Fats Domino was one of the most successful
of the founding fathers of rock and roll. Domino hailed from New Orleans and started his career as a New
Orleans R&B performer. He is forever remembered for the early rock and roll
hits, “Blueberry Hill,” “The Fat Man,” I Want to Walk You Home,” “Walking to
New Orleans,” “Ain’t it a Shame,” “Blue Monday,” and “I’m in Love Again.” The
man was one of the giants of the Fifties, scoring almost three times as many
hits as either Chuck Berry or Little Richard.
Domino was born Antoine Dominique Domino
Jr. in New Orleans,
in 1928. After spending time in the Dave Bartholomew band as pianist, he made
his first recordings in 1950 with “The Fat Man” and “Detroit City Blues.” “TheFat Man” was an important recording in the development of what was
to become rock and roll. The song was co-written, as were most of Fats' big
hits, with trumpeter, Bartholomew. The song became a huge R&B hit, and it
is one of the most successful debut singles in pop music history.
By the time rock and roll emerged in the
mid-1950s, Domino was already an established R&B star, and his transition
to rock and roll was an easy one. In 1955, he scored his first hit on the pop
charts with “Ain’t it a Shame,” the song that introduced him to white audiences
and turned him into one of the first rock and roll stars.
Domino’s best recordings can be most easily found via
compilation. Among the best Domino compilations are “Rock and Rollin’ with Fats
Domino” (1956), “Fats Domino Swings 12, 000, 000 Records” (1958), “The
Fantastic Fats Domino-20 Original Hits” (1977), and “My Blue Heaven-The Best of
Fats Domino” (1990).
Clarinettist Johnny Dodds was born in New Orleans, Louisiana,
in 1892. Johnny Dodds was one of the greatest jazz clarinetists of the Twenties and he possessed a very soulful and emotional style of playing. Dodds and Louis
Armstrong complimented each other perfectly when the two musicians worked
together in King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band and later in Armstrong’s Hot Five
and Seven recording bands.
Dodds played in many of the leading jazz
bands of the classic jazz era. Dodds played in Kid Ory’s band in New Orleans from 1912 to 1919, and like Armstrong, he
played on riverboats with Fate Marable before moving to Chicago in 1921 to play with King Oliver’s
Creole Jazz Band. Dodds also lent his fine clarinet chops to Jelly Roll Morton’s
band, The Red Hot Peppers. Dodds appeared on most of Armstrong’s classic Hot
Five recordings and recorded numerous excellent sides under his own during the
Twenties.
The best of Dodds’ solo recordings include,
“Clarinet Wobble,” “Wild Man Blues,” and “Piggly Wiggly.” Dodds continued to
play and record in Chicago
throughout the Thirties, and also ran a taxi cab company with his brother,
drummer Baby Dodds, until his death in 1940.
The 2009 compilation, “The Complete Johnny
Dodds,” is the best collection of his works. Dodds is also included on “The
Chronological Classics: Johnny Dodds” series from 1991/1992.
Louis Armstrong is one of the most
important figures in the history of Western popular music, and likely the most
important figure in the history of jazz music. He is not only the most famous
jazz musician, but he is considered by many to be the most brilliant musician
who ever played the music. It was Armstrong’s innate genius as a cornet soloist
during the Twenties that helped transform jazz from disposable dance music to
the art form that it has become.
Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans, Louisiana,
in 1901. His father abandoned the family shortly thereafter, leaving little
Louis to live with his mother and sister. Armstrong and his mother lived in a
section of New Orleans
which was so violent, that it was referred to as “The Battlefield.”
By the time Armstrong was around five-years-old, he was already performing on New Orleans street corners,
and he later landed a job hauling a junk wagon. Sometimes, Armstrong would
fetch coal, which could be used for warmth on cold nights, for local
prostitutes. His employer, the Karnofsky family, provided him with the money to
buy his first cornet, and Armstrong took the instrument home and taught himself
to play.
On New Years’s Day, 1912; Armstrong was
arrested for firing a pistol into the air on New Years’s Eve. Armstrong was
known to local police for his often colourful behavior, and he was removed from
his home and sent to the “Colored Waif's Home for Boys.”
