What an important band Kid Ory led in 1944 and 1945. It was known as Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band and had originally been assembled to perform on a 1944 radio series called 'The Orson Welles Almanac'.
Sixteen tracks (eight recordings) by the band were released by the short-lived Crescent Records.
These recordings proved seminal in the international revival of old-style New Orleans jazz. Fortunately we can hear them all on YouTube BY CLICKING HERE.
In the course of the eight recordings, Ory used, in addition to himself on trombone, 'Papa Mutt' Carey on trumpet, Omer Simeon and Darnell Howard on clarinet, Ed Garland on bass, Alton Redd and Minor Hall on drums, Bud Scott on guitar and Buster Wilson on piano. What an all-star cast! Ory's own playing throughout is assured and exemplary.
The tunes they recorded were pretty well all numbers that have been imitated and perpetuated by traditional jazz bands ever since. Examples are South, Maryland, 1919 Rag, Creole Song, Ory's Creole Trombone, Panama, Down Home Rag, Maple Leaf Rag, Careless Love and Weary Blues.
The powerful driving playing, coupled with the solidity of the rhythm sections, showed us all exactly how it should be done. I think many American and European bands soon started trying to imitate them.
I can see a direct line from these recordings to the equally exciting music of such bands as Tuba Skinny, The Shotgun Jazz Band and The Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band who are leading another such revival today.
By the way, I have struggled to define the wonderful tone Shaye Cohn (of Tuba Skinny) achieves on her cornet. I have tried to hear it as a cross between the playing of George Mitchell and Natty Dominique. But after listening to the Ory band, I think Thomas 'Papa Mutt' Carey must have influenced her - especially when playing muted, and also in the energetic way he drives tunes along. Amazing to think that a great player of today can have been so influenced by someone who died 34 years before she was born. But that's the wonder of sound recordings.
And there's a similar parallel between Kid Ory and today's great trombonist Haruka Kikuchi. She has said that it was hearing the recordings by Kid Ory that drew her to traditional jazz and made her want to play the trombone. In performances with The Shotgun Jazz Band and The Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band she sounds very like him.
