost to make my two weeks a success.
Oliver needn't have worried about the "stuff to use," for the Dixie Syncopators were recognized by all who went to the "block-long" dance hall as the biggest thing "in the orchestra world."
For the engagement at the Savoy, Joe had sent down to Algiers, Louisiana, for Henry Allen, Jr., son of the bandmaster of the Allen Brass Band. He had added Pop Foster, string bass, to his rhythm section, and had done away with the bass horn which never sounded quite right to any jazz musician who had been brought up in New Orleans. For the first two weeks of their stay in New York, Foster and Allen lived with Joe at the home of his sister Victoria, now Mrs. Johnson. The orchestra did so well at the Savoy that an offer came from the Cotton Club for a long-term contract similar to the one Oliver had had at the Plantation. But the pay was too little for King Oliver, who was fresh from Chicago, where he was "Supreme Sultan" and could name a good price. However, the sum seemed just right to another orchestra leader, a young fellow named Ellington from Washington, D. C., who was glad to move into the Cotton Club after the Kentucky Club, where his Washingtonians had been playing.
This left Oliver to pick up as many dates in and around New York as he could. When he turned down the Cotton Club, he probably hadn't fully understood that odd dates were the only alternative, that good jobs in New York were rare, that the predepression figures he had become used to in Chicago were nothing but a faraway dream that no one would ever realize again. When he came into New York, it had looked as if he could pick and choose from the offers that were made. Yet when offers did come, the price always seemed too low. One thing was certain to Joe; they were below the union scale, which he had always paid his men. He didn't
want to risk taking work that was paid "below scale," because he had a feeling that if unions or managers ever punished anyone for violation of contracts, he would be the one most heavily penalized, regardless of the heavy guilt of others. He held out too long, and lost.
There was nothing left but one-night stands, such as the one he played at Dexter Park, called "Plantation Night in Brooklyn, a night's reception," where "to protect our patrons from the unruly element, we will refuse admittance to all undesirables. Don't try to push—you won't be able to shove: here's a dance you will love." He played at Quogue, at Newark, then there was a night in Asbury Park, where dancers were told to "have your fun, or go to the door and get your dough." The men were restless for lack of steady work. Ory returned to Chicago before the Dexter Park extravaganza, and Paul Barbarin went back to New Orleans to play with Piron's orchestra. Then Luis Russell found work at a place called The Nest, and Oliver's band quietly dropped away from him one by one to join Luis Russell. Even Barbarin came back from New Orleans to play for Russell.
Oliver kept going in spite of the hard times that were pinching him, and held eleven men together long enough to arrange for a recording date with Brunswick. When this was over, he went back to Chicago for a short visit. He wrote a letter to Peyton on his return to New York:
I cannot begin to express my appreciation for making the trip it was a real pleasure for me to be with the old gang again, yet, I longed for the "bright lights" of New York.
I am sure it will interest you to know that I have just signed a nice little contract with the Victor. Brunswick, of course, hated to lose me but was kind enough to wish me success with the Victor. Russell's band is still hitting a la Babe Ruth. . . .
The Victor contract helped. It was easier to hold the musicians when there was money floating around. Joe made several attempts to improve the personnel of his band by writing his New Orleans friends and asking them to join him, as he had done so often before. Early in 1930, he wrote Bunk Johnson, who was barnstorming in Electra, Texas:
Dear Bunk:
I receive your letter, was glad to hear from and know you are enjoying God's best blessing which is good health. This leave me well. Well pal, I've got you some, I'm a grand father now. But, I'm sure you will be kind enough to admit that I'm a few years younger then you are. I know you remember when I use to come around and listen to you play Ha! Ha! Now Bunk, it's your fault you are still down there working for nothing. I had two good jobs for you. I did all I could to locate you but failed. I even tried to get some fellow by the name of Guy Kelly, I heard he was very good. Looks like those guys are afraid to leave the South. Now Bunk you must keep in touch with me because I can't tell just when some thing good will turn up. If I know how and where to reach you it will mean a wonderful break for you. In the mean time I will send you a few numbers to arrange. I can give you some extra change as a side line. Have you got any good blues? if so send them to me and I will make them bring you some real money. When making my arrangements, always write the cornet a real low down solo a la Bunk, remember how you use to drive the blues down? Oh! boy. ... I never hear from those fellows in New Orleans they never write me. Old Billie Marrero's son John is here, I don't even see him often. Louis Armstrong is out of the City. He is some cornet player now Bunk. That bird can hit F and G with ease. I haven't heard from Walter Brundy in some time. I receive one letter from him and no more, although I answered his letter soon as I received same. Bunk this is strange. I made a record yesterday with Lizzie Miles we were talking about the old gang, and your name came up. How is your wife and children? Hope they are all well. I will get out first thing Monday and see if I can find some kind of job for you. But don't do the same thing over. ... I too, would like to see you, so we could sit down and talk about old times. Remember Second and Magazine when Walter Brundy would talk to me while you steal my music? Ha! Ha! I often think about those days. . . . Looking to hear from you real soon. I remain with kind regards.
