West End Blues~1929~Joe "King" Oliver

Joe "King" Oliver was the horn player extraordinaire and was a jazz band leader from the late 1910s to the 1930s. Before Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith or Jelly Roll Morton, there was "King" Oliver.
Born near Donaldsonville, the old capitol of Louisiana, he moved to New Orleans as a youth. From 1908 to 1917, Oliver could be heard playing his sweet cornet inNew Orleans brass bands and dance halls. Joe and Kid Ory formed a band in the late 1910s that was New Orleans' hottest and best. Joe was in demand everywhere~ from the Storyville Red Light District Gentlemen's Parlors to white celebrity balls. He crossed all racial barriers until he was arrested by a corrupt New Orleans police force in 1918. The arrest convinced Oliver to leave for Chicago with wife Estrella and daughter Ruby. In 1921 he toured the west coast and in '22 he formed his Creole Jazz Band in Chicago with protege Louis Armstrong on second cornet; Bobby Dodds~drums; Johnny Dodds~clarinet; Honore Dutrey~trombone; Will Johnson~bass; and Lil Hardin (later to become Louis Armstrong's wife) on piano. They recorded for Okeh, Gennett, Paramount, and Columbia and introduced Dixieland to the north. Louis Armstrong, who owed his talent and much of his success to "Papa Joe", his idol and inspiration, said had it not been for Joe, jazz would never have developed into the popular music genre that it has today. West End Blues was composed by Oliver with lyrics added later by Clarence Williams