Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2008 - (Page 61)

“sweet” jazz bands prevailed. For many of his listeners in pre-World Hollywood became a major factor, and War I New Orleans, Oliver’s music spoke “hot” jazz was subsumed by big-band to the experience of rural Southern blacks HIS RELATIVE LACK OF migrating for work to Southern cities; in swing. As the writing of jazz history Chicago, his music spoke to those who FAME SURELY MUST BE matured in the second half of the 20th participated in the massive wave of postcentury, the struggle for cultural World War I migration north, in much assimilation has remained a defining the same way Muddy Waters’ music LAID AT THE DOORSTEP element of its evolution. If the first reflected the experience of a similarly generation of jazz historians was massive post-World War II migration. OF THE WRITING OF fighting for the simple recognition of What both King Oliver and Muddy jazz expression as legitimate American Waters share is the distinction of creating JAZZ HISTORY, WHICH popular culture, subsequent generations inventive ensemble popular music that have focused more intently on academic reflected African-American culture in the CONSIGNED JOE OLIVER recognition and, more recently, a kind of context of American history, and cultural exceptionalism that presents especially southern African-American EARLY TO THE ROLE OF jazz as “America’s classical music.” culture exported north. At the same time, what we think of Later in the 20th century, bandleaders TRAGIC HERO as jazz has largely abandoned its role as James Brown and Miles Davis would popular dance music, concentrating achieve similar successes in pioneering instead on individual virtuosity and the late-20th century genres of funk and intellectual satisfactions, none of which benefit the legacy of Joe Oliver, who has remained a shadowy presence in the cavalcade of jazz greats as defined by the larger jazz narrative — an early innovator who wound up a tragic and forlorn figure selling fresh produce on the sidewalks of Savannah . If the evolution of jazz history neglects Joe Oliver, however, a wider view of 20th-century American popular culture only serves to elevate his stature. As New Orleans jazz historian and Tulane jazz archivist Bruce Raeburn points this out in “King King Oliver’s Dixie Syncopators, 1926, Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, and Sidney Bechet: Ménage a featuring (front row) George Field, Bud Scott, Darnell Howard, Trois, New Orleans Style,” Albert Nicholas, Barney Bigard, Luis Russell, and (back row) Bert Cobb, published in The Oxford Paul Barbarin, Joe “King” Oliver, and Bob Shoffner. Companion to Jazz, all three jazz pioneers “took the communal music of their birthplace and transformed it into highly personal works of fusion jazz, both of which wed musical innovation to art.” Today, we may hear the emphasis on “highly personal popular acceptance in a manner that deserves much wider works of art,” but a more-thoughtful assessment of Oliver recognition as American music embodying themes of and his achievement with the Creole Jazz Band remind of us belonging and identity rooted in shared historical of a more important part: “the communal music of their experience. LCV birthplace.” If there’s an apt analogy for the Oliver’s life, then, it’s Roger Hahn is a New Orleans-based jazz writer whose work has been probably that of McKinley Morganfield, better known as featured on NPR Jazz and VH-1 websites, MusicAngle.com, and in New Muddy Waters, the Delta blues musician who brought the sounds of the cotton fields north to forge a dynamic musical Orleans’ OffBeat Magazine. He is currently working on a cultural history of the New Orleans jazz tradition, including its pair of 20th-century revivals. ensemble that gave voice to its own moment in history with piledriver force and bravado innovation. HOGAN JAZZ ARCHIVES, TULANE UNIVERSITY Fall 2008/LOUISIANA CULTURAL VISTAS 61 http://MusicAngle.com

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

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