Trumpeting The Blues

Celebrating New Orleans’ grandest avenue, “Canal Street Blues” remains one of the most popular blues recordings of all time and one of the most oft-quoted performances of classic blues repertory. The recordings of the Oliver band have spoken to generations of musicians as a kind of text on how New Orleans blues ought to be played. New Orleans-style blues bands old and new often model their performance style after the Oliver band. As one of the 37 universally revered recordings by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, “Canal Street Blues” may be the most sublime. During their two-year reign at Chicago’s Lincoln Gardens, the band consistently drew enormous crowds that made the cavern-like proportions of the hall seem small.

King Oliver and Louis Armstrong

Though customers were largely African American, white patrons flocked to the Lincoln Gardens, crowding the upstairs balcony. Young musicians—both black and white—also made a regular pilgrimage to hear the Oliver band to “get their music lessons,” as the Lincoln Gardens bouncer “King” Jones would tease, as he admitted under-age fellows such as Bud Freeman, Bix Beiderbecke, Preston Jackson, Doc Cheatham and others. In retrospect, the Oliver recordings are considered great documents of authentic New Orleans blues. But to the members of Oliver’s band, it was all in a day’s work; they were first and foremost a dance orchestra. The music was especially compelling for dancing; the tempos were set carefully and the music pressed forward with the kind of rolling conviction that New Orleans musicians seemed to have invented. Keeping the dancers happy was Joe Oliver’s main concern, not playing hot blues, or self-consciously trying to create immortal improvised solos. King Oliver mentored Louis Armstrong on how the blues should be played and the rest is history.