[Dixielandjazz] Uncle Bunk Johnson

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

So far as I understand the prehistory, in New Orleans there was a collision cum rapprochement between the more European-style music played by legit players on legit instruments, and non-European folk music. The Piron band's recordings show a successive absorption by the former of the latter's influence. 
 
The same sort of blend was attained by around 1919 by Bunk, King Oliver, and Louis. 
An older trumpeter than Bunk would most likely be more genteel, fairly close to the somewhat Africanamericanised Dance music of Henderson before Armstrong, or white musicians on the eve of Armstrong. 
Bunk was a pro trumpeter, a legit bandsman, but whether or not he'd been interested to emulate Louis he seems to have lost his teeth too early for that to have been possible. Younger men who had teeth and technique could work in bands stylistically like Robichaux's, or Don Albert's or Boots and His Buddies in Texas if they didn't go as far as Chicago. 
George Lewis etc. were steeped in their idiom and probably not equipped to work in swing bands. They'd settled into a 1920s New Orleans idiom not remote from where Bunk had been when his teeth died. There wasn't such a depth of European music in them as in the case of  Bunk the pro, they were folk musicians or semi-pro. They played within their limits, but because of the Bunk phenomenon they got lots more practice and worked out their own thing, albeit later with trumpeters of wider scope. 
Bunk found his perfect match in the East Coast veterans with whom he recorded for Columbia (now on Delmark) with New Orleans rhythmic assistance. Garvin Bushell had travelled to Chicago with Bubber Miley to hear King Oliver. Ed Cuffee was another New York resident in the 1920s, Don Kirkpatrick was from Boston. They came from the New York/ East Coast collision with Chicago-based New Orleans. 
There was nothing pre-Bunk in George Lewis, just a different balance of elements.