Chapter 6: The Birth of Jazz
Joe "King" Oliver (1881 1938) was a pioneering jazz cornettist, bandleader, and mentor whose influence helped define the sound of early New Orleans and Chicago jazz. Born in New Orleans in 1881, Oliver began performing with local bands around 1907. By the mid-1910s, he had earned a reputation as one of the city’s finest cornettists, celebrated for his expressive tone, inventive improvisation, and innovative use of mutes, techniques that allowed him to create vocal-like inflections and playful effects. In 1918, as opportunities in New Orleans began to decline, Oliver moved to Chicago, which was quickly becoming the new epicenter of jazz. By 1922, he was leading his own ensemble, the Creole Jazz Band, at a popular cabaret. That same year, he invited his protégé Louis Armstrong, then a young cornettist in New Orleans, to join him in Chicago. Their partnership would become legendary.
For a time, Oliver performed at both the Lincoln Gardens and the nearby Dreamland Café, alternating sets between the two venues on foot. This arrangement helped build his reputation across Chicago’s South Side and drew large crowds eager to hear the now-famous two-cornet interplay between Oliver and Armstrong. Their performances featured vibrant musical dialogues, full of spontaneous riffs, call-and-response exchanges, and daring improvisation that inspired musicians throughout the region. Many jazz artists traveled great distances just to hear them perform live.
In 1923, Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band made their first recordings at the Gennett Studio in Richmond, Indiana. These sessions were among the first major jazz recordings by African American musicians and had a lasting impact on the development of the genre. One standout track, “Dippermouth Blues,” features Oliver’s signature use of plunger mutes and his playful, swinging solo, which became widely imitated by other trumpeters during the 1920s and 1930s. Oliver continued performing in Chicago until 1927, when he moved to New York to freelance. Unfortunately, gum disease began to affect his ability to play, and he gave up the cornet altogether by the early 1930s. Despite this setback, Oliver continued to tour as a bandleader between 1930 and 1936, but his career suffered due to the Great Depression and a series of poor business decisions. In his final years, Oliver fell into poverty and died in Savannah, Georgia in 1938, far from the fame and acclaim he had once known. Though his life ended in hardship, Joe “King” Oliver’s legacy is immense. He helped bring jazz into the recording era, mentored Louis Armstrong, and left behind a model of ensemble playing and cornet improvisation that would shape the future of jazz for decades