(ca. 1923) Left to right: Johnny Dodds, clarinet; Baby Dodds, drums; Honoré Dutrey, trombone; Louis Armstrong, second trumpet; Joe “King” Oliver, lead trumpet; Lil Hardin (married to Armstrong, 1924 – 1931), piano; and Bill Johnson, banjo.
King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, 1921. Left to right: Ram Hall, drums; Honoré Dutrey, trombone; King Oliver, trumpet; Lil Hardin, piano; David Jones, saxophone; Johnny Dodds, clarinet, Jimmie Palao, violin; Ed Garland, bass. Courtesy of The Frank Driggs Collection.
The first photo shows King Oliver’s group after Baby Dodds and Louis Armstrong came aboard. According to Baby Dodds, he and Louis left Fate Marable’s riverboat orchestra in September 1921. King Oliver was in San Francisco at the time, and the second photo would appear to be a publicity shot made in California. Late in 1921 Oliver’s drummer, Ram Hall, left the group and was replaced by Baby Dodds over the objections of his older brother Johnny, who had not heard Baby play in some time, and who distrusted him because of his drinking. But Davey Jones, shown in the second photo with the saxophone, had played with Baby on the riverboats and urged Oliver to hire him—which he did. In 1922 Oliver took the band—most of them, at least—back to Chicago, and in 1923 (according to Baby Dodds) Armstrong, who had been playing in Chicago since leaving the riverboats, was added to the group. (Source: The Baby Dodds Story, As Told to Larry Gara.)
I am curious about the second photo. The group would have performed in formal dress, as in the first paragraph. The clothing in the second photo seems designed to play to racist stereotypes about Blacks as country bumpkins. Whose idea was it to present the band like this? Did these clothes belong to the musicians, or were they rented or purchased for the photo shoot? Who posed the group so artistically? (Notice how the angles of Dutrey’s trombone, Oliver’s trumpet, and Dodds’ clarinet match, as do the angles of Hardin’s right arm, Jones’s sax, Dodds’ torso, and Garland’s bow.) Were they really playing, or just miming? Was Lil Hardin just pretending to protect her ear from Oliver’s trumpet? Finally, are there other versions of this photo from the same session, with the same costumes but different poses? We don’t have video of them performing, but videos I have seen of other New Orleans musicians (including Armstrong) do not include the kind of showmanship suggested in the second photo. Is that because the musicians in the later performances were more restrained, knowing they were being filmed? Were they looser and more animated in their live performances?
If anyone knows more, I would love to hear from you.