"Ory's Creole Trombone" is a jazz composition by Kid Ory. Ory first recorded it in Los Angeles in 1921 [1] [2] [3] (or 1922, according to other sources). [4] The band included Ory on trombone, Mutt Carey on cornet, Dink Johnson on clarinet, Fred Washington on piano, Ed Garland on bass and Ben Borders on drums. [5] The recording of "Ory's Creole Trombone" was released by John and Reb Spikes' short-lived Sunshine Records label. [4] It was the first issued recording session by an African American jazz band from New Orleans. (Contrary to sometimes repeated misinformation that it marked the first jazz recording made by a black orchestra [6] that honor goes to Wilbur Sweatman. ) Other numbers recorded the same day included "When You're Alone Blues", "Krooked Blues", "Society Blues", "That Sweet Something Dear", "Maybe Some Day" and "Froggie Moore". [1]
Ory's band was called Kid Ory's Creole Orchestra, but they used the name "Spike's Seven Pods of Pepper Orchestra" for the Sunshine recordings. The label also released the same records credited to the Sunshine Band. [4] According to Reb Spikes, recording studio owner Arne Nordskog first put his own Nordskog labels on the produced records; Spikes then had to paste the Sunshine label over Nordskog's. The original records have become collector's items. In many cases the Sunshine label has eroded and parts of the Nordskog label can be seen beneath it. [1]
Some of the masters from the recording sessions were lost due to heat when they were transported from the West Coast to a pressing plant in New Jersey. The melting wax rendered four of the six recordings completely unusable [2] and left an audible click on the pressings of "Ory's Creole Trombone". [1]
Ory recorded the piece several times. In 1927 he made a recording as part of Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five. [7] In 1945 he recorded it in Los Angeles with Kid Ory's Creole Orchestra. [8]
"Ory's Creole Trombone" has clear ragtime elements and is closer to the old New Orleans style than the music of many New Orleans musicians who recorded in Chicago, such as King Oliver. The composition is divided into 16-bar sections. Sections A and B follow the original melody closely with improvised variations. Section C functions as a chorus; this part is played in Ory's original recording as collective improvisation, while in Louis Armstrong's later recording the C section works as solo improvisation by Armstrong and clarinetist Jimmie Noone. [9]
Louis Daniel Armstrong, nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several eras in the history of jazz. He received numerous accolades including the Grammy Award for Best Male Vocal Performance for Hello, Dolly! in 1965, as well as a posthumous win for the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1972, and the induction into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2017.
Joseph Nathan "King" Oliver was an American jazz cornet player and bandleader. He was particularly recognized for his playing style and his pioneering use of mutes in jazz. Also a notable composer, he wrote many tunes still played today, including "Dippermouth Blues", "Sweet Like This", "Canal Street Blues", and "Doctor Jazz". He was the mentor and teacher of Louis Armstrong. His influence was such that Armstrong claimed, "if it had not been for Joe Oliver, Jazz would not be what it is today."
Edward "Kid" Ory was an American jazz composer, trombonist and bandleader. One of the early users of the glissando technique, he helped establish it as a central element of New Orleans jazz.
Johnny Dodds was an American jazz clarinetist and alto saxophonist based in New Orleans, best known for his recordings under his own name and with bands such as those of Joe "King" Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Lovie Austin and Louis Armstrong. Dodds was the older brother of the drummer Warren "Baby" Dodds, one of the first important jazz drummers. They worked together in the New Orleans Bootblacks in 1926. Dodds is an important figure in jazz history. He was the premier clarinetist of his era and, in recognition of his artistic contributions, he was posthumously inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame. He has been described as "a prime architect in the creation of the Jazz Age."
Jimmie Noone was an American jazz clarinetist and bandleader. After beginning his career in New Orleans, he led Jimmie Noone's Apex Club Orchestra, a Chicago band that recorded for Vocalion and Decca. Classical composer Maurice Ravel acknowledged basing his Boléro on an improvisation by Noone. At the time of his death Noone was leading a quartet in Los Angeles and was part of an all-star band that was reviving interest in traditional New Orleans jazz in the 1940s.
