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  • 6/21/2025
Edward "Kid" Ory (December 25, 1886 – January 23, 1973) was an American jazz composer, trombonist and bandleader. One of the early users of the glissando technique, he helped establish it as a central element of New Orleans jazz.

He was born near LaPlace, Louisiana and moved to New Orleans on his 21st birthday, to Los Angeles in 1910 and to Chicago in 1925. The Ory band later was an important force in reviving interest in New Orleans jazz, making radio broadcasts on The Orson Welles Almanac program in 1944, among other shows. In 1944–45, the group made a series of recordings for the Crescent label, which was founded by Nesuhi Ertegun for the express purpose of recording Ory's band.

Ory retired from music in 1966 and spent his last years in Hawaii where he died from a heart attack

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Transcript
00:00Edward Kidd Ory, born in Laplace, Louisiana, in 1886, was the king of the trombone in the early
00:12years of jazz music in New Orleans. He started out playing banjo, but later switched to trombone.
00:21Ory would become known for his so-called tailgate style that had the trombone producing rhythmic lines
00:31underneath clarinets and cornets. From 1912 to 1919, he led an extremely popular band in New Orleans,
00:43which had as members King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet, and Jimmy Noon.
00:57Ory moved to California in 1919, and in 1922, Kidd Ory's Creole Orchestra became the first African
01:06American Jazz Band to make a recording when they recorded the sides Ory's Creole Trombone and Society
01:16Blues. In 1925, Ory moved to Chicago, joining the migration of New Orleans jazz musicians who were
01:26seeking fame and fortune in the Windy City. In Chicago, Ory played with King Oliver's Creole Jazz
01:35Band, Louis Armstrong in his Hot Fives and Hot Sevens, and later with Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers.
01:47During the Depression, Ory found himself out of work along with many of his colleagues.
01:53For several years, he ran a chicken ranch with his brother and returned to music when the New Orleans
02:01style jazz revival took place in the 1940s. He reformed Kidd Ory's Creole Jazz Band in 1943,
02:12and Ory was able to play jazz until he retired in 1966.
02:17Ory died of a ripe old age in 1973. The compilation albums, Ory's Creole Trombone,
02:31Greatest Recordings 1922-1944 from 1995, and the chronological classics,
02:40Kid Ory, 1922-1945 from 1999, are among the best compilations of his music.

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