Jazz began to gain wider notice as recordings made in the Windy City, Chicago, sold throughout America. We will focus here on the some of the most famous musicians who received acclaim for their work in Chicago, Blacks as well as Whites, and who largely contributed to this popularization of the Jazz.
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Original Dixieland Jazz Band
The Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB) was an early five-piece jazz band which original members, all whites from New Orleans, were Nick LaRocca (leader and comet), Larry Shields (clarinet), Eddie Edwards (trombone), Tony Sbarbaro (drums), and Henry Ragas (who was replaced by J. Russel Robinson, piano). After playing in numerous jazz clubs in Chicago in 1916, the five musicians moved to New York by January 1917 where they enjoyed sensational receptions during their historic engagement at Reisenweber’s Restaurant. During the same year, the group became the first jazz band to make phonograph recordings.
During 1917-1923, the group played a major part in popularizing the Dixieland style of jazz throughout the USA and Europe. Their exuberant music (which stuck exclusively to ensembles with the only solos being short breaks) caused a major sensation. The novelty “Livery Stable Blues” (which found the horns imitating barnyard animals) and “Dixie Jass Band One-Step” which were huge hits that really launched the jazz age. In 1919-1920, during a pioneering tour, they brought jazz to Europe.
No member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band was particularly talented as an improviser, and the group’s phrasing was rhythmically stilted; but even so, its collective vigor had an infectious spirit. When black jazz bands began to record regularly it soon became apparent that many of them were more adept at jazz improvising and phrasing than was the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Detractors of the band maintain that it merely simplified the music of black New Orleans groups. The group presented a new sound rather than a new music; this sound appealed to young dancers, who were eager to break away from the rigidly formal dance steps of the era.
Even though LaRocca’s arrogant claims that ODJB had invented jazz are exaggerated and tinged with racism, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band did make a strong contribution to early jazz (most groups that recorded during 1918-1921 emulated their style), helped supply the repertoire of many later Dixieland bands, and were an influence on Bix Beiderbecke and Red Nichols. The group’s initial impact was so strong that during 1919-21, the word “jazz” was being applied to nearly every new song and quite a few heated white bands did their best to play in the Original Dixieland Jazz Band style.
more information on the band here.
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New Orleans Rhythm Kings
In 1920, cornetist Paul Mares and trombonist George Brunies were working a Mississippi Riverboat boat that stopped at Davenport, Iowa. There they teamed with clarinetist Leon Rapolo. In time, they added pianist Elmer Schobel from Illinois, Frank Snyder on drums, Alfred Loyacano on bass, and banjoist Louis Black, and were hired by the Friar’s Club in Chicago whose owner Mike Fritzel was eager to get his own New Orleans style band after the success of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in Chicago and New York. They first called themselves “The Friar’s Society Orchestra”, but later changed their name to “The New Orleans Rhythm Kings”. The next big step forward (at least on records) was made by the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. Nick LaRocca and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band had created a huge demand for the new ‘jazz’ music. And, with their going to New York City and on to London, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings became the mainstay of Chicago Jazz, and one of the most popular groups in town.
Their recordings were a big influence on many of the black and white bands and musicians of the 1920s, including Bix Beiderbecke, Muggsy Spanier, Mezz Mezzrow, and Benny Goodman. Unlike Nick LaRocca, the leader of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Paul Mares did not try to deny the African-American roots of Jazz. The New Orleans Rhythm Kings were heavily influenced by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band and became the first group to put out a “racially mixed” Jazz record in 1923 with “Sobbin’ Blues“,(a gleeful, rousing Early Jazz-styled song) featuring Jelly Roll Morton. Morton went on to record five more tunes with the band.
The New Orleans Rhythm Kings had a sound a decade ahead of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Their sound is very representative of the Chicago style Jazz: it featured high musicianship and an emphasis on improvised solo performances, while traditional New Orleans jazz was still heavily dependent on ensemble playing. The solos of Leon Roppolo on clarinet and George Brunies on trombone are still considered classic, and have often been copied on other bands’ recordings.
The New Orleans Rhythm Kings were in existence from 1922 until 1925 when Paul Mares left the music business and went back to New Orleans to work at the family fur business. In 1934 and 1935 two recording sessions took place that revived the New Orleans Rhythm Kings name, but George Brunies was the only original member of the band to take part in the sessions.
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King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band
King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band was one of the finest and best classic Jazz bands at that time. The Creole Jazz Band was made up of the cream of New Orleans Hot Jazz musicians, with Baby Dodds (drums), Honore Dutrey (trombone), Bill Johnson (bass), Louis Armstrong (second cornet), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Lil Hardin-Armstrong (piano), and the emblematic band’s leader, Joe “King” Oliver (cornet).
