Bunk's Jazz Man records (contemporary New Orleans sound) and the Ory band were revelations and broadening experiences.

An expressive experience was that Ory was in the flesh, not just scratchy old records, and he wanted to appeal to a wide audience, not just jazz fans. So he played music for dancing, and I think this altered his music so that it sounded more different from the 'pure' jazz records that it otherwise would. Proof of this I think is that in his later career, when, alas, he found that the general public wasn't going to support him for dancing, when he listened to a lot of (misguided) jazz fans and record company men (Koenig) and decided he must play 'pure Dixieland' . The sound of his music was considerably changed and not for the better. I say that only people who heard Ory at the Green Room or earlier can appreciate what that band was capable of.

I haunted the Green Room, and I learned more there about what jazz might be all about than from any other source. Especially, that band taught a lesson which had ( and has) all being forgotten in in traditional jazz circles: that the music can and should swing, be lyrical, beautiful and graceful. That it can swing like mad and not be loud, dirty or racuous. That it should have wide variety in volume and that it is basically dance music, and should never forget it.   

There was a piano player named Buster Wilson, I happened to be enchanted by his playing, but Ory would never really let him take solos, he took a few on the Columbia sides, but the other things he was always in the background and there wasn't much. I asked Kid Ory one night if it was okay for Buster to take a solo and I mentioned some tune. Ory said "He doesn't know it". He knew the tune, he knew the tunes, Burt always told me that Buster Wilson played more like Jelly Roll than anyone else he knew.

Trying to understand people like Kid Ory and, excuse me, Turk Murphy, is a life's work and not worth going down that path. I don't know the answer. Everything I do know about Kid Ory personally is he was a hell of a difficult man.