Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz

5. 1908–1910: Kid

[ 64 ] chapter 5 1908–1910 KID Shortly before they died, Dutt made a promise to his parents that he would remain in St. John Parish until he turned 21. He was supposed to look out for his younger sisters Annie and Lizzie. This, he said, was why in 1905 he did not take Bolden up on his offer to play with him. “I had to go back home,” he said. Ory should have been released from his bond on Christmas Day, 1907, when he turned 21. Somehow, however, Ory had come to believe that he was born in 1889. By 1957, when he realized that he was older, he claimed he went to New Orleans in 1907 instead of 1910, changing the date of the event instead of his age in the story.1 Christmas 1907 marks not his move to New Orleans but the continuation of increased musical activity and, significantly, exposure to and participation in the music of that city. In the coming years he would play his first job in the city, study with a trombone master, and buy his first slide trombone. He also played marching jobs in New Orleans and Reserve with the Pickwick Brass Band. He took to ducking into New Orleans whenever he could. Sometimes the whole band would go into town, listen to the city bands, and take what they could back with them to the country. “We used to go down to New Orleans to hear different bands that played in the parks. They play a tune once, that’s all I want to hear so we could play it too. Take two and make one out of it, if we couldn’t get all of it.”2 This could best be termed the Ory band’s apprenticeship among the hot musicians of New Orleans. They heard the best bands the kid [ 65 ] city had to offer. Notable areas of exploration for Ory included episodes in Storyville, the Rampart and Perdido area, Bolden’s neighborhood , and Lincoln Park. The boys heard different bands playing in different contexts for very different audiences. There were polite society dances at benevolent society halls and raucous brass band parades, where the street dancing shut down traffic. Then there were the bands at the Storyville clubs that played for the sporting crowd. A musician had to know how to handle playing in all these places to make a go of it in New Orleans. Ory was observing not only the music itself, but how each leader handled his band. How did he count off tunes? How did he build a set of music? What type of songs should a band open with? Did the audience seem to enjoy the louder bands or the softer ones? Should a band play hot all the time? How did the leader guide the players during the performance ? Ory needed to learn all of these things. In the summer of 1908, as they had the two previous summers, Ory and the boys spent much of their free time at Lincoln Park. It was a brief train ride from St. John, where Dutt was spending most nights in the room above Johnny Ory’s store in Edgard. While Bolden, who had made the biggest impression, was gone, there was always plenty of music at Lincoln and Johnson Parks to keep the gang interested. Ory ingratiated himself to the manager at Lincoln Park, Buddy Bartley, and ultimately the band was hired to play on advertising wagons and for dances there. Bartley, whose real name was Joseph Haywood, was the manager of the park and worked for a Mr. Snow. He also worked as a waiter and lived uptown on Dryades Street. Ory described Bartley (he called him Bottley) as a promoter , though he had other titles. Variously described by the police as a pimp and a small-time criminal, he was arrested for fighting, loitering, discharging firearms, disturbing the peace, and catching on streetcars. Bartley was the emcee of Lincoln Park as well as its aerial attraction: he rode a smoke-filled balloon up to the sky and then, on cue from a shotgun blast fired from the ground, [ 66 ] – parachuted out. Sometimes he landed in the park, but stories are legend of him coming down on unintended targets. Bartley once was cast adrift in the balloon by high winds, and came down in...