Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Buddy Petit was born Joseph Crawford on May 25, 1897 in White Castle, Louisiana. His early life is somewhat mysterious but he was adopted by trombonist Joseph Petit, whose name he took.

Taking Freddie Keppard’s place in the Eagle Band, a place earlier held by Buddy Bolden, when Keppard left town. Briefly lured to Los Angeles, California by Jelly Roll Morton and Bill Johnson in 1917, but objecting to being told how to dress and behave differently from what he was accustomed to he returned to New Orleans, Louisiana.

Buddy spent the rest of his career in the area around greater New Orleans and the towns north of Lake Pontchartrain, not venturing further from home than Baton Rouge and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Okeh Records offered him a chance to record on their 1925 field trip to New Orleans, but Petit held out for more money and was never recorded. Danny Barker and Louis Armstrong said that it was a great loss to jazz history that there are no recordings of Petit.

After over-indulging in food and drink, cornetist Buddy Petit, which was sometimes spelled Buddie, transitioned on July 4, 1931.

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