My first instrument was a banjo which I made myself out of a cigar-box. When I got to age ten my father bought me a proper New Orleans banjo.

At thirteen I put together a band in the place I was living at then, Laplace, Louisiana, about thirty-two miles from New Orleans. We had a home-made violin, a bass, a guitar, a banjo and a chair as a drum kit. We put aside all the money we could, to buy better instruments as we went along. We went wherever there were lots of people and we worked hard. Our takings were mounting and I decided to organise ‘picnics’, providing beer and salad: admission 15 cents including dancing. We played the same numbers as today, like ‘Pallet on the Floor’ and a few waltzes. We used to go into New Orleans on a weekend to listen to the different bands playing the public parks. When they had played a number once, we could play it too. If we hadn’t quite got it all, we would take bits of two of their tunes to make one.

Buddy Bolden was one of the ones I heard, as was Edward Clem, who had four or five musicians.

When I was on a visit to my sister in New Orleans I spoke one time to Bolden. I’d just come back from a music shop where I’d bought a trombone and I was trying it out. Buddy was walking by, heard me playing and knocked on the door. I opened it and he said, “Hi, young man, was that really you playing the trombone?” I replied that I had just bought it. He said, “Fine, I happen to need a trombone. How would you like to come play with me?” I said he’d have to ask my sister, who said I was too young, I had to go back home. I was about fourteen. That was just a year before I came to live in New Orleans.

After that, any time I could, I would go and hear Buddy Bolden play. I used to get into the park where the dance was going to be held, well before any of the cats arrived.

When it was time for the dance to start, he used to say, “Let’s tell the kids to get theirselves in here”. He’d put his trumpet to his lips and blow through the open window. And everybody came running.

Later on I also led a brass band. When I had an engagement, I could assemble as many musicians as were wanted. I had a big sign on my house: “Orchestra and Brass Band”. You’d have had to be a blind man to miss it.

At that time, dances and excursions were publicised using big signs fixed to a wagon with a band playing on it.

I got the idea of advertising my band in the same way. I hired a removal van and had a friend make me a banner with my name “Kid Ory” in big letters with my address and phone number. After that I got a heap of enquiries and it wasn’t long before I was well-known.

It was dog eat dog, every time two bands met in the street. Freddy Keppard beat us hollow every time because his trumpet was stronger than the first guy’s we had. Then it came our turn to crush all the opposition. The crowd were on my side. When the rival band had finished playing, the crowd would tie the two wagons together so as to prevent the others from running away from us.

I used to tell them,” I’ll let you go when I’m good and ready” . Mutt Carey’s brother was on trombone. I liked him fine but he didn’t like me. He was pretty jealous because Mutt had joined my band. One time we met, I ‘left him for dead’….

At Mardi Gras, did we have a ball! All day, all night, bands parading through the streets giving it all they’d got. Sometimes we would be playing for a coloured people’s social club and we’d march at the head of their procession.

The white folks had their ‘king’ and paraded him down Canal Street. The blacks had theirs as well, called ‘King of the Zulus’ who was on show down Basin Street, decorated with weird feathers and spangles. That was something else!…

The first time I saw Louis Armstrong, he was still a kid playing cornet in the Waifs’ Home Band doing a street parade. Even then he was being noticed.

I was using my brass band for funerals, street parades and picnics. My drummer, Benny, had taken Louis under his wing.

One fine day, Benny brought Louis, just released from the Waifs’ Home, to National Park, where I was playing a picnic. Benny asked me if I would let Louis play with us. Remembering that kid from the street parade, I was more than willing.

Louis got up on the stand and played ‘Ole Miss’ and some blues, and the whole crowd were knocked out by this kid in short pants who could play so well. I was so pleased with what he’d done that I told him to come back and play with us whenever he could.

He came several times to different places I was working and he became a good friend. He was always brought along by my drummer, Benny.

In very crowded venues, Benny used to tie Louis’ wrist to his own so the boy would not get lost.

King Oliver quits…I hire Louis Armstrong

In my dance band about then, around 1917, Joe ‘King’ Oliver had the trumpet chair.

