Sunday, February 18, 2007

Flory does Ory

Another early jazz legend revisited by Flora in his later years was New Orleans trombonist Kid Ory, composer of "Muskrat Ramble." Among Ory's bullet points: around 1918 he had the prescience to hire a promising teen trumpeter just starting a music career: Louis Armstrong. Here's Flora's classic 1947 Columbia Records 78 rpm album cover:

Forty-six years later, Flora portrayed Ory shouldering a musical blowtorch:

The above unpublished 1993 pen and ink rendering was actually the third time (at least) that Flora captured Ory. The below unpublished pencil caricature was glued in a scrapbook of early 1940s sketches, and features Ory with fellow trombone legend Honore Dutrey.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Didn't recognize the Kid, but spotted Dutrey straight away. I have some vinyl of King Oliver w/Dute on slide. It's stashed in our bin, unit #6SJ7 at the Green Mountain Storage, State Rte. 12. We owe them 160 bucks, so I can't get my mitts on it until we pony up. C'est la yo mama's Vie.