Like many people, I imagine, I first became aware of the term “Creole” in relation to some jazz musicians, such as Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, and Kid Ory, among others, who were often termed, or referred to themselves as, “Creoles”; I also became familiar with King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band. Beyond that my idea was that the term simply meant “being biracial,” although certainly Oliver and most of the band members did not appear to be “biracial.” (It turns out I was only partially correct. Rather than accepting the limited criterion of “biracial,” Vézina opts for “mixed descent” as being more accurate.) And at the same time, I never gave thought to how jazz might have been influenced by the concept.
In this book, Jazz à la Creole: French Creole Music & the Birth of Jazz, Caroline Vézina attempts to clarify any misconceptions by presenting the results of a thorough investigation of how jazz was influenced by all things Creole—the music, the musicians, the culture—focusing especially on New Orleans. She begins her research with the turn of the 19th century when Louisiana was still a colony
Initially Creole referred to “people of European parentage born in the colony,” according to one researcher and to “people born in the colony" without reference to color, claimed another. “European” in this case usually meant French or Spa
