Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band

Kid Ory’s Creole Jazz band was formed in the early 1940s. Born Edward Ory on December 25, 1886 in LaPlace Louisiana, the acclaimed trombonist and band leader was better known by his stage name Kid Ory. He rose to prominence during the 1910s when he moved to New Orleans and employed some of the great jazz players from that era including Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Mutt Carey and Jimmie Dodds. In 1919, he joined an exodus of a significant group of New Orleans-based jazzmen who moved to the West Coast to pursue their musical careers in Los Angeles - where the burgeoning film industry had provided a range of exciting opportunities for talented musicians. In the mid-1920s, Ory moved north to Chicago where he found work in the recording industry with artists such as Jelly Roll Morton, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and his old friend Louis Armstrong. He returned to Los Angeles and worked with local bands but dropped out of the music business in 1933. He spent the rest of the 1930s working on his brother’s chicken farm. The swing and big band movements dominated the charts and Kid Ory’s brand of jazz became passé. In 1942, commercial tastes were changing and interest in New Orleans jazz started to grow. Kid Ory left the farm and became involved in the music scene again. He began performing on radio broadcasts with his new group Kid Ory’s Creole Jazz Band. Orson Welles was a fan of Kid Ory and included him and his band on quite a few episodes of his Orson Welles Almanac show. The group released a series of singles in 1944 and 1945 on Crescent Records, a label created by Nesuhi Ertegun to release Kid Ory’s music. The group also appeared in several motion pictures in the late 1940s. The band’s recording career features releases under several different names including Kid Ory’s Creole Jazz Band, Kid Ory and His Creole Jazz Band, Kid Ory and His Creole Dixieland Band, Kid Ory’s Creole Band and several other variations. Their first album, New Orleans Jazz, was released in 1947. The group continued to release a series of albums for the next two decades including Kid Ory Et Son Créole Jazz Band (1954), Tailgate! (1957), and The Kid’s the Greatest (1962). Defying all odds, the second half of his career was far more successful than his early career. Kid Ory continued to record and perform with his Creole Jazz Band until his retirement in 1966. He spent the remaining years of his life living in Hawaii. Kid Ory died on January 23, 1973 at the age of 86.