King Oliver, blinded in one eye as a child, was the mentor and teacher of Louis Armstrong. He was famous for his use of mutes, derbies, bottles and cups to alter the sound of his cornet, a technique that inspired many. Oliver started playing in New Orleans around 1908. Member of several marching bands (The Olympia, The Onward Brass Band, The Original Superior, the Eagle Band…), he often worked in Kid Ory’s band and in 1917 he was being billed as “King” by the bandleader. In 1919 he moved to Chicago with Ory and played in Bill Johnson’s The Original Creole Orchestra at the Dreamland Ballroom. He toured with the band, but when he returned to Chicago in 1922 he started King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band at Lincoln Gardens (459 East 31st Street).
King Oliver had imported his protégé Louis Armstrong from New Orleans. With the other members of the group, he recorded sessions that became a milestone in Jazz, introducing the playing of Louis Armstrong to the world. This already powerful and popular band took the town by storm and soon musicians and fans were flocking to hear the Oliver band. Although they emphasized ensembles, the band also had influential soloists in cornetist Oliver, the great clarinetist Johnny Dodds and the young second cornetist, Louis Armstrong. Their style of collective improvisation gave the group an explosive power and spontaneity that amazed listeners.
Unfortunately the Creole Jazz Band gradually fell apart in 1924. Oliver went on to record a pair of duets with pianist Jelly Roll Morton that same year, and then took over Dave Peyton’s band in 1925, renaming it the Dixie Syncopators. Oliver moved the band to New York in 1927, where he made some lousy business decisions, like turning down the regular gig at the Cotton Club, that went on to catapult Duke Ellington to fame. In 1929 Luis Russell took over the Dixie Syncopators and changed the name to Luis Russell and his Orchestra. Oliver continued to record until 1931, but he was quickly becoming a forgotten name. He continued to tour the South with various groups, until he ran out of money and settled in Georgia, where he worked as a janitor in a poolroom up until his death in 1938.
You can listen to King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band’s “Alligator Hop” here. You will notice a great emphasis on the cornets (Armstrong and Oliver himself) and a definitely energic and gleeful ensemble style, characteristic of Chicago style Jazz.
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Louis Armstrong & the Hot Five/Hot Seven
Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong (1901-1971) is considered to be truly the greatest of all Jazz musicians. For many, Armstrong defined what it was to play Jazz. His amazing technical abilities, the joy and spontaneity, and amazingly quick, inventive musical mind still dominate Jazz to this day. Like almost all Early Jazz musicians, Louis was from New Orleans. He was from a very poor family and was sent to reform school when he was twelve after firing a gun in the air on New Year’s Eve. At the school he learned to play cornet. After being released at age fourteen, he worked selling papers, unloading boats, and selling coal from a cart. He didn’t own an instrument at this time, but continued to listen to bands at clubs like the Funky Butt Hall. Joe “King” Oliver was his favorite and the older man acted as a father to Louis, even giving him his first real cornet, and instructing him on the instrument.
In 1919 he left New Orleans for the first time to join Fate Marable’s band in St. Louis. Marable led a band that played on the Strekfus Mississsippi river boat lines. Louis stayed with Marable until 1921 when he returned to New Orleans and played in Zutty Singleton’s. He also played in parades with the Allen Brass Band, and on the bandstand with Papa Celestin’s Tuxedo Orchestra, and the Silver Leaf Band. When King Oliver left the city in 1919 to go to Chicago, Louis took his place in Kid Ory’s band from time to time. In 1922 Louis received a telegram from his mentor Joe Oliver, asking him to join his Creole Jazz Band at Lincoln Gardens in Chicago. This was a dream come true for Armstrong and his amazing playing in the band soon made him a sensation among other musicians in Chicago. While playing in Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, Louis met his second wife Lil Hardin who was the pianist and arranger of the band. Eventually it was she who urged Louis to leave the band so that he might live up to his true potential and not get stuck playing second to Oliver.
