Oliver, King (1885-1938), a cornet player, was one of the earliest and most important musicians and bandleaders in jazz. Oliver became best known as the leader of King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, one of the finest New Orleans-style jazz groups. The band gave the great jazz soloist Louis Armstrong his first national exposure.
Oliver was born on May 11, 1885, in Alben, Louisiana, near New Orleans. His given and family name was Joseph Oliver. Beginning in about 1907, he played cornet in New Orleans brass bands and in bars and nightclubs in the city. He befriended the teenage Louis Armstrong about 1916, giving him a cornet and tutoring him on the instrument. Oliver moved to Chicago in 1918 and played with Bill Johnson’s Original Creole Orchestra. In 1922, he organized his own band and named it King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. He soon added Louis Armstrong to the band as the second cornet player. The band was a sensation at the Lincoln Gardens in Chicago and made about three dozen recordings in 1923 and 1924. These records, including “Dipper Mouth Blues,” “Sugar Foot Stomp,” and “Zulu’s Ball,” had an enormous influence on jazz musicians of the 1920’s and 1930’s and remain classics of the New Orleans style.
As the musicians in Oliver’s band became famous, they left the group for careers of their own, and in 1924 the band broke up. Oliver organized a new group in 1925 as King Oliver and His Dixie Syncopators and took the band to New York City. The band was moderately successful and lasted for about four years. Oliver then toured with various bands. He made his last recording in 1931. Oliver continued to play with other bands in the 1930’s, but he performed less and less because of poor health. He died on April 8, 1938.
