Interview

King Oliver interviewed by John Stewart

Q1.    My guest tonight is King Oliver!, who is a jazz musician and inspires countless jazz musicians.  So what made you get started in jazz?

             Oliver: Well, man, I’m guessing I might as well start with my childhood.  I was fifteen when my ma died. My pa died when I was 24, though he left when I was young.  He was a preacher and I guess that’s what religious folk have done since the beginning of time.  When ma died, I was raised by my sis and helped pay the bills by playing with a children's brass band under the direction of a man named Kenchen.  My first instrument was the ‘bone.  Leader Kenchen switched me to cornet "in defense of everybody's eardrums."( Gerler, 2011)  One time when I was on the road with the band, as we went out of state a lot, I got in a fight and got a scar over one eye that later in my life got a cataract.

            When I moved out of my sis’s place I couldn’t just do music to support myself, so I worked as a yard boy at a Jewish family home.  They gave me flexible hours so I could play with local brass bands.  I stayed like this for a while, almost ten years in fact.

 Q2. Did you have any mentors  to look up to and help  you  develop  the  interests  and  talents  you  have  as  an  artist?

             Not really. I had Kenchen, but he taught the sections and not really to the individuals. I had teachers like Bunk Johnson and Walter Brundy who taught me to read music, but they were stealing my sheet music which was very valuable at the time.  I never knew my father. My ma died when I was young, and my sis was just trying to get by and was not someone I could look up to.  I mean, I can’t complain.  I got what I needed like food and a place to sleep at night.  But I developed an inferiority complex.

            I may not of had a mentor, but I was a mentor to many people.  I am perhaps best remembered for mentoring Louis Armstrong into the musician he was.  I’ve been told that jazz wouldn’t be the same without me.  I got the quote somewhere.  *looks through quote book*   Ah, here it is "if it had not been for Joe Oliver, jazz would not be what it is today."  ("Satchmo - My Life in New Orleans", Armstrong , 1926-1928)
Q3. How was the world of Jazz like when you entered it?

            The world of jazz, hmmm… well, jazz was pretty new when I was growing up. New Orleans was still recovering from the civil war.  And being a black man was still tough.  I couldn’t support my self.  There were plenty o’ critics, mainly old whites fondly remembering the slave days when black people couldn’t have individuality.  Some people outlawed jazz outright, like  “A Cincinnati home for expectant mothers won an injunction to prevent construction of a neighboring theater where jazz would be played, convincing a court that the music is dangerous to fetuses.”(Early Jazz)  Ha! Can you believe that!

Q4. How  did  the  major  cultural,  economic  and political  situations  of  the  time  impact  your  work?

             Whoa, whoa, slow down!  One at a time.  Well, cultural, I’d have to say that being a black man in the early 1900s counts as a cultural situation.  I made less than white musicians, was less appreciated than white musicians, and was less liked.  To most people I was just a thing to play music, like a radio not a person.  Not all white musicians were bad.  Like my friend Jellyroll Morton’s sister said, “At one time, some of the Creole people in downtown New Orleans believed in class and caste, but my brother wasn’t prejudiced against dark people. He was crazy about King Oliver, and King Oliver was a great big black man.” (Hanley, 2007)

            Economical, um.., that’s money, right?  Well, when the great depression hit I lost everything.  And I was no fool.  I had my money in two banks!  Two, but they both fell and before I knew it I was stranded in Georgia working as a janitor.  Additionally I had no hope of playing again because I had developed a mouth disease.

            …Hold on!  Don’t tell me, political next.  Right?  That’s easy.  White man gets elected.  White man don’t do nuttin’ to help anyone other then himself or his girl.  Repeat as necessary.  Way of life.  I stayed out of it.  It didn’t bother me so, I didn’t bother it.

 Q5. I’m sure you had some accomplishments.  What were they and what were the methods you used in your art?