He briefly worked with Ollie Powers’ Harmony Syncopators before he moved to New York. In 1925 Armstrong moved back to Chicago and joined his wife’s band at the Dreamland Cafe. He also played in Erskine Tate’s Vendome Orchestra and then with Carrol Dickenson’s Orchestra at the Sunset Cafe. Armstrong recorded his first Hot Five records that same year, with Lil Hardin Armstrong on piano, Kid Ory on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, and Johnny St. Cyr on guitar and banjo (replaced in 1928 by Fred Robinson on trombone, Jimmy Strong on clarinet and tenor saxophone, Earl Hines on piano, Mancy Carr on banjo, and Zutty Singleton on drums, with himself on cornet of course). This was the first time that Armstrong had made records under his own name. The records made by Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Hot Seven are considered to be absolute jazz classics and speak of Armstrong’s creative powers. The band never played live, but continued recording until 1928. Here you can listen to the Hot Fives “Hotter Than That”, where Armstrong’s virtuoso is very present, with some scat from Armstrong himself, and in which the instrument seem to respond to each other in harmony.
Later on followed Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven, with Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Lil Armstrong (piano), and Johnny St. Cyr (banjo and guitar), augmented by Johnny Dodds’s brother, Baby Dodds (drums), Pete Briggs (tuba), and John Thomas (trombone). Here is “Willie The Weeper”, based on a standard vaudeville song, likely written in 1904 and about drug addiction. Obviously, in the Hot Fives’ version, there are no lyrics ; and here is “Potato Head Blues,” celebrated for Louis Armstrong’s stop-time solo and triumphant ride-out final chorus. It is from the creation of the Hot Five and Hot Seven and from the amazing sound they created at that time that the “Hot Jazz” became a Jazz style on its own.
While working at the Sunset, Louis met his future manager, Joe Glaser. Glaser managed the Sunset at that time. Armstrong continued to play in Carrol Dickenson’s Orchestra until 1929. He also led his own band on the same venue under the name of Louis Armstrong and his Stompers. For the next two years Armstrong played with Carroll Dickerson’s Savoy Orchestra and with Clarence Jones’ Orchestra in Chicago. By 1929 Louis was becoming a very big star. He toured with the show “Hot Chocolates” and appeared occasionally with the Luis Russell Orchestra, with Dave Peyton, and with Fletcher Henderson. Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930 where he fronted a band called Louis Armstrong and his Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra. In 1931 he returned to Chicago and assembled his own band for touring purposes. In June of that year he returned to New Orleans for the first time since he left in 1922 to join King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. Armstrong was greeted as a hero, but racism marred his return when a White radio announcer refused to mention Armstrong on the air and a free concert that Louis was going to give to the cities’ African-American population was cancelled at the last minute.
The rest of his life is a succession of national and world touring, endlessly, with the Louis Armstrong Orchestra and later with the Louis Armstrong Allstars (1947, featuring exceptional musicians like Barney Bigard, Jack Teagarden, Sidney ‘Big Sid’ Catlett, vocalist Vilma Middleton, and Earl Hines) that became one of the greatest and most worldwide popular bands in Jazz history.
Armstrong kept touring, playing and recording (“Hello Dolly,” “What A Wonderful World”) until his failing health led to his death on July 6th 1971.
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Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl “Fatha” Hines (December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983), was an American jazz pianist and bandleader. He was a very significant artist of his time, mainly influenced by Louis Armstrong. He developed what was called the “trumpet style,” or melodic style, of playing the piano and is considered by Jazzmen as “the first modern jazz pianist.” He differed from the stride pianists of the 1920s by breaking up the stride rhythms with unusual accents from his left hand. Jelly Roll Morton had set the direction of Jazz piano in the early part of the decade, but Hines quickly came at the forefront of the Hot Jazz style. One of the all-time great pianists, Hines was a major influence on Teddy Wilson, Jess Stacy, Joe Sullivan or Nat King Cole. He was also the underrated composer of “Rosetta,” “My Monday Date,” and “You Can Depend on Me,” among others.
Hines started playing professionally around 1921 in Pittsburgh. In 1923 Hines moved to Chicago where he worked with Deppe’s Seranaders and Erskine Tate’s Vendome Orchestra. He started teaming up with Louis Armstrong in 1926, and the two masterful musicians consistently inspired each other. Hines worked briefly in Louis Armstrong’s Stompers and along with Zutty Singleton and Armstrong tried unsuccessfully to manage their own club together in Chicago. In 1928, he recorded his first ten piano solos including versions of “A Monday Date,” “Blues in Thirds” and “57 Varieties.” Hines worked much of the year with Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra. Hines joined Louis Armstrong on the Hot Five and Hot Seven recording sessions, playing on the classic “West End Blues,” “Fireworks,” “Basin Street Blues” and composing “A Monday Date” (a Jazz song only on piano). The same year, he debuted with his first big band. A brilliant ensemble player as well as soloist, Hines would continue to lead his own big bands until 1948. In 1940 Billy Eckstine became the band’s popular singer and in 1943 both Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were added. In 1948 Hines joined the Louis Armstrong’s All-Stars and played with them for three years. In 1951, Hines moved to California and formed a Hot Jazz band to cash in on the Dixieland revival that was going on at the time. He continued the Dixieland band throughout the Fifties, but by the early Sixties, Hines was pretty much out of the Jazz mainstream and forgotten. In 1964 he staged a major comeback: the New York critics were amazed by Hines’ continuing creativity and vitality, and Hines traveled the world with his quartet, recorded dozens of albums, and remained famous and renowned up until his death at the age of 79.
