Baby Dodds - Later Years

Later Years

After the Oliver band broke up, the Dodds brothers played at Burt Kelley’s Stables in Chicago, and soon after, Johnny Dodds began leading his own outfit, of which Baby was a part. Johnny Dodds died of a stroke in 1940. Of his brother, Baby Dodds said the following: “There just couldn’t be another Johnny Dodds or anyone to take his place. And his passing on made a big difference in my life. I had been connected with him for many years and from then on I had to be wholly on my own”. After his brother’s death, Baby Dodds worked mostly as a freelance drummer around Chicago. This was the time of the New Orleans Revival, which was a movement in response to the emerging style of bebop. Many jazz traditionalists wanted jazz to return to its roots during this time. Dodds, having remained a New Orleans style drummer untouched by the influence of swing, found himself playing a role in the New Orleans jazz revival. In 1941, he played with Jimmie Noone and his band for a short time. This band featured Mada Roy on piano, Noone on clarinet, Bill Anderson on bass, and Dodds on drums. Dodds only stayed with this outfit for three months before they went to California while Dodds decided to stay in Chicago. In the late 1940s he worked at Jimmy Ryan's in New York City. On some of his trips back to New Orleans, he recorded with Bunk Johnson. Dodds ended up playing with Johnson's band in New York. Dodds described his impressions of New York as a place where people listened to jazz rather than danced to it: "When I first went to New York it seemed very strange to have people sitting around and listening rather than dancing. In a way it was similar to theatre work. But it was peculiar for me because I always felt as though I was doing something for the people if they danced to the music". After playing with several outfits in New York, he joined Mezz Mezzrow’s group on a tour of Europe in 1948 that lasted eight weeks. The group ended up playing solely in France, and Dodds had a great experience, saying that Europeans “take our kind of music much more seriously than they do in our own country”. They played at the Nice Festival along with Rex Stewart, Louis Armstrong, and several other American jazz musicians. Dodds returned to Chicago after the European tour and while taking a trip to New York in April 1949, he suffered a stroke. In 1950 he had his second stroke and in 1952 suffered a third. After his three strokes, Dodds tutored and played in public as much as he could, though he was unable to complete entire performances. He died on February 14, 1959 in Chicago.