            Well, the formation of my band in 1922 was a big accomplishment.  It was called King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, and we first played at the Lincoln Gardens in Chicago.  I moved out of the Jim Crow south in 1918.  Being crowned king of jazz by kid Ory in 1917, that was a big one.  

But one of the biggest things was putting things in my horn. Yup, I pioneered the use of mutes to get that nice WaWa sound.  My method, well, you blow on your horn then you blow a little harder then you blow a little harder then you BLOW! I’ve been told that “I could blow a cornet out of tune," and that I "should have been playing tuba”(Gerler, 2011)

 Q6. What  were  the  key  opportunities  you  had  that  led  to  turning  points  in  your  life  and  art?

            When I moved out of New Orleans to Chicago was a definite turning point in my life.  If I had stayed, I might not have become as well known.  For that matter, little Louis Armstrong would not have followed me and would not have become so famous.  Jazz playing changed from black clubs to white high class dance halls.

               When I declined a job at Cotton Club for money reasons, it was a big break for young Duke Ellington who I think made a bit of a name for himself in the jazz world. 

Q7. What personal choices did you make to become successful?

            Personal choices… hmmmm.  Well. I think moving out of the Jim Crow south helped me.  If I had stayed in racist New Orleans, I would have never had success. Getting Louis in my band was a good choice as Dan Morganstern said "its most potent attraction was the unique cornet team." (Cohassey, 2011)
Q8. What  hardships  or  roadblocks  did  you  have to overcome  in  order  to  be  an artist?

            My race, without a doubt, caused me hardship.  If I had not been black I would have gone a lot farther.  I wasn’t always paid for my gigs and couldn’t do much about it because of my race. 

I held myself back.   They say that my inferiority complex stemmed from my underdeveloped chops and scarred eye. (Gerler, 2011)

 Q9. What kind of limitations did you run into as both an artist and a person?

            When I was in New York I wasn’t able to “allow my pride to accommodate myself to the requirements of the New York entertainment world, with the nightclubs and booking agencies largely controlled by gangsters or dishonest entrepreneurs. I drifted into almost complete obscurity, ending with my tragic and lonely death in Savannah, Georgia.” (Hanley, 2007)

       I always “made sure my band took the stage neatly dressed and organized. But behind the scenes, my health began to decline. By 1935 I could no longer play the trumpet, because of the mouth disease, pyorrhea which had caused the loss of my teeth and painful bleeding of my gums. Soon, I moved to Savannah, Georgia, Unable to play my horn. Bankrupt and nearly forgotten, I spent the last year of my life in Savannah running a fruit stand and working as a poolhall janitor.”( Cohassey, 2011)            

Q10. What  defining stories  best  illustrate  how  you  became  successful  in Jazz?

             Because of my inferiority complex, I was bullied by other musicians because of my under devolved chops and bad eye  A defining story for me would have to be in 1911 when I stood up for myself and said to my pianist Richard M. Jones "'Get in B-flat' I didn't even mention a tune, just said, 'Get in B-flat.'” Jones said I “blew the most beautiful stuff I have ever heard,"

            To close, I’d like to tell you what my friend, the great New Orleans clarinetist, Albert Nicholas said about me and him.  “I remember one Sunday night. We had been together four or five months and we were really blowing. Jelly came in, all sharp, and sat down in a corner while we were playing. Joe saw Jelly and we played a couple of his tunes — Milneburg Joys and something else. We got to bouncing and swing and Jelly he came up and said, “Now, now you fellows are playing. He didn’t ask Joe’s permission; he got up on the stand. He told Luis Russell, ‘Get up from there, you don’t know what you’re doin’.’ He sat down and got to ridin’, and the band, with all respects to how good it was, it sounded better, for this man had something. Jelly got in there, man, and the people started screaming. And on the floor the people stopped dancing, rushed to the bandstand and started listening, and Jelly played a whole set. Joe was all smiles when he got off the stand and Jelly told Joe, ‘Now you got a band, now you got a band — just keep on playing my tunes.’ Oh Jelly was funny.”(Hanley, 2007)

Thanks for having me, man!

           

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