King Oliver

popular name: Kid Ory

date_of_death: January 23, 1973

age: 86

cause_of_death: Pneumonia and a heart attack

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Edward "Kid" Ory 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. As trombonist and bandleader, Kid Ory was a pioneer of the traditional New Orleans jazz style and played a key role in the New Orleans Revival of the 1940s. He is credited as the leader of the first black New Orleans jazz band to make a recording, and Ory’s recording of “Creole Song” in 1944 is the first documented performance of a jazz-informed song sung in Creole patois. During his long musical career, he worked alongside with jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong, Joseph “King” Oliver, Jimmie Noone, Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Sidney Bechet. Ory retired from music in 1966 and spent his last years in Hawaii.

popular name: Frank Sinatra

date_of_death: May 14, 1998

age: 82

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Frank "The Voice" Sinatra was an American singer, producer and motion-picture actor who, through a long career and a very public personal life, became one of the most sought-after performers in the entertainment industry. Often hailed as the greatest American singer of 20th-century popular music, Sinatra is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide.

popular name: Bunk Johnson

date_of_death: July 7, 1949

age: 63

cause_of_death: Lingering effects of a stroke

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Willie "Bunk" Johnson was an prominent jazz trumpeter in New Orleans who lied and/or exaggerated his role in the development of jazz that historians have a difficult time understanding the truth from fiction. But what everyone agrees on is that Johnson was regarded as one of the leading trumpeters in New Orleans in the years 1905–1915, in between repeatedly leaving the city to tour with minstrel shows and circus bands. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, Bunk Johnson spent much of his music-playing time in the southwest Louisiana/southeast Texas region with New Iberia, Louisiana as his “base” and primary residence. While in the area he played frequently with the locally-based Banner Band, which traveled in a variety of vehicles to nearby southern Louisiana and Texas towns. Unlike many other jazz musicians Bunk did not achieve great monetary wealth, but he never shied away from jobs that helped supplement his music income. Along the path of his life, Johnson worked in such jobs as funeral parlor work in Texas, dock work in San Francisco, cigar-making work in the upper mid-west, rice processing and sugar cane field truck-driving in Iberia Parish, and a music teacher in the Iberia Parish, Louisiana school system. In 1942 William Russell and two other jazz researchers went to New Orleans and made a series of records of Bunk playing with a band that included George Lewis (clarinet) and Jim Robinson (trombone). The researchers also interviewed Johnson, who claimed he had taught Louis Armstrong and Joe "King" Oliver (actually Louis Armstrong admitted he mimicked King Oliver and Bunk Johnson style - but never was taught by Bunk). With the help from contacts in Cleveland and the new recordings, Johnson set off on a wild seven-year jazz history odyssey, playing in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, New Orleans, Chicago and Philadelphia, being praised by the press, and making dozens of records that were said to be authentic recreations of the earliest forms of jazz. The enthusiastic jazz researchers who found Johnson and promoted him, quickly discovered, however, they had created something of a monster. According to the many, Bunk emerged as essentially a manipulative con man, often begging the researchers for money, frequently getting drunk, and sometimes failing to show up for concerts. Eventually, Johnson managed to alienate most of his friends. Sidney Bechet fired him from his band and Armstrong, who in 1939 praised Bunk as his "life-long inspiration," later said angrily, "Bunk taught me nothing!" The Bunk Johnson saga ended when he suffered two strokes in late 1948. He died the following July.