He moved his six-piece band to New Orleans in 1910. Ory had one of the best-known bands in New Orleans in the 1910s, hiring many of the great jazz musicians of the city, including the cornetists
Joe "King" Oliver,
Mutt Carey, and
Louis Armstrong, who joined the band in 1919; and the clarinetists
Johnny Dodds and
Jimmie Noone. In 1919, he moved to
Los Angeles Ory was a member of the original lineup of Louis Armstrong's
Hot Five which first recorded on November 12, 1925. His composition "
Muskrat Ramble" was included in the Hot Five session in February 1926. During the
Great Depression Ory retired from music and did not play again until 1943. In 1941, he was a pallbearer at the funeral of
Jelly Roll Morton in
Los Angeles, California. He ran a
chicken farm in Los Angeles. From 1944 to about 1961, he led one of the top New Orleans–style bands of the period. His sidemen during this period included, in addition to Carey and Garland, the trumpeters
Alvin Alcorn and
Teddy Buckner; the clarinetists
Darnell Howard,
Jimmie Noone,
Albert Nicholas,
Barney Bigard, and
George Probert; the pianists
Buster Wilson,
Cedric Haywood, and
Don Ewell; and the drummer
Minor Hall. All but Buckner, Probert, and Ewell were originally from New Orleans. founded his first label,
Crescent Records, to record Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band. (Crescent Number 1, August 1944) The Ory band was an important force in reviving interest in New Orleans jazz, making popular 1940s radio broadcasts that began with weekly spots on
The Orson Welles Almanac program (from March 15, 1944). In 1944–1945, the group made a series of recordings for the
Crescent label, which was founded by Nesuhi Ertegun for the express purpose of recording Ory's band. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Ory and his group appeared at the Beverly Cavern in Los Angeles. In 1958, he purchased the
Tin Angel nightclub in San Francisco from Peggy Tolk–Watkins, and he renamed it
On-The-Levee. The nightclub closed in July 1961, and in 1962 the building was demolished due to the creation of the
Embarcadero Freeway. ==Personal life==