The Complete Set, 1923-1924 - King Oliver’s Jazz Band

This album feels less like “music” than an archaeological specimen. This collection brings together King Oliver’s Jazz Band recordings from 1923 and 1924, in the worst sound quality you can imagine: acoustic recordings made without microphones, with the musicians playing into a huge metal horn. The high frequencies are cut off and the bass is muddy. A first-time listener will probably frown and ask, “What is this?”

But if you can endure—or pass through—the noise of history, you will find the earliest collective genius of jazz. King Oliver was Louis Armstrong’s mentor and idol. Yes, Armstrong plays second cornet on several tracks here. He was in his early twenties and had not yet become “Satchmo.” In “Dippermouth Blues,” listen to Armstrong’s second-cornet figures: beneath Oliver’s melody, the young player is straining to break free, like a hunting dog pulling against its leash.

Oliver plays cornet rather than trumpet, with a darker sound. He uses a variety of mutes to create wah-wah calls, moans, and conversational effects. Those techniques later influenced Bubber Miley and the entire Ellington orchestra’s “jungle style.” Oliver’s muted solo on “Snake Rag” sounds as if someone were speaking to you from behind a curtain—sticky, teasing, and half sincere.

What matters most, however, is the ensemble approach. King Oliver’s band plays collective improvisation: two cornets, clarinet, and trombone improvise on the melody at once. No one gives way to another, yet they somehow never collide. This texture of several melodic lines moving together was later abandoned by musicians outside New Orleans because it was so difficult to control, but it has always been jazz’s most primal spirit.

You will not put this album on your everyday playlist. It is not relaxing music. It is a window, dirty but still transparent enough to show what jazz looked like at birth: young, raw, and unaware of what it would become.