Buddie Petit

Buddie Petit, also Buddy Petit, (* 1895 in White Castle, Louisiana, † July 4, 1931 in New Orleans ) was a leading American jazz cornetist of the early New Orleans jazz.

Petit was born as Joseph Crawford in a small town 160 km west of New Orleans. His father died young and his mother moved with him in 1900 to New Orleans, where she married trombonist Joseph Petit. Buddie Petit took this name and also changed his first name. Soon after, he began to learn the trumpet, where he was based on the style of Bunk Johnson. Soon, he was considered one of the best cornet player in the city. He took the place of Freddie Keppard in the " Eagle Band " (as played before Keppard Buddy Bolden ), as this New Orleans left to play with the Original Creole Orchestra bassist Bill Johnson. 1917 Jelly Roll Morton invited him to come to Los Angeles one, but the temperaments of the two did not match - the Creole Morton from the " metropolis " New Orleans made ​​about the " rednecks " Petit funny and wanted to give him his outward appearance in the band prescribe, which led to a heated argument. Then he refused to tour outside the Gulf region. In 1918 he received an invitation of bassist Bill Johnson, playing in his original Creole Orchestra in Chicago ( which later became King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band was ); but he preferred to stay in New Orleans and King Oliver got on the job. Petit then headed his own bands for parades, dances, among others In his time, he was well known in New Orleans and was often booked what he, however, took advantage and took up to five exposures per night, but then four of them sent replacement bands. In his bands he played mostly the second cornet, only for funeral trains, he played on the way back solos. In the 1920s he also worked in bands on paddle steamers. The always very fun-loving ( and much alcohol drinking ) Petit died on a picnic on Independence Day with only 34 years of too much eating and drinking. One of his pallbearers was Louis Armstrong, who had some of his first exposure to the marching bands of Petit. There are no photographs of him ( a request from Okeh 1925 failed because of his high salary demands ), but Louis Armstrong's recording " Cornet Shop Suey " (with his Hot Five, 1926 ) to have come closest to his game.