Kid Ory

Edward "Kid" Ory (December 25, 1886 – January 23, 1973) was an American jazz composer, trombonist and bandleader. One of the early users of the glissando technique, he helped establish it as a central element of New Orleans jazz.

He was born near LaPlace, Louisiana and moved to New Orleans on his 21st birthday, to Los Angeles in 1910 and to Chicago in 1925. The Ory band later was an important force in reviving interest in New Orleans jazz, making radio broadcasts on ''The Orson Welles Almanac'' program in 1944, among other shows. In 1944–45, the group made a series of recordings for the Crescent label, 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

Ory was born in 1886 to a Louisiana French-speaking family of Black Creole descent, on Woodland Plantation in Laplace, now the site of 1811 Kid Ory Historic House. 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.

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. His use of glissando helped establish it as a central element of New Orleans Jazz.

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 moved his six-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; and the clarinetists Johnny Dodds and Jimmie Noone.

In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles—one of several New Orleans musicians to do so at the time—and he recorded there in 1922 with a band that included Mutt Carey, the clarinetist and pianist Dink Johnson, and the string bassist Ed Garland. Garland and Carey were long-time 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. Ory was a member of the original lineup of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five which first recorded on November 12, 1925. His composition " Muskrat Ramble" was included in the Hot Five session in February 1926.

During the Great Depression Ory retired from music and did not play again until 1943.''Coda for the Kid'' by Jim Beaugez Smithsonian magazine January–February 2021 issue Pages 16-20 He ran a chicken farm in Los Angeles, California. 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.

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

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.

Personal life

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. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California. He had a wife named Elizabeth.

Ory was Catholic, baptized at St Peter Church in Reserve, Louisiana.

Legacy

In 2021, the 1811 Kid Ory Museum House opened on the site of Woodland Plantation in LaPlace, Louisiana, which is in the National Register of Historic Places of the United States. The museum is dedicated both to the 1811 German Coast uprising of enslaved people and to Ory.

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)

With Red Allen
* 1957 '' Red Allen, Kid Ory & Jack Teagarden at Newport'' (Verve)

References

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''

External links

Kid Ory
at the Red Hot Jazz Archive
Jubilee
(Armed Forces Radio Network) at the Internet Archive; program #250 recorded between July and September 1947 includes Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band performing " Muskrat Ramble" (7:05–10:30)

1944 Orson Welles Broadcasts
at the Kid Ory Archive


at the Kid Ory Archive

Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band: 1944–1945 The Legendary Crescent Recording Sessions
at AllMusic ( Scott Yanow)

Profiles in Jazz: Kid Ory
by Scott Yanow

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ory, Kid
African-American jazz musicians
American jazz bandleaders
American jazz trombonists
Male trombonists
Dixieland trombonists
Jazz musicians from New Orleans
Jazz musicians from California
1886 births
1973 deaths
People from South Los Angeles
People from LaPlace, Louisiana
Louisiana Creole people
Vocalion Records artists
Columbia Records artists
Okeh Records artists
Verve Records artists
20th-century trombonists
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
New Orleans Wanderers members
Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five members
Good Time Jazz Records artists
African-American Catholics
20th-century African-American musicians