Editing King Oliver (section)

==Biography==
===Life===
Joseph Nathan Oliver was born in [[Aben, Louisiana]], near [[Donaldsonville, Louisiana|Donaldsonville]] in [[Ascension Parish, Louisiana|Ascension Parish]], to 
Nathan Oliver and Virginia "Jinnie" Jones. He claimed 1881 as his year of birth in his draft registration in September 1918 (two months before the end of World War I) but that year is open to debate, with some census records and other sources suggesting 1884 or 1885 as his true year of birth.<ref>[http://www.doctorjazz.co.uk/draftcards2.html Profile (search by surname alphabetically)], doctorjazz.co.uk. Accessed November 10, 2022.</ref>

He moved to [[New Orleans]] in his youth. He first studied the trombone, then changed to cornet. From 1908 to 1917, he played cornet in New Orleans [[brass band]]s and dance bands and in the city's red-light district, which came to be known as [[Storyville, New Orleans|Storyville]]. A band he co-led with trombonist [[Kid Ory]] was considered one of the best and hottest in New Orleans in the late 1910s.<ref name="nyt obit">{{cite news |title=Kid Ory, 86, Dead; Jazz Trombonist |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/01/24/archives/kid-ory-86-dead-jazz-trombonist-exponent-of-dixieland-slide-wrote.html |access-date=February 1, 2019 |agency=New York Times |date=January 24, 1973}}</ref> He was popular in New Orleans across economic and racial lines and was in demand for music jobs of all kinds.

According to an [[oral history]] interview at [[Tulane University]]'s [[Hogan Jazz Archive]] with Oliver's widow, Stella, a fight broke out at a dance where Oliver was playing, and the police arrested him, his band, and the fighters.

He was living in [[Chicago]] with his wife, Estelle "Stella" Dominick, whom he had married in New Orleans in September 1911. He continued to work at the Dreamland, forming a band there in January 1920, which included Johnny Dodds, Honoré Dutrey, and Lil Hardin, the nucleus of his famous Creole Jazz Band. After Storyville closed, he moved to Chicago in 1918 with his wife and step-daughter, Ruby Tuesday Oliver (born 1905).<ref name="Larkin"/>

Noticeably different in his approach were faster tempos, unlike the slow drags in the African-American dance halls of New Orleans.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brothers|first=Thomas|title=Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company|year=2014|isbn=978-0-393-06582-4|location=New York, NY|page=31}}</ref> In Chicago, he found work with colleagues from New Orleans, such as clarinetist [[Lawrence Duhé]], bassist [[William Manuel Johnson|Bill Johnson]], trombonist [[Roy Palmer (musician)|Roy Palmer]], and drummer [[Paul Barbarin]].<ref>{{cite book |title=American Musicians II: Seventy-one Portraits in Jazz |first=Whitney |last=Balliett |author-link=Whitney Balliett |year=1996 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=New York |isbn=978-0195095388 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/americanmusician00ball_0 }}</ref>  He became leader of Duhé's band, playing at a number of Chicago clubs. In the summer of 1921, he took a group to the West Coast, playing engagements in San Francisco and Oakland, California.<ref name="Larkin"/> On the west coast, Oliver and his band engaged with the vaudeville tradition, performing in plantation outfits.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brothers|title=Louis Armstrong|publisher=|year=2014|isbn=|location=|pages=30}}</ref>

Oliver and his band returned to Chicago in 1922, where they started playing in the [[Lincoln Gardens]] as King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band. In addition to Oliver on cornet, the personnel included his protégé [[Louis Armstrong]] on second cornet, [[Baby Dodds]] on drums, [[Johnny Dodds]] on clarinet, [[Lil Hardin Armstrong|Lil Hardin]] (later Armstrong's wife) on piano, [[Honoré Dutrey]] on trombone, and [[William Manuel Johnson|Bill Johnson]] on double bass.<ref name="Larkin"/> Recordings made by this group in 1923 for [[Gennett Records|Gennett]], [[Okeh Records|Okeh]], [[Paramount Records|Paramount]], and [[Columbia Records|Columbia]] demonstrated the New Orleans style of collective improvisation, also known as [[Dixieland]], and brought it to a larger audience. Because they were recording acousticly into a horn that was directly connected to the needle making the record master, Armstrong notably had to stand in the corner of the room, away from the horn, because his powerful playing bounced the needle off the master.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brothers|title=Louis Armstrong|publisher=|year=2014|isbn=|location=|pages=62}}</ref> In addition, white musicians would visit Lincoln Gardens in order to learn from Oliver and his band. Because Lincoln Gardens was in Chicago's black neighborhood and only admitted blacks, the white players listened outside near the front door.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brothers|title=Louis Armstrong|publisher=|year=2014|isbn=|location=|pages=33}}</ref> A prospective tour in the midwestern states ultimately broke up the band in 1924.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brothers|title=Louis Armstrong|publisher=|year=2014|isbn=|location=|pages=116}}</ref>

