Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2008 - (Page 60)

Louis Armstrong and Joe Oliver circa 1922 THE COMMUNAL MUSIC OF HIS BIRTHPLACE 60 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Fall 2008 But Joe Oliver’s last letters, written to the half-sister who had raised him and was then living in New York City, also reflect his persistent, stubborn pride. Having made his mark in pre-World War I New Orleans and Jazz Age Chicago, Joe Oliver seemed either unable or unwilling in later years to adapt to a rapidly changing entertainment scene in which the the first wave of the New Orleans jazz revival was building; in the second case, the years of his personal musical accomplishment and slow rise to popular success — the decade preceding World War I, during the most active years the Storyville — remain at the periphery of conventionally recorded history. The same community of impassioned record collectors that helped spark the first New Orleans jazz revival was also responsible for writing the first comprehensive history of jazz. Published in 1939, the volume produced collaboratively by nine authors bore the title Jazzmen: The Story of Hot Jazz Told in the Lives of the Men Who Created It and contained 15 articles divided into four sections: New Orleans, Chicago, New York, and Hot Jazz Today. As a work of history, the project represented the consensus opinions of a subculture that prized the older, “hot,” blues-related jazz over mainstream, “sweet,” big-band swing music. Based mainly on oral history and suffused with romantic inspiration, Jazzmen also became the place where the story of jazz was outlined and this assessment of its place in American culture influenced all future generations of jazz historians and critics. Jazzmen’s vividly passionate account of the formative years of a new American music is animated by one set of letters from Bunk Johnson and another from Joe Oliver. Johnson’s letters serve as a folkloric frame, “a scriptural foundation” for what cultural historian John Gennari describes as “an epic full of larger-than-life heroes and unforgettable places that cohered into a new national mythology.” They also helped launch Johnson’s commercial resurrection, which, in turn, inspired an international New Orleans jazz revival. Oliver’s letters, on the other hand, serve as a coda for his slow decline, a downward fall that jazz historian Martin Williams described as “a medieval tragedy of the good man whom capricious fate had deprived of success and awarded only adversity and failure.” Over the following decade, Oliver intermittently led several bands and made a handful of recordings as an accompanist, but never with the distinction of the Creole Jazz Band’s accomplishments. Eventually, he was reduced to touring the Midwest and Southeast with pick-up bands on barely profitable contracts. His last tour left him stranded in Savannah, Ga., where he found cheap lodging in a rooming house, got a job sweeping out a pool hall, and tended a sidewalk vegetable stand for spare change. In a scene fit for a Shakesperean tragedy, Martin Williams reports Louis Armstrong happening upon Oliver during a tour stop in Savannah, weeping in astonishment, and handing the old man money to buy new clothes. HOGAN JAZZ ARCHIVES, TULANE UNIVERSITY

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2008

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2008 Contents Friends Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities New Orleans Immortelle The Historic New Orleans Collection Highland-Fairfield: The Historic Heart of Shreveport The Ogden Museum of Southern Art Perils of the Mississippi River Louisiana Foodways Harvest of Life King Oliver: The Forgotten King of Jazz Louisiana Architecture Jazz Notes Louisiana State Museum Eye of the Storm Louisiana Association of Museums Soul Resin Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.