This disc features twenty of Kid Ory’s finest recordings of the 1945-53 period. Filled with colourful ensembles and personable solos, it could be called Dixieland, New Orleans jazz or just plain happy high quality music. With the rise of the Depression and the collapse of the recording industry, job opportunities began to become scarce after 1930, and in 1933 Kid Ory dropped out of music to help his brother run a chicken farm. However, New Orleans jazz made a comeback in the 1940s, among its fans Orson Welles who was then hosting a radio show and wanted to feature an authentic sounding New Orleans band for a five-minute slot in each program. Kid Ory was enlisted to put together a band, and the radio show turned out to be the perfect launching band for Kid Ory’s Creole Jazz Band, whose weekly feature was the highlight of the show. Although the Kid Ory group only had one record date during 1947-49, its popularity actually grew during this period and the Creole Jazz Band was now thought of as one of the top representatives of vintage New Orleans jazz. Driven by trumpeter Teddy Buckner the band performs joyous versions of At A Georgia Camp Meeting and Mahogany Hall Stomp, and even tears into the pop song The Glory Of Love. The final five tracks on this CD feature the 1953 version of Ory’s band with Buckner and clarinettist Bob McCracken, though the biggest addition was the great stride pianist Don Ewell, arguably the band’s finest soloist. These standards are all given the Kid Ory treatment and even though South Rampart Street Parade, St. James Infirmary, Aunt Hagar’s Blues, Duke Ellington’s Creole Love Call and Milenburg Joys were recorded many times through the years, the Ory band made them sound lively, fresh and just a little unpredictable.