In the mid-1920s Oliver enlarged his band to nine musicians, performing under the name King Oliver and his Dixie Syncopators, and began using more written arrangements with jazz solos. This band led by Oliver at the Plantation Café was in direct competition with Louis Armstrong's Sunset Stompers, who performed at the [[Sunset Cafe|Sunset Café]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brothers|title=Louis Armstrong|publisher=|year=2014|isbn=|location=|pages=256}}</ref> In 1927 the band went to New York, but he disbanded it to do freelance jobs. In the later 1920s, he struggled with playing trumpet due to his gum disease, so he employed others to handle the solos, including his nephew Dave Nelson, Louis Metcalf, and [[Red Allen]]. He reunited the band in 1928, recording for [[Victor Talking Machine Company]] one year later. He continued with modest success until a downturn in the economy made it more difficult to find bookings. His [[periodontal disease|periodontitis]] made playing the trumpet progressively difficult.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brothers|title=Louis Armstrong|publisher=|year=2014|isbn=|location=|pages=89}}</ref> He quit playing music in 1937.<ref name="Larkin">{{cite book|title=[[Encyclopedia of Popular Music|The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music]]|first=Colin |last=Larkin|editor-link=Colin Larkin (writer)|publisher=[[Virgin Books]]|date=1997|edition=Concise|isbn=1-85227-745-9|page=919}}</ref>

===Work and influence===
{{listen |filename=Dippermouth Blues - KING OLIVER'S JAZZ BAND.flac|title=Dippermouth Blues |description=1923 recording by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band featuring [[Louis Armstrong]] }}

As a player, Oliver took great interest in altering his horn's sound. He pioneered the use of mutes, including the rubber plumber's plunger, derby hat, bottles and cups. His favorite mute was a small metal mute made by the [[C.G. Conn]] Instrument Company, with which he played his famous solo on his composition the "Dippermouth Blues" (an early nickname for fellow cornetist Louis Armstrong). His recording "Wa Wa Wa" with the Dixie Syncopators can be credited with giving the name [[wah-wah (music)|wah-wah]] to such techniques. This "freak" style of trumpet playing was also featured in his composition, "Eccentric."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brothers|title=Louis Armstrong|publisher=|year=2014|isbn=|location=|page=83}}</ref> One of his protégés, Louis Panico (cornetist with the [[Isham Jones]] Orchestra), authored a book entitled ''The Novelty Cornetist'', which is illustrated with photos showing some of the mute techniques he learned from Oliver.<ref> https://qpress.ca/product/the-novelty-cornettist-louis-panico/ accessed 20/4/2024</ref>

Oliver was also a talented composer, and wrote many tunes that are still regularly played, including "Dippermouth Blues," "Sweet Like This," "Canal Street Blues," and "Doctor Jazz." "Dippermouth Blues," for example, was adapted by Don Redman for Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra under the new name of "Sugar Foot Stomp".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brothers|first=Thomas|title=Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism|publisher= W.W. Norton & Company |year=2014|isbn=978-0-393-06582-4|location=New York City|page=149}}</ref>{{citation needed|date=June 2023}}

Oliver performed mostly on cornet, but like many cornetists he switched to trumpet in the late 1920s. He credited jazz pioneer [[Buddy Bolden]] as an early influence, and in turn was a major influence on numerous younger cornet/trumpet players in New Orleans and Chicago, including [[Tommy Ladnier]], [[Paul Mares]], [[Muggsy Spanier]], [[Johnny Wiggs]], [[Frank Guarente]] and, the most famous of all, Armstrong. 

As mentor to Armstrong in New Orleans, Oliver taught young Louis and gave him his job in Kid Ory's band when he went to Chicago. A few years later Oliver summoned him to Chicago to play with his band. Louis remembered Oliver as "Papa Joe" and considered him his idol and inspiration. In his autobiography, ''Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans'', Armstrong wrote:  "It was my ambition to play as he did. I still think that if it had not been for Joe Oliver, Jazz would not be what it is today. He was a creator in his own right."<ref name="Satchmo" />