Very truly yours, Jos. Oliver.
But Bunk didn't want to leave the South any more than the other musicians there who were sticking to what little work they had. He probably knew how the situation had changed for Joe Oliver, and preferred to stay in the deep South where he could still "drive the blues down." In general, music was becoming more and more "sweet" as the axis of influence on popular taste was shifted to Hollywood. Large orchestras were canned and shipped to small movie houses, where musicians who had played locally were dismissed. Joe received a letter from a friend in Shreveport who told him what was happening:
My Esteemed Friend Joe King Oliver:
Your letter was indeed a surprise, you can't imagine my delight on hearing from you. Well I have had charge of the orchestra at the Star Theatre for two years but I think the talking pictures will freeze me out this season as it has done to lots of other unfortunate musicians. Your letter could not have come at a more opportune time as I think you can help me or give me the right dope on my new adventure. My wife and I have entered the field of Song writing and I know you can tell me just what to do to have them published or sold. . . .
I have been told you sent for Tio is he with you. I will always remember you as the inspiration of Louis. Few People know that but some day I am going to write the Defender telling the world that you was the inspiration of Louis.
Write soon and give the Low Down.
Your Life Long Friend,
A. W. Kimball
Joe did his best to help his friends; he lent them money, he helped them to publish their songs, and he encouraged young musicians in Harlem who wanted to form bands of their own. He wrote to Lee Collins in New Orleans:
Dear Friend Lee:
At this very late date I wish to acknowledge receipt of your letter and apologize for my seeming neglect by not answering sooner. My reason was caused by the many recording dates which I have had recently and you know what it mean, keeping a bunch of musicians in line.
I was mighty pleased to hear from you, and note with particular interest the progress you've' made since I saw you last. Keep up the good work, you will hit the gold some day. . . .
I hope this will find you well. I am feeling great since I've taken off about thirty-five pounds. I am now down to two twenty-five, will try to hold it there, for I feel much better. Things in the music line are about the same here as down there—very dull. I am looking forward to seeing you in the near future. Regards to all the boys. Let me hear from you real soon.
With kindest regards, I am
Very truly yours,
Joseph Oliver
But the time had come when Joe couldn't help his friends very much. He needed help himself. As soon as the Victor recording dates were finished, and there was no more money to hand out, Joe entered the hardest part of his life. There was nothing left for him but disappointment brought on by each new stroke of bad luck. The moment that he "took a tumble," as he said in a later letter, his followers deserted him.
The orchestra played in Newark; Joe was paid with a rubber check, and the men in the band harassed him for the money. Agents exacted ruinous commissions for their bookings. In 1931, he was induced to take a band on tour through the South. Once he was away from New York, his name had no influence. The orchestra never went very far South; it was stranded for a while in Erie, Pennsylvania, until Joe's sister sent enough money to start the band on its way again. Then Joe went to Huntington, West Virginia, where he stayed for nearly four years, leading an orchestra which worked in the surrounding country, driving about in a bus he bought for this purpose. His peculiar luck hit him again; he was forced to write an agent in Bowling Green, Kentucky:
I deeply regret the necessity of advising you that we will be unable to fill the engagement February 14th. I was very unfortunate in having the block in the motor of my bus split because of freezing, which will necessitate the cost of a new motor at a very considerable expense.