At the waif’s home Armstrong received music lessons on the cornet from musician
Peter Davis, and eventually became the leader of the Waif's Home Band. He was
released in 1914, and during a coal delivery to the Storyville district, met
Joe “King” Oliver, the best-known cornet player in the New Orleans. Oliver became Armstrong’s
mentor, and helped him get work with a number of local bands.
By 1918, Armstrong was a member of the Kid Ory band with Oliver as its leader.
When Oliver moved to Chicago,
Armstrong took over the leadership of the band. The next year Armstrong was
hired by Fate Marable to play in his band aboard Mississippi
River steamboats.
In 1922, Armstrong was lured to Chicago by
Oliver to join his band, “King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band,” which featured a
stellar lineup of musicians including Oliver on cornet, Kid Ory on trombone,
Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Baby Dodds on drums, Charlie Jackson on banjo, and
Lil Hardin on piano. Armstrong became the second cornetist and with Oliver,
created a sensation at the city’s LincolnGardens with the
brilliance of their cornet duets.
Armstrong made his first recordings with the
Creole Jazz Band for the Gennett label in 1923. The first recording Armstrong
appeared on was “Chimes Blues” which featured a brilliant Armstrong solo. With
Armstrong on second cornet, The Creole Jazz Band made some of the best and most
influential recordings of early jazz including, “Mandy Lee Blues,” “Dippermouth
Blues,” “Just Gone,” and “Canal Street Blues.”
Armstrong married the band’s pianist, Lil Hardin, in 1924. Later that year, he
moved to New York City and joined Fletcher
Henderson’s orchestra and continued to perform and record superb solos for Henderson. During this
period, Armstrong established himself as the premier blues sideman on
recordings with Bessie Smith, Bertha “Chippie” Hill, and others. Perhaps the
most famous of Armstrong’s blues collaborations is the session with Bessie
Smith that produced “St. Louis Blues” and “Reckless Blues.”
Despite achieving much in New
York, Armstrong quit Fletcher Henderson’s band and returned to Chicago in 1925 to make
his first recordings for Okeh with his recording group, “Louis Armstrong and
His Hot Five.”
Although it didn’t seem possible for
Armstrong to outdo his work with Oliver, he did just that with a set of
recordings of unparalleled brilliance, “The Hot Fives and Hot Sevens.” With
support from former Creole Jazz Band members, Johnny Dodds, Baby Dodds, Lil
Hardin, and Kid Ory, plus banjo player Johnny St. Cyr, Armstrong redefined jazz
music on colourful recordings with equally colourful titles such as “Struttin’
with Some Barbeque,” Skid-Dat-De-Dat,” “Cornet Chop Suey,” “Big Butter and Egg
Man,” and “Yes! I’m in the Barrel.”
Armstrong would be heard singing for the
first time on these recordings and revealed that in addition to being the best
jazz instrumentalist, he was also a vocalist of exceptional ability. Armstrong
was credited with creating the wordless singing style of “scat” during a Hot
Five recording session for “Heebie Jeebies” when he dropped the paper which
contained the words to the song. Instead of stopping, Armstrong improvised some
wordless vocalization.
By the late Twenties, The Hot Five had
expanded to the Hot Seven with the addition of the great Earl Hines on piano
and some shuffling of the original Hot Five lineup. This new outfit continued
to produce sides of jazz genius such as, “Willie the Weeper,” “Potato Head
Blues,” “Wild Man Blues,” “Alligator Crawl,” and the recording which has been
cited by many jazz critics as the single most brilliant recording of jazz
music, “West End Blues.”
While recording with the Hot Five,
Armstrong worked with Erskine Tate and the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra. Armstrong
moved with Dickerson to New York City
in 1929, and appeared the same year in the Broadway musical; “Hot Chocolates.” In
1931, Armstrong appeared in his first film, “Ex-Flame.”
Armstrong was gradually becoming a nationally-known music star, and his fame
began to spread abroad largely due to the success of the Hot Five and Hot Seven
recordings. He toured the United States
and Europe throughout the Thirties. During the
Forties, his appearances in films and exposure via radio solidified and magnified
his star status. He would perform at Carnegie Hall, in New York City, in 1947.
