Bird? Diz? Joe Oliver Invented Bebop! By "Richard M. Jones"

It's not there now but, back in 1915, in the Storyville district of New Orleans, on the corner of Marais and Bienville, there was this joint called the Abadie Cabaret. I played piano and led the resident band; a quartet. We played for dancing and backed the show - man those gals had the longest legs I ever had the pleasure of getting to know. The legs were long but when you reached your journey's end it sure was worth it. Them gals could show Sister Kate how to shimmy, and a few other things too... Alongside yours truly pounding the upright, there was Louis Nelson De Lisle on clarinet; Jimmy Noone learned all his licks from him, Dee Dee Chandler played the drums and on cornet was our ace in the hole, Joe Oliver. Now this particular night, we're blowin' a few of them good old dirty blues, just playing for ourselves. It was quiet, so quiet Mr Abadie was counting the band and wondering if maybe he could get by with a trio. Joe looked nervous. A bunch of high rollers came in; you know the type, gold on their fingers, in their teeth, lighting their cigars with dollar bills; real introverts - I don't think. One of the ladies, looked like maybe she'd blew in from St Louis going by the store bought hair piled up high in the manner of that French chippie Madame Pompadour. After giving us and the room the onceover, she sniffed like you do when some funky butt drops one then turned to the high yaller she was with and said, "This place is deader than Abe Lincoln's dog. Let's go 'cross the street to Pete Lala's. Freddy Keppard's band sure know how to play them blues." She blew smoke from a long cigarette holder aimed it directly at Joe. Joe said, "You're not going nowhere, I'm bringing Pete Lala's place to you." He got off the stand and walked to the door. "Hey Joe," I said, "where you going? don't let her bug you." Joe turned to me and said, "She don't bug me none, just get it into Bb." Unfortunately, or perhaps posterity will say fortunately, I didn't hear Joe say Bb as the high yaller had put his hand where no man's hand had been before - at least not for the past ten minutes - and Madame Pompadour shrieked with delight. I said, "What did Joe say?" "Eeeeeeee...!" she gasped. I modulated, Jelly Roll taught me that word, into the key of E and pounded it out the way Joe likes it. He stood in the doorway blowing the blues in Bb. Well, as you cats know Bb is the flatted fifth to E and bebop was built upon flatted fifths. Across the street in Pete Lala's place the strange new music from Joe's horn drew the punters out like the flutist in Hamlin hypnotising the rats. They rushed out to worship at the feet of the new king - King Joe Oliver. Freddy Keppard abdicated there and then. Now you're gonna ask me why Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie get the credit for Bebop and not King Joe - Right? Well I'm gonna tell you why. At one of the other cabarets Buddy Bolden was playing. Now Buddy Bolden had a lotta influence like Leonard Feather or that Frenchie Panassié and, cos he couldn't play them flatted fifths, he denounced it in the broadsheet he published. In fact I thought I heard him say "It's nasty, it's dirty, take it away," that's what I heard him say. Anyhow whatever, when Buddy spoke people listened even though all he could do was play loud. So that's how we had to wait another 30 years before Bebop was invented again. In the meantime, I got married to Madame Pompadour and no longer need to play piano for my daily bread.