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Bix Beiderbecke
Leon Bismark “Bix” Beiderbecke (March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer. He is said to be one of the greatest Chicago Style Jazz musicians of the 1920’s; he was also a child of the Jazz Age who drank himself to an early grave with illegal Prohibition liquor. His hard drinking and beautiful, distinctive tone on the cornet made him a legend among musicians during his life. The legend of Bix Beiderbecke grew even larger after he died. He has long stood as proof that not all the innovators in jazz history were black.
He was a bit of a child prodigy, picking out tunes on the piano when he was three. While he had conventional training on the piano, he taught himself the cornet. Influenced by the original Dixieland Jazz Band, Beiderbecke craved the freedom of jazz but his straight-laced parents disapproved of his taste and interest in music and, feeling he was being frivolous, sent him to the Lake Forest Military Academy in 1921. The military school was located fairly close to Chicago, the epitome of jazz at the time. Beiderbecke was eventually expelled for he missed so many classes, sneaking out to listen to Jazzmen. He decided to become a full-time musician and in 1923, he became the up-and-coming star cornetist of the Wolverines, also called the Wolverine Orchestra, and a year later this spirited group made their first classic recordings.
In late 1924, Beiderbecke left the Wolverines to join Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra but his inability to read music made him eventually lose the job. After spending time in Chicago working on his reading abilities, he spent time with Frankie Trumbauer’s orchestra in St. Louis in 1926. Although already an alcoholic, 1927 would be Beiderbecke’s greatest year. He worked with Jean Goldkette’s orchestra, recorded his piano masterpiece “In a Mist” (one of his four Debussy-inspired originals, a very soothing piece with an insistent swing rhythm ), cut many classic sides with a small group headed by Trumbauer (including his greatest solos: “Singin’ the Blues,” “I’m Comin’ Virginia,” and “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans“), and then signed up with Paul Whiteman’s huge and prosperous orchestra. With Whiteman, Beiderbecke’s solos tended to be short moments of magic.
In 1929 Bix’s drinking began to catch up with him. He suffered from delirium tremens and he had a nervous breakdown while playing with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, and was eventually sent back to his parents in Davenport, Iowa to recover. Paul Whiteman promised him that his chair was always open in the Whiteman Orchestra, but, Bix was never the same again, and never rejoined the band. He returned to New York in 1930 and made a few more records but mainly, he holed himself up in a rooming house in Queens, New York where he drank a lot and worked on his beautiful solo piano pieces “Candlelight”, “Flashes”, and “In The Dark” (though he never recorded them). He died at age 28 in 1931 of lobar pneumonia, during an alcoholic seizure.
Still other Chicago Style musicians must be mentioned; Sidney Bechet (clarinet and saxophone), Eddie Condon (banjo and guitar), Art Hodes and Joe Sullivan (piano), Mugsy Spanier (cornet), Mezz Mezzrow (clarinet)… and one cannot forget Jimmy Noone(clarinet), Lovie Austin (piano), Johnny Dodds (clarinet and saxophone), Benny Goodman (clarinet), and Gene Krupa (drums), Freddie Keppard (cornet) and the Austin High Gang.
Chicago was representative of “new” dixielanders. Some of its musicians were from the Crescent City, others were Chicagoans, but whatever the skin color, thay had absorded the music, and, along the way, they improved it greatly.
Chicago’s jazz recording industry sprang up rapidly in the early 1920s. The Okeh label, which issued early Louis Armstrong sides, had a studio on Chicago’s South Side, and in 1926 the Victor label started recording promising Chicago Jazz musicians. However quite often the labels didn’t treat Blacks musicians very well, making it hard for them to do music as a catharsis of the harsh reality of living in America while being Black. Even in music, racism was present, but many hoped Jazz, in its multicultural and multicolored aspect, could gather the souls in perfect harmony.
Hit The Road Jazz! 
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