The JAZZ Story

storyteller and colorful personality, Johnson is responsible for much of the

New Orleans legend. But much of what he had to say was more fantasy

than fact.

Many people, including serious fans, believe that the early jazz musicians

were self-taught geniuses who didn't read music and never took a formal

lesson. A romantic notion, but entirely untrue. Almost every major figure

in early jazz had at least a solid grasp of legitimate musical fundamentals,

and often much more.Still, they developed wholly original approaches to their instruments. A

prime example is Joseph (King) Oliver (1885-1938), a cornetist and

bandleader who used all sorts of found objects, including drinking glasses,

a sand pail, and a rubber bathroom plunger to coax a variety of sounds

from his horn. Freddie Keppard (1889-1933), Oliver's chief rival, didn't

use mutes, perhaps because he took pride in being the loudest cornet in

town. Keppard, the first New Orleans great to take the music to the rest of

the country, played in New York vaudeville with the Original Creole

Orchestra in 1915.

JAZZ COMES NORTH

By the early years of the second decade, the instrumentation of the typical

Jazz band had become cornet (or trumpet), trombone, clarinet, guitar,

string bass and drums. (Piano rarely made it since most jobs were on

location and pianos were hard to transport.) The banjo and tuba, so closely

identified now with early Jazz, actually came in a few years later because

early recording techniques couldn't pick up the softer guitar and string bass

sounds.

The cornet played the lead, the trombone filled out the bass harmony part