Joe "King" Oliver (May 11, 1885 -- April 10, 1938) was a jazz cornet player and bandleader. He was particularly noted for his playing style, pioneering the use of mutes. The Great Depression brought hardship to Oliver. He 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 and Oliver was stranded in Savannah, Georgia, where he worked as a janitor at Wimberly's Recreation Hall (526-528 West Broad Street). Oliver died in poverty at a rooming house (508 Montgomery Street), on April 10, 1938. He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, NY, where he would be joined by other jazz giants such as Coleman Hawkins, Lionel Hampton, W. C. Handy, Milt Jackson, Max Roach, and Miles Davis, among others, all of whom owe a great debt to "Papa Joe".
Canal Street is a major thoroughfare in the city of New Orleans. Forming the upriver boundary of the city's oldest neighborhood, the French Quarter (Vieux Carre), it acted as the dividing line between the older French/Spanish Colonial-era city and the newer American Sector, today's Central Business District.
The name of the avenue comes from a planned canal which was to have connected the Mississippi River to the Congo Square terminus of the Carondelet Canal, but was never constructed. The wide median earmarked for the canal was referred to by early inhabitants as the "neutral ground", due to the animosities amongst culturally distant residents on separate sides of the avenue. The term is still used by New Orleanians to refer to all street medians.
One end of Canal Street terminates at the Mississippi River. Often called "The foot of Canal Street", at the riverfront the Canal Street Ferry offers a connection to the Algiers Point neighborhood, an older, 18th century portion of the larger Algiers area across the river. Canal Street's other terminus is in Mid-City at a collection of cemeteries. Slightly offset from Canal Street's Mid-City end is the beginning of Canal Boulevard, which extends to the shore of Lake Pontchartrain via the Lakeview neighborhood.
Great lead! Sounds great still today.
WriterJohnC 4 months ago