Albany Leon "Barney" Bigard was an American jazz clarinetist known for his 15-year tenure with Duke Ellington. He also played tenor saxophone.
Thomas "Papa Mutt" Carey was an American jazz trumpeter.
Freddie Keppard was an American jazz cornetist who once held the title of "King" in the New Orleans jazz scene. This title was previously held by Buddy Bolden and succeeded by Joe Oliver.
Nordskog Records was a jazz record company and label founded by Andrae Nordskog in 1921 in Santa Monica, California.
Sunshine Records was a small California-based record label of the early 1920s, producing 6 double-sided gramophone records of early jazz and blues.
Crescent Records was an American independent record label that produced jazz recordings from 1944 to 1946. It was founded by Nesuhi Ertegun to record a band that was assembled to perform on CBS Radio's 1944 variety series The Orson Welles Almanac. Only one group, Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band, was released on the Crescent label, which was distributed by Hollywood's Jazz Man Record Shop. Although only eight discs were released, Crescent Records was involved in the international revival of traditional jazz in the 1940s.
The Hot Five was Louis Armstrong's first jazz recording band led under his own name.
Trad jazz, short for "traditional jazz", is a form of jazz in the United States and Britain in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, played by musicians such as Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer and Monty Sunshine, based on a revival of New Orleans Dixieland jazz, on trumpets, trombones, clarinets, tambourines, banjos, double basses, saxophones, Hammond organs, pipe organs, pianos, electric basses, guitars and drums and cymbals, with a populist repertoire which also included jazz versions of pop songs and nursery rhymes.
The Red Hot Peppers were a recording jazz band led by Jelly Roll Morton from 1926–1930. They was a seven- or eight-piece band formed in Chicago which recorded for Victor and featured some of the best New Orleans-style freelance musicians available, including cornetist George Mitchell, trombonist Kid Ory, clarinetists Omer Simeon and Johnny Dodds, banjoists Johnny St. Cyr and Bud Scott, double bass player John Lindsay, and drummers Andrew Hilaire and Baby Dodds.
Arthur Budd Scott was an American jazz guitarist, banjoist and singer. He was one of the earliest musicians associated with the New Orleans jazz scene. As a violinist he performed with James Reese Europe's Clef Club Orchestra at a historic 1912 concert at Carnegie Hall, and the following year worked with Europe's ensemble on the first jazz recordings on the Victor label.
Benjamin Franklin "Reb" Spikes was an American jazz saxophonist and entrepreneur. His composition with his brother John, "Someday Sweetheart", has become an often-recorded jazz standard.
"Muskrat Ramble" is a jazz composition written by Kid Ory in 1926. It was first recorded on February 26, 1926, by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, and became the group's most frequently recorded piece. It was paired on the flip side with another one of Armstrong's hits, "Heebie Jeebies." It was a prominent part of the Dixieland revival repertoire in the 1930s and 1940s, and was recorded by Bob Crosby, Roy Eldridge, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Muggsy Spanier, Chet Atkins, Lu Watters, the Andrews Sisters, Harry James, and Al Hirt, among others. It is considered a part of the jazz standard repertoire.
Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, fostered awareness of this new style of music.
The Louis Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven Sessions were recorded between 1925 and 1928 by Louis Armstrong with his Hot Five and Hot Seven groups. According to the National Recording Registry, "Louis Armstrong was jazz's first great soloist and is among American music's most important and influential figures. These sessions, his solos in particular, set a standard musicians still strive to equal in their beauty and innovation." These recordings were added to the National Recording Registry in 2002, the first year of the institution's existence.
The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz is a six-LP box set released in 1973 by the Smithsonian Institution. Compiled by jazz critic, scholar, and historian Martin Williams, the album included tracks from over a dozen record labels spanning several decades and genres of American jazz, from ragtime and big band to post-bop and free jazz.
