King Oliver

Joe 'King' Oliver was a cornet player and pioneer of early Jazz.

His Creole Jazz Band produced perhaps the most satisfying examples of New Orleans polyphony, where all instruments in the group play all the time (though one or other will have more prominence in a given passage).

Louis Armstrong played second cornet in this band, and continued to revere Oliver after he left to embark on his own solo career.

Oliver's career unfortunately did not survive the onset of the Great Depression, which fatally curbed the market for Traditional jazz - he worked as a janitor until his death in 1938.