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Thomas "Papa Mutt" Carey (September 17, 1891 – September 3, 1948) was an American jazz trumpeter.<ref name="LarkinJazz">Template:Cite book</ref>
Early lifeEdit
Carey was born in Hahnville, Louisiana,<ref>Carr, Ian Fairweather Digby, and Priestley, Brian. The Rough Guide to Jazz, Third Edition. Rough Guides Ltd., 2004. p. 125.</ref><ref>Kernfedl, Barry, ed. The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. Macmillan, 1994. p. 185.</ref> and moved to New Orleans with his family in his youth. His older brother Jack Carey was a trombone player and bandleader; Mutt was playing cornet in his brother's band by about 1912.
CareerEdit
Although Carey's early work was with brass bands in the New Orleans area (1913–17),<ref name=zeiff/> in 1914, he started working with Kid Ory<ref name=zeiff>Zieff, Bob. "Carey, (Papa) Mutt". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 26 November 2022.</ref> and would continue to do so, on and off, through the 1910s.
After touring the vaudeville circuits in 1917,<ref name=zeiff/> he returned to New Orleans in 1918<ref name=zeiff/> and then went to California with Ory in 1919,<ref name=zeiff/> eventually taking over leadership of the band when Ory left in 1925.<ref name=zeiff/>
Carey's big band, the Jeffersonians, appeared in the silent films The Legion of the Condemned and The Road to Ruin (both 1928).<ref name=zeiff/>
Carey rejoined Ory's band from around 1929 to 1933, when the lack of work during the Depression led him to work as a Pullman porter.<ref name=zeiff/> In 1941, he was a pallbearer at the funeral of Jelly Roll Morton in Los Angeles.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
In March 1944 Carey rejoined Ory in an all-star band that was a leader of the West Coast revival of traditional New Orleans jazz, put together for the CBS Radio series The Orson Welles Almanac. The All Star Jazz Group also included Ed Garland, Jimmie Noone (succeeded by Barney Bigard), Bud Scott, Zutty Singleton and Buster Wilson.<ref name="Goldin Almanac">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Almanac Part 1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Almanac Part 2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Renamed Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band, the group then made a significant series of recordings on the Crescent Records label.<ref name="Ertegun">Ertegun, Nesuhi. Liner notes for Tailgate! Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band. Good Time Jazz Records L-10 and L-11, 1953, also used for Good Time Jazz Records L-12022, 1957.</ref>
Carey left Ory's band in 1947 to lead a group under his own name.<ref name="LarkinJazz" />
Personal lifeEdit
Carey died in Lake Elsinore, California, on September 3, 1948, aged 56.<ref name="LarkinJazz" />
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- Mutt Carey 1891-1948 at the Red Hot Jazz Archive
- 1944 Orson Welles Broadcasts at The Kid Ory Archive
- 1945 Jade Palace at The Kid Ory Archive
- Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band: 1944–1945 The Legendary Crescent Recording Sessions at AllMusic (Scott Yanow)