22 Facts About King Oliver

Joseph Nathan "King" Oliver was an American jazz cornet player and bandleader.

King Oliver was particularly recognized for his playing style and his pioneering use of mutes in jazz.

King Oliver was the mentor and teacher of Louis Armstrong.

Joseph Nathan Oliver was born in Aben, Louisiana, near Donaldsonville in Ascension Parish, to Nathan Oliver and Virginia "Jinnie" Jones.

King Oliver claimed 1881 as his year of birth in his draft registration in September 1918 but that year is open to debate, with some census records and other sources suggesting 1884 or 1885 as his true year of birth.

King Oliver first studied the trombone, then changed to cornet.

King Oliver was popular in New Orleans across economic and racial lines and was in demand for music jobs of all kinds.

King Oliver was living in Chicago with his wife, Estelle "Stella" Dominick, whom he had married in New Orleans in September 1911.

King Oliver continued to work at the Dreamland, forming a band there in January 1920, which included Johnny Dodds, Honore Dutrey, and Lil Hardin, the nucleus of his famous Creole Jazz Band.

King Oliver became leader of Duhe's band, playing at a number of Chicago clubs.

King Oliver reunited the band in 1928, recording for Victor Talking Machine Company one year later.

King Oliver continued with modest success until a downturn in the economy made it more difficult to find bookings.

King Oliver pioneered the use of mutes, including the rubber plumber's plunger, derby hat, bottles and cups.

King Oliver's recording "Wa Wa Wa" with the Dixie Syncopators can be credited with giving the name wah-wah to such techniques.

King Oliver performed mostly on cornet, but like many cornetists he switched to trumpet in the late 1920s.

King Oliver lost the chance of an important engagement at New York City's famous Cotton Club when he held out for more money; young Duke Ellington took the job and subsequently catapulted to fame.

King Oliver lost his life savings to a collapsed bank in Chicago, and he struggled to keep his band together through a series of hand-to-mouth gigs until the group broke up.

King Oliver had health problems, such as pyorrhea, a gum disease that was partly caused by his love of sugar sandwiches and it made it very difficult for him to play and he soon began delegating solos to younger players, but by 1935, he could no longer play the trumpet at all.

King Oliver was stranded in Savannah, Georgia, where he pawned his trumpet and finest suits and briefly ran a fruit stall, then he worked as a janitor at Wimberly's Recreation Hall.

King Oliver died in poverty "of arteriosclerosis, too broke to afford treatment" in a Savannah rooming house around April 1938.

King Oliver's sister spent her rent money to have his body brought to New York, where he was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.

King Oliver was inducted as a charter member of the Gennett Records Walk of Fame in Richmond, Indiana in 2007.