Also a great number of promoters to whom I appealed for advance money, (not exceeding $15.00 each), in order to raise a sufficient sum to enable me to make various dates as scheduled, failed to respond, thereby causing me great embarrassment, and under the circumstances, compelling me to cancel a number of engagements.
It hurts me grievously to dissapoint you and the public, yet, I would rather order the date positively cancelled at this early date than to take a chance on being able to make it, and then, perhaps, be compelled to advise you differently when it would be too late to recall the advertisements.
Trusting that my misfortune may incur no ill will, I wish to remain.
Very sincerely yours,
King Oliver
When misfortune descended upon Joe, it came not only once, but many times. He was able to fix the frozen block, only to have the bus wrecked in an accident that took place a month later. He spent the rest of 1935 trying to make up for the damages to his bus. Then his teeth began to bother him; before he could afford to do anything about it, a bad case of pyorrhea developed, and he lost them all. A cornetist can't play without teeth. In December, he wrote home from Raleigh, North Carolina, while on the way to Georgia:
Dear Niece:
I receive your card, you don't know how much I appreciate your thinking about the old man. . . . Thank God I only need one thing and that is clothes. I am not making enough money to buy clothes as I can't play any more. I get little money from an agent for the use of my name and after I pay room rent and eat I don't have much left. ... I felt terrible when I met Allen, I didn't want him to see me, but his eyes fell right on me. . . . I've only got one suit and that's the one sent me while I was in Wichita, Kansas. So you know the King must look hot. But I don't feel downhearted. I still feel like I will snap out of the rut some day. Well, the old man hasn't got the price of Xmas cards so I will wish you all a Merry Xmas and Happy New Year. Now you must keep in touch with me. Love to the entire family including the bird dog and cat. Take good care of yourself and keep well.
Sincerely, Uncle
From Raleigh, Joe went down through Georgia and Mississippi, on a tour that left him stranded and penniless, with a landlord dunning for rent. The bus broke down completely in Mississippi; it was a long time before Joe could extricate himself from these troubles and return to Savannah, the base of his circuit. Here he received a letter from another booker in September, 1937:
Dear Sir:
Contrary to the usual way agents handle colored bands, my business is based on honest representation and fair dealing with both promoter and band. . . . My fee for nationwide exploitation and booking is twenty per cent. Ten per cent for each. There is no use to try and make any money on a band if they are not properly exploited and in the limelight all the time. . . .
I remember many years ago when I was playing vaudeville around Chicago with my own band, of hearing you play down on the South Side. . . .
It is my usual custom in the South to send a white manager along with the band so that nobody will be bothering the attraction at any time. We bond the man to keep him honest and I will pay half of his salary and you pay the other half. . . .
While Joe was negotiating with a new manager, he had to hire an attorney to write an order to the old agent, requesting him to "desist from the use of the name of King Oliver's Band and to cease accepting deposits for said band" when "you know as well as he does that he has no band just now: that the use of the name of his band is unfair to him, and the general public."
Then the new manager wrote:
I got a band lined up in Mississippi that I may be able to swing for you. . . . No use playing around this section as I hear that fellow killed it for you through this country . . .
If we are able to furnish transportation, etc. for a band, we will have no difficulty in getting a good band I am sure. But we must have a good looking bus in good shape as there is no use in going out on the road with an old rattle trap that is breaking down all the time putting your dates in jeopardy and killing the prestige of the band the minute it arrives in town. . . .
In November, 1937, Joe received his last letter from this man:
Your letter—or card—received today and I note what you say. I trust by this writing that you are well and able to be about. . . . You keep trying and I think before long we will be able to get lined up okay. I mentioned your name down through Mississippi and they are willing to book your band. I believe that you could do well in Miss. La. Texas and up this way. . . .
Joe never went on the tour this agent proposed, because his health began to fail, and he was forced to stay in Savannah. During the next three months, he wrote to his sister and told her what had really happened:
Dear Sister:
I'm still out of work. Since the road house close I haven't hit a note. But I've got a lot to thank God for. Because I eat and sleep. . . . Look like every time one door close the Good Lord open another. . . . I've got to do my own cooking as my landlady and daughter both work out. I am doing pretty fair. But I much rather work and earn my own money. . . . Soon as the weather can fit my clothes I know I can do better in New York. . . .
