Kid Ory

Edward "Kid" Ory (December 25, 1886 – January 23, 1973) was a Black Creole jazz trombonist and bandleader. He was born on Woodland Plantation, near LaPlace, Louisiana.

Kid Ory
Ory in 1944 with the All Star Jazz Group assembled for the CBS show The Orson Welles Almanac
Background information
Birth nameEdouard Ory
Born(1886-12-25)December 25, 1886
LaPlace, Louisiana, U.S.
DiedJanuary 23, 1973(1973-01-23) (aged 86)
Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.
GenresJazz, traditional Creole
Occupation(s)Musician, composer, promoter
InstrumentsTrombone
Years active1910–1966
LabelsColumbia, Okeh Records, Exner, Crescent, Good Time Jazz, Verve
Associated actsLouis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Ma Rainey, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus
House on Jackson Avenue, New Orleans, Ory's residence in the 1910s
Nesuhi Ertegun founded his first label, Crescent Records, to record Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band. (Crescent Number 1, August 1944)

He moved to New Orleans on his 21st birthday and then to Los Angeles in 1910 and to Chicago in 1925. His prominence combined with being one of the early users of the trombone glissando technique helped establish it as a central element of New Orleans Jazz. The Ory band was an important force in reviving interest in New Orleans jazz, making popular 1940s radio broadcasts—among them a number of slots on The Orson Welles Almanac program. In 1944–45 the group made a series of recordings for Crescent Records, which was founded by Nesuhi Ertegun for the express purpose of recording Ory's band.

Ory retired from music in 1966 and spent his last years in Hawaii

Biography

Born in Laplace to a Louisiana French-speaking family, Ory started playing music with homemade instruments in his childhood, and by his teens was leading a well-regarded band in southeast Louisiana. He kept LaPlace as his base of operations because of family obligations until his twenty-first birthday, when he moved his band to New Orleans. He was one of the most influential trombonists of early jazz.

Ory was a banjo player during his youth, and it is said that his ability to play the banjo helped him develop "tailgate", a particular style of playing the trombone with a rhythmic line underneath the trumpets and cornets.

When Ory was living on Jackson Avenue, he was discovered by Buddy Bolden, playing his first new trombone, instead of an old Civil War trombone. Ory's sister said he was too young to play with Bolden.

He permanently moved his 6 piece band to New Orleans in 1910. Ory had one of the best-known bands in New Orleans in the 1910s, hiring many of the great jazz musicians of the city, including the cornetists Joe "King" Oliver, Mutt Carey, and Louis Armstrong, who joined the band in 1919;[1] and the clarinetists Johnny Dodds and Jimmie Noone.

In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles[2]—one of a number of New Orleans musicians to do so near that time—and he recorded there in 1921 with a band that included Mutt Carey, the clarinetist and pianist Dink Johnson, and the string bassist Ed Garland. Garland and Carey were longtime associates who would still be playing with Ory during his 1940s comeback. While in Los Angeles, Ory and his band recorded two instrumentals, "Ory's Creole Trombone" and "Society Blues", as well as a number of songs. They were the first jazz recordings made on the West Coast by an African-American jazz band from New Orleans, Louisiana. His band recorded with Nordskog Records; Ory paid Nordskog for the pressings and then sold them with his own label, "Kid Ory's Sunshine Orchestra", at Spikes Brothers Music Store in Los Angeles.

In 1925, Ory moved to Chicago, where he was very active, working and recording with Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and many others. He mentored Benny Goodman and, later, Charles Mingus. He was said to have attempted to take trombone lessons from a "German guy" who played in the Chicago symphony, but Ory was turned away after a few lessons.[3] Ory was notably a part of the original configuration of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five, first recorded on November 12, 1925.[4] His famous composition "Muskrat Ramble" was included in the Hot Five session in February 1926.[5]

During the Great Depression Ory retired from music and did not play again until 1943.[6] He ran a chicken farm in Los Angeles, California.[7] From 1944 to about 1961 he led one of the top New Orleans–style bands of the period. His sidemen during this period included, In addition to Carey and Garland, the trumpeters Alvin Alcorn and Teddy Buckner; the clarinetists Darnell Howard, Jimmie Noone, Albert Nicholas, Barney Bigard, and George Probert; the pianists Buster Wilson, Cedric Haywood, and Don Ewell; and the drummer Minor Hall. All but Buckner, Probert, and Ewell were originally from New Orleans.

