"In the 1920 and '30s. there was a Renaissance in music that was the equivalent of the artistic renaissance, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer and others created the best songs ever written. These are classics... This is classical music."
~ Tony Bennet
There were thousands of great musicians during this era but Louis Armstrong made people change the way they saw the music, how they sang and how they played it. He also mastered the art of improvising.
Louis Armstrong, 1953. (Photo: World-Telegram staff photographer [Public domain].
Armstrong with trumpet, late 1920.
Louis Armstrong was born in one poor section of New Orleans on August 4, 1901. He is considered one of the founders of Jazz, becoming a model to future musicians.
Kid Ory was a trombone player during the first years of jazz. Before he played the trombone he played the banjo and possibly it was his knowledge about the two instruments that allowed him to shape the "tailgate" style, where the trombone plays a rhythmic line underneath the trumpets and cornets.
Ory in 1944 with the All Star Jazz Group assembled for the CBS show The Orson Welles Almanac.
The Woodland Band, ca 1905, Kid Ory’s first band, LaPlace, Louisiana. L to R Edward Robinson, Kid Ory, Chif Matthews, Raymond Brown, Stonewall Matthews, Harry Forster. Image courtesy Christer Fellers and The Kid Ory Archive.
From 1912 to 1919, Kid Ory led one of the most popular bands in New Orleans with Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Johnny Dodds, and more.
This video shows a group of people dancing to the beat of a Kid Ory song called Ballin' the Jack, showing the new style of clothing the women wore, which allowed them to dance freely, and their new hairstyles which followed an idea of comfort. It also shows how much Black Americans loved Jazz and how important it was to them. Credits: film from Prelinger Archives San Francisco, Dancing from 1914. With added soundtrack of Kid Ory - Ballin' the Jack -1913
Joe McQueen was born on May 30th, 1919. He grew up in Ardmore Oklahoma, where his cousin taught him to play the saxo, and told him he could make money playing it, so Joe left basketball and football to focus on his music.
(Al Hartmann | Tribune file photo) Joe McQueen plays his tenor saxophone in his "shed" behind his home in Ogden on Jan. 18, 2009.
Utah saxophone legend Joe McQueen celebrates his 100th birthday by blowing on a brand new sax at the Gallivan Center in May 2019.
Saxophone player Joe McQueen adjusts his horn at his Ogden home on Saturday, May 26, 2018. McQueen died Saturday, Dec. 7, 2019 at 100 years old.