Shifting Scene: Chicago in 1920s

Chicago replaced New Orleans as jazz's happening city during the 1920s. Musicians from New Orleans and elsewhere in the south gravitated toward the rapidly growing Windy City, where bustling clubs and recording studios gave the payers a shot at national notoriety.

Recorded at last in Chicago after honing his chops in New Orleans, trumpeter Louis Armstrong became jazz's first famous soloist. Other early New Orleans players who also had essential roles in 1920s Chicago jazz included band leader/pianist Luis Russell, clarinetists Sidney Bechet, Jimmy Noone, Albert Nicholas, Johnny Dodds, drummer Baby Dodds (Johnny's brother), and bassist Pops Foster.

Also in Chicago, a young pianist named Earl "Fatha" Hines brought piano into the age of swing and bebop. Top white Chicago players including cornetist Bix Beiderbecke developed a big following of their own in white venues, and during off hours they traded licks with Armstrong and other African American musicians at late - night jam sessions.

Several elements made Chicago the right place for jazz to make its next major leaps forward. By the 1920s, the music industry was centered in Chicago, with its clubs, live jazz radio broadcasts, and numerous recording studios. Beginning around 1914, leading jazz players gravitated towards Chicago, and the influx was sped by the closure of New Orleans' fabled Storyville district in 1917 at which time many off jazz's innovators headed north in search of work. At the same time, some musicians went west to Los Angeles, east to New York, overseas to perform in London, or toured South with African American revues.

Joe "King" Oliver (1885 - 1938)

Joe "king" Oliver earned his coronation. First in New Orleans, then in 1920a Chicago as leader of groups including his Creole Jazz Band. Oliver was a powerhouse cornetist who conquered his leading competitors - Freddie Keppard and Manuel Perez - in a cutting contest, out dueling both men in an improvising jam session.

Trumpeters of the 1920s used plungers or mutes over bells of the horns to achieve a wailing "wah-wah-wah" sound reminiscent of the sound of voices rising and falling during a gospel church service. Oliver was renowned for the mutes, cups, and glasses he used to get his signature sound.

King Oliver and Louis Armstrong smoke on the 1923 Louis Armstrong/King Oliver (Milestone), and Oliver's Creole Jazz Band is red hot on the Okeh Sessions EMI album. The way energy zings back and forth between players, and the presence of key players such as brothers Johnny Dodds (clarinet) and Baby Dodds (drums), who would later record with Armstrong makes Oliver's early recordings doubly important.

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