Armstrong continued to be an extremely
popular figure in jazz throughout the evolutions of the music through swing,
bebop, and the avant-garde. While many of the musicians who were with him
during the creation of the music had been forgotten, Armstrong never ceased to
have a viable career. He continued to tour the world, including visits to
Eastern Europe and Africa. He also continued
to record with his fellow jazz musicians. His health began to deteriorate in
1959, however, when he was hospitalized following a heart attack in Italy.
In 1964, Armstrong’s single “Hello, Dolly!” became the number one hit on Billboard’s
pop charts, just as the Beatles were first experiencing “Beatlemania” in
America. Armstrong’s hit with Hello Dolly was the last time a jazz recording
would top the pop charts before rock and roll took full control of them.
Armstrong continued making movie and
television appearances, in addition to performing live, despite continuing
heart problems, hospital stays and advice from his doctors to rest. Armstrong’s
rendition of the song, “What a Wonderful World,” became a hit in 1968. The song
would become a hit again in 1988, when it was included in the film, “Good
Morning Vietnam.” In 1971, after performing at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, Armstrong died
in his sleep at his home.
Armstrong’s best recorded works are from
the Twenties, but fortunately, these recordings are quite well-preserved. Even
his first recordings with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band are quite
high-fidelity considering they were recorded before the use of microphones.
Several excellent compilations of the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens and Armstrong’s
later Twenties work are available from Columbia,
and they all feature excellent sound quality. Good compilations can also be
found of Armstrong’s recordings with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band.
Armstrong started recording full-length
albums in the Fifties, and his best albums include, “Louis Armstrong Plays WC
Handy” (1954), “Satch Plays Fats” (1955), “Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar
Peterson” (1959), and “Satchmo Plays King Oliver” (1960).
Joe “King”
Oliver is among the seminal figures in the history of jazz music. Oliver was an
influential musician in the early days of jazz whose hot cornet playing
influenced all those who followed in his footsteps including Louis Amstrong,
Oliver’s student, charge and employee. It was Oliver who convinced Armstrong to
leave New Orleans for Chicago, and play second cornet in Oliver’s
Creole Jazz Band took the first steps on a journey that would see Armstrong
revolutionize jazz and American popular music.
Oliver was born
in New Orleans
in 1885 and was blinded in one eye as a child. He often played cornet while
wearing a derby hat in such a way as to obscure his bad eye. Oliver was one of
the first cornetists to use a mute to alter the sound of his cornet. Using a
mute, he was able to produce a wide variety of sounds including the whinnying
of a horse.
Oliver started
his professional career in New Orleans
around 1908. He was a member of several marching bands, and he worked at
various times in Kid Ory’s band. Ory began referring to him as “King” Oliver
around 1917.
In 1919, Oliver
moved to Chicago
with Kid Ory and played in Bill Johnson’s band at the Dreamland Ballroom. Oliver
formed “King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band” in 1922, and landed a residency at Chicago’s LincolnGardens. His new band
featured some of the best jazz musicians of the time including clarinetist Johnny
Dodds, trombonist Honore Dutrey, pianist Lil Hardin, drummer Baby Dodds, and
Louis Armstrong on second cornet.
King Oliver’s Creole
Jazz Band 1923 recording sessions for the Gennet label produced some of the best-ever
recordings of jazz with “Chimes Blues,” “Just Gone,” “Dippermouth Blues,” and “Snake
Rag.” These recordings revealed the brilliant dual cornet playing of Armstrong
and Oliver, and introduced Armstrong’s virtuosity to the world. Armstrong soon
headed to New York City
to join Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and the Creole Jazz Band would cease to be
in 1924.
Oliver took over
Dave Peyton’s band in 1925, renamed it the “Dixie Syncopators,”and moved the
band to New York
in 1927. Once in New York,
Oliver passed up a chance to have the Dixie Syncopators become the house band
at the Cotton Club. Duke Ellington took the job and went on to fame and riches.
In 1929, Luis Russell took over the Dixie Syncopaters and changed their name to
“Luis Russell and his Orchestra.”
Oliver recorded
until 1931, but his New Orleans
hot jazz style was falling out of fashion. Oliver finally settled down in Georgia, where
he worked as a poolroom janitor until his death in 1938.
Oliver’s classic
sides are available on the following compilations: “King Oliver’s Jazz Band
1923” (1975), “King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band: The Complete Set” (1997), and
the series, “The Chronological Classics: King Oliver” (1991).