His prominence combined with being one of the early users of the trombone glissando technique helped establish it as a central element of New Orleans Jazz.[6]

The Ory band was an important force in reviving interest in New Orleans jazz, making popular 1940s radio broadcasts—among them a number of slots on The Orson Welles Almanac program (beginning March 15, 1944).[8][9][10] In 1944–45 the group made a series of recordings for Crescent Records, which was founded by Nesuhi Ertegun for the express purpose of recording Ory's band.[11]

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Ory and his group appeared at the Beverly Cavern in Los Angeles. In 1958 he played at 'On the levee' on the waterfront at San Francisco. Ory retired from music in 1966 and spent his last years in Hawaii, with the assistance of Trummy Young. Ory died of pneumonia and a heart attack in Honolulu.[2] He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California.[12]

Personal life

Ory was Catholic, baptized at St Peter Church.[13]

Partial discography
  • 1950 Kid Ory and His Creole Dixieland Band (Columbia)
  • 1951 At the Beverly Cavern (Sounds)
  • 1953 Live at Club Hangover, Vol. 1 (Dawn Club)
  • 1953 Creole Jazz Band at Club Hangover (Storyville)
  • 1954 Live at Club Hangover, Vol. 3 (Dawn Club)
  • 1954 Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band (Good Time Jazz)
  • 1954 Creole Jazz Band (Good Time Jazz)
  • 1954 Kid Ory's Creole Band/Johnny Wittwer Trio (Jazz Man)
  • 1955 Sounds of New Orleans, Vol. 9 (Storyville)
  • 1956 Kid Ory in Europe (Verve)
  • 1956 Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band/This Kid's the Greatest! (Good Time Jazz)
  • 1956 The Legendary Kid (Good Time Jazz)
  • 1956 Favorites! (Good Time Jazz)
  • 1957 The Kid from New Orleans: Ory That Is (Upbeat Jazz)
  • 1957 Dixieland Marching Songs (Verve)
  • 1957 Kid Ory Sings French Traditional Songs (Verve)
  • 1958 Song of the Wanderer
  • 1959 At the Jazz Band Ball (Rhapsody)
  • 1959 Plays W.C. Handy
  • 1960 Dance with Kid Ory or Just Listen
  • 1961 The Original Jazz
  • 1961 The Storyville Nights (Verve)
  • 1968 Kid Ory Live (Vault)
  • 1978 Edward Kid Ory and His Creole Band at the Dixieland Jubilee (Dixieland Jubilee)
  • 19?? Kid Ory The Great New Orleans Trombonist (CBS/Sony)
  • 1981 Kid Ory Plays The Blues (Storyville)
  • 1990 Favorites
  • 1992 Kid Ory at the Green Room, Vol. 1 (American Recordings)
  • 1994 Kid Ory at the Green Room, Vol. 2 (American Recordings)
  • 1997 Kid Ory and His Creole Band at the Dixieland Jubilee (GNP Crescendo)
  • 1997 Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band (EPM)
  • 1998 In Denmark (Storyville)
  • 2000 Live at the Beverly Cavern (504)[14]

With Red Allen

References
  1. "Jazz Greats of the 1920s" University of Minnesota Duluth. Retrieved 11 June 2013.
  2. "Kid Ory, 'tailgate' trombonist & composer". African American Registry. Retrieved 2011-09-28.
  3. Brothers, Thomas (2014). Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-393-06582-4.
  4. Brothers, Thomas (2014). Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-393-06582-4.
  5. Brothers, Thomas (2014). Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 210. ISBN 978-0-393-06582-4.
  6. Coda for the Kid by Jim Beaugez Smithsonian magazine January-February 2021 issue Pages 16-20
  7. Brothers, Thomas (2014). Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 418. ISBN 978-0-393-06582-4.
  8. "Radio Almanac". RadioGOLDINdex. Retrieved 2014-02-09.
  9. "Orson Welles Almanac—Part 1". Internet Archive. Retrieved 2014-02-09.
  10. "Orson Welles Almanac—Part 2". Internet Archive. Retrieved 2014-02-10.
  11. Ertegun, Nesuhi. Liner notes for Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band. Good Time Jazz Records L-10 and L-11, 1953, also issued with Good Time Jazz Records L-12022, 1957.
  12. Bahn, Paul G. (2014). The archaeology of Hollywood : traces of the golden age. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 9780759123793.
  13. Young, Zachary (2012-08-01). "OffBeat Magazine". www.fellers.se. Retrieved 2020-12-30.
  14. "Kid Ory | Album Discography | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 21 September 2016.

Sources and further reading
  • McCusker, John. "Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz", University Press of Mississippi, 2012
  • Marcus, Kenneth. Musical Metropolis: Los Angeles and the Creation of Music Culture 1880-1940
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