Keppard (pronounced in the French fashion, with relatively even accentuation and a silent d) was born in the Creole of Color community of downtown New Orleans, Louisiana.

[3] As Freddie and Louis grew older, both brothers became band leaders in their own right and became part of the competitive New Orleans jazz scene.

[4] Louis Keppard led the Magnolia Orchestra, which became the regular band at Huntz's and Nagel's cabaret on Iberville in the District.

The Magnolia Orchestra included Joe Oliver on cornet, who would later succeed Keppard's title as "King" by winning a "cutting contest" against him.

[3] After playing with the Olympia Orchestra, Freddie Keppard joined Frankie Dusen's Eagle Band, taking the place recently vacated by Buddy Bolden.

[4] Sometime in either late 1911 or early 1912, bassist Bill Johnson, who had been making his career in Los Angeles, California since 1909, started the initiative to organize an "Original Creole Ragtime Band" to play the New Orleans style across the country.

There is, however, no evidence that Keppard played any major role in the organization of the band (planning tours and events, choosing songs for the repertoire, signing contracts, etc.).

Newspaper reviewers in New York commented on the "rather ragged selection" of the band's repertoire as well as the "comedy effect of the clarinet," a testament to the American public's unfamiliarity with the "hot" style of New Orleans.

During the band's time on the east coast, other personnel who came to play in the Original Creole Orchestra included Bab Frank on piccolo and Big Eye Louis Nelson (De Lisle) on clarinet.

[4] The Original Creole Orchestra, after touring the Vaudeville circuit, gave other parts of the USA a first taste of the music that was not yet known as "jazz".

[8] While playing a successful engagement in New York City in 1915, the band was offered a chance to record for the Victor Talking Machine Company.

[11] The reminiscences of the other members of the Creole Orchestra reveal that another factor was that the Victor representative had asked them to make a "test recording" without pay.

According to Dave Peyton, who had been the leader of the Grand Theater Orchestra in 1915, the Original Creole Band had been so popular when the group hit Chicago that they "were bidded for by every theatrical agency in the city."

They were so popular, in fact, that, a few years after the band dissolved, Peyton asserted that "when they hit Broadway they were a great sensation and would be on the road today were it not for dissatisfaction among themselves and the loss of several of their members by death.

"[2] About 1917, Keppard settled in Chicago, which would remain his home (except for briefly going to the East Coast to work with Tim Brymn's band about 1920).

"[4] Nevertheless, Keppard did well in finding continuous employment with a wide range of bandleaders, at one point leading his own group with Jimmie Noone on clarinet and Paul Barbarin on drums.

Throughout his travels, Keppard sent back clippings to his fellow musicians in New Orleans, encouraging other bands to take their chances on the cross-country circuits.

[3] Sidney Bechet believed it was because Keppard was a "good-time guy" that he refused the Victor Company's offer to make the first jazz recordings while he was still playing with the Original Creole Orchestra.

Thus, if Keppard had agreed to make recordings for them with the Original Creole Band, the music would no longer have been for pure enjoyment but would have been turned into a commodity.

[2] In the Victor Company files, there is a listing for an unnumbered test recording for a song called "Tack 'em Down" made by the "Creole Jass Band" on December 2, 1918 nearly two years after Keppard's first performance in New York.

But you could hear him two, three blocks away.Jelly Roll Morton said of Freddie Keppard that he "had the best ear, the best tone, and the most marvelous execution I ever heard.

Alberta Hunter, a blues singer and another artist who had been largely forgotten until she made her comeback in her eighties, also wondered why Freddie Keppard was often overlooked or unmentioned in many accounts of the histories of jazz.

Of those who spoke of Keppard as a "freak player," most referred to him in this way because of his ability to utilize a variety of mutes and playing techniques, such as flutter-tonguing and half-valving.

Keppard contributed to the Doc Cook recordings, where he plays the 'walking-talking' style of Stomp Cornet that pre-dates jazz by about a half generation.

Keppard was widely imitated both in New Orleans and Chicago, including contemporaneous and highly regarded players such as Louis Panico and Frank Guarente.

Other recordings Keppard made include songs titled "Salty Dog," "Adam's Apple," "Stomp Time Blues," and "Messing Around.

[14] Others, like Lawrence Gushee, insist that Keppard did have a unique approach to playing the cornet, which simply became overshadowed by Louis Armstrong's powerful influence.

Whereas "Armstrong seems to favor extended four or eight-measure structure, Keppard [built] his units out of shorter modules" underscored by vibrato.

Jelly Roll Morton, Lil Hardin Armstrong, and Wellman Braud all thought Keppard superior to Oliver.