I had an offer to take my men to Chicago, but I was doing too well in New Orleans to leave. However, Joe, and Jimmy Noone, my clarinettist, decided to try their luck there.

Before leaving, Joe said he could recommend someone. I told him thanks, but I’d already chosen his replacement.

There were a fair few experienced trumpeters in town, but none with young Louis’ potential. I went to see him and told him I had work for him - if he could get himself some long trousers. Two hours later, Louis was at my place, impatient to begin.

I was doing one-nighters all over New Orleans, for Yacht Clubs and different societies, sponsoring dances every Sunday night at Pete Lala’s and every Monday in another venue. These were the best functions in town.

After joining us, Louis made such fast progress, it was bewildering. He had a great ear and an excellent memory.

All you had to do was whistle or hum a tune to him and he had it note-perfect. And having played a number once, he never forgot it.

After six months, Louis was known all over New Orleans

When Louis forgot the words of ”Heebie-Jeebies”

I don’t know whose idea it was to record ‘The Hot Five’. Maybe it came from the pianist Richard M. Jones who was working for the Okeh label in Chicago around that time accompanying different women blues singers and choosing songs for them. It was maybe through his agent that Okeh got in touch with Louis.

The idea was for us to put a regular band together to play Dreamland and for five out of that band to cut records together.

I was in Chicago a few weeks before Louis and played different clubs. We rehearsed for a few days when Louis arrived, prior to opening at Dreamland. Johnny St Cyr and Lil were with us. Our first records were cut in the Okeh studios in Chicago, and of course we had no idea at the time what a big success they would be.

People were mad about Jazz and the Charleston and our music went down a bomb. Times were good, and people had money to spend on records.

One thing that helped boost sales was the Okeh people deciding at one point to give away a photo of Louis to everyone who bought a record. As Louis was very popular, it wasn’t long before sales boomed.

The records were a huge success, and ‘Heebie Jeebies’ would nowadays be a million seller under similar conditions. This was the recording where Louis forgot the words and began to improvise with meaningless syllables. We had a job not to laugh during the recording. Of course, Louis claimed to have forgotten the words, but I wonder if his ‘scat’ experiment was premeditated. Whatever the case, this was what made the record a hit.

The Hot Five only existed in the studio

The Hot Five was never a regular band, and did not appear in public, apart from at a few charity galas. We would take an hour off from the place each of us was playing, appear together, then return to each of our regular bands.

Our recording sessions happened like this: the Okeh guys would tell Louis how many sides they wanted. They didn’t press any material on him, or tell him how they wanted it played. Louis would then give us the recording date, and sometimes he would call and say to me, “I’m one number short for the next session. Could you come up with something?” That’s how ‘Savoy Blues’ got written, two days before the recording.

We got to the studio about 9 or 10 a.m.. We didn’t need to make records at night, with all the lights out, or to get drunk in order to play properly, like some musicians thought they had to.

When we started, recordings were acoustic, each musician in a separate booth. The engineer would move us nearer or farther away from the booths to get the balance right. Later on, electric recording came in.

In the studio, if a new number was to be done, we would go through it a couple of times before doing a ‘take’. The records were easily and quickly made. In fact, the records I made with the Hot Five were the easiest to ‘can’ (?put in the can?/ ?wrap/wrap up?)in my whole career.

We hardly spoiled any waxes. Sometimes, one of us would forget the running-order and forget to come back in at the right moment. Even then, we would try to put the mistake right straight away.

When we had finished a side, Louis would ask us, “Was that OK?” And if one of us thought we could do it better we would do another take at once.

I think one reason why these records were so good was that the Okeh guys left us alone and didn’t try to play the experts with us.

Another reason is that we knew each others’ playing so well, after working together for so many years. And of course, there was…Louis. Nothing can go wrong when he’s playing. I’ve always preferred his style to everyone else’s.

I don’t want to take anything away from King Oliver, but I always thought Louis was the greatest, and I still think the same.

The original French article was translated into English by George Walker

I REMEMBER BUDDY BOLDEN, KING OLIVER AND

THE KID IN SHORT PANTS WHO WASN´T YET

CALLED SATCHMO

BY KID ORY