King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band 1923-1924

King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band 1923-1924
Customer Review: The First Great Jazz Records
Having lived with these tracks for about 50 years, repeated listening has confirmed that these are the finest recordings of a ‘classic’ New Orleans ensemble ever made. The front line are completely integrated with no one (not even Louis Armstrong!) trying to hog the limelight. There are no ’star’ soloists and the cornets, clarinet, and trombone, although distinctive voices, blend together to create a polyphony so perfect as to almost defy belief.

Sadly, this perfection could not last. The era of the great soloists was about to dawn and, although - for example - Armstrong, Hawkins, Bechet, etc created magnificent music, the very fact of their individual creativity meant the end of the truly integrated ensemble until the early 1940’s. Duke Ellington, in the Blanton-Webster band, created just this and, importantly, found a way of integrating important solo voices within the ensemble that detracted from neither. But that’s another story!

This edition of the Oliver Creole Band recordings was been splendidly remastered by the late, lamented, John R T Davis and contains the complete Gennett, Okeh, Columbia and Paramount sessions. Alternate takes are included. All in all, a perfect reissue of some of the most important of all jazz records.

Customer Review: This is how it started
There is that marching beat, harking back to the funerals and parades of New Orleans, and the popular songs and tunes of the day that any self-respecting musician had in his repertoire.

Armstrong’s first solo! And you can easily play a track half a dozen times trying to distinguish between the cornets of Oliver and Armstrong, they’re so entangled and anyway I’m far from sure who is who. Dodds warbling along on his clarinet is always a joy.

This CD is sheer bliss for a lover of raw and “primitive” jazz with its ensemble playing. Only Hot Five and Hot Seven are better, even if dominated by Armstrong’s power.

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