Dear Sister:
I receive your letter which found me well and getting along pretty nice. I looked up another job. With little money. If hours was money I'd be drawing more money than Babe Ruth at his best. . . . We are still having nice weather here. The Lord is sure good to me here without an overcoat. ... I have to see by lamp here. Smile.
Sincerely yours, Brother
Sunday evening Dear Sister:
Well I hope you don't feel like I am lying down on you. I put in such long hours until I don't feel anything like looking at a bottle of ink or picking up my pen and you know I'm one who love to write. But I am going to see to you hearing from me often. I will get some cards when I go to town and will be able to drop you a card from the place. I am feeling pretty good, but just can't get rid of this cough. Don't like that sticking on me so long. I just can't get rid of it. I've tried most everything. My heart don't bother me just a little at times. But my breath is still short, and I'm not at all fat. . . .
I would like to live long as I can, but nothing like making all arrangements in time. . . . Don't think I will ever raise enough money to buy a ticket to New York.
I am not the one to give up quick. If I was I don't know where I would be today. I always feel like I've got a chance. I still feel I'm going to snap out of the rut I've been in for several years. What makes me feel optimistic at times. Look like every time one door close on me another door open. . . . Look how many teeth I had taken out and replaced. I got teeth waiting for me at the dentist now. . . . I've started a little dime bank saving. Got $1.60 in it and won't touch it. I am going to try and save myself a ticket to New York. . . .
Dear Sister:
I open the pool rooms at 9 A.M. and close at 12 midnite. If the money was only ¼ as much as the hours I'd be all set. But at that I can thank God for what I am getting. Which I do night after night. I know you will be glad when the winter say goodby.
Now Vick before I go further with my letter I'm going to tell you something but don't be alarmed. I've got high blood pressure. Was taking treatment but I had to discontinue. My blood was 85 above normal. Now my blood has started again and I am unable to take treatments because it cost $3.00 per treatment and I don't make enough money to continue my treatments. Now it begins to work on my heart. I am weak in my limbs at times and my breath but I can not asking you for any money or anything. A stitch in time save nine. Should anything happen to me will you want my body? Let me know because I won't last forever and the longer I go the worst I'll get unless I take treatments.
It's not like New York or Chicago here. You've got to go through a lot of red tape to get any kind of treatment from the city here. I may never see New York again in life. . . .
Don't think I'm afraid because I wrote what I did. I am trying to live near to the Lord than ever before. So I feel like the Good Lord will take care of me. Good night, dear. . . .
When Joe Oliver died on April 10, 1938, two months after he had written this last letter, his passing brought sadness and distress to the family. His sister could not realize that he was dead; the things he had accomplished in New Orleans and Chicago gave him such a strong claim to life, such a deep root in it, that it seemed impossible that he should be torn away so suddenly. When he did go, they were afraid; his sister was poor, it would cost too much to ship his body from Georgia and give him "a decent burial." But she knew Joe must not be neglected. She took her rent money to bring him North, and gave up her plot in Woodlawn for him. There was a funeral; a few friends helped here. But when it was over, there was no money left for a headstone; it is still missing from his grave.
His name is disappearing fast; music that derives from his Creole Jazz Band is played today by musicians who know nothing of King Oliver. Only his family, and his old friends from New Orleans and Chicago, remember him now; men like Bunk Johnson, to whom he once wrote: "I too, would like to see you, so we could sit down and talk about old times."”
Winner of the 2025 Jazz Journalist Association Special Citation for Historic Writings, Steven Cerra is a professional Jazz drummer and the author of anthologies on Gerry Mulligan, Bill Evans, Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, Shelly Manne, Jazz West Coast Readers Vols. 1-3, Profiles in Jazz, Vol.1, Jazz Drummers Vols. 1-2, Jazz Saxophonists, Vol. 1, 2 & 3, and Jazz Piano, Vols. 1, 2 & 3. He also hosts the jazzprofiles.blogspot and cerra.substack blogs.