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| Original Dixieland Jass Band | |
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 A 1918 promotional postcard showing (from left), drummer Tony Sbarbaro (aka Tony Spargo), trombonist Edwin "Daddy" Edwards, cornetist Dominick James "Nick" LaRocca , clarinetist Larry Shields and pianist Henry Ragas.
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| Background information | |
| Origin | New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Genre(s) | Jazz |
| Years active | 1916–1925 (Reunion: 1936-1938) |
Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) was a New Orleans band that made the first jazz recording in 1917. The group composed and made the first recordings of many jazz standards, the most famous being "Tiger Rag, which is one of the most recorded jazz standards of the twentieth century." In late 1917 it changed the name's spelling to "Jazz."
The band consisted of five musicians who had previously played in the Papa Jack Laine bands, a diverse and racially integrated collection of musicians who played for parades, dances, and advertising in New Orleans.
The ODJB were frequently billed as the "Creators of Jazz", because they were the first band to record jazz commercially and to have hit recordings in the new genre. The appellation is accurate in that they were the first band to create successful and popular recordings of jazz. Band leader and trumpeter Nick LaRocca argued that the ODJB deserved recognition as the first band to record jazz commeercially and the first band to establish jazz as a musical idiom or genre.
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Origins of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band
In early 1916 a promoter from Chicago approached clarinetist Alcide Nunez and drummer Johnny Stein about bringing a New Orleans-style band to Chicago, where the similar Brown's Band From Dixieland led by trombonist Tom Brown was already enjoying success.[1] They then assembled trombonist Eddie Edwards, pianist Henry Ragas and cornetist Frank Christian. Shortly before they were to leave, Christian backed out, and Nick LaRocca was hired as a last-minute replacement.
On March 3, 1916 the musicians began their job at Schiller's Cafe in Chicago under the name Stein's Dixie Jass Band. The band was a hit and received offers of higher pay elsewhere. Since Stein as leader was the only musician under contract by name, the rest of the band broke off, sent to New Orleans for drummer Tony Sbarbaro, and on June 5 started playing renamed as The Dixie Jass Band. LaRocca and Nunez had personality conflicts, and on October 30 Tom Brown's Band and the ODJB mutually agreed to switch clarinetists, bringing Larry Shields into the Original Dixieland Jass Band. The band attracted the attention of theatrical agent Max Hart, who booked the band in New York City. At the start of 1917 the band began an engagement playing for dancing at Reisenweber's Cafe in Manhattan.
First recordings
While a couple of other New Orleans bands had passed through New York City slightly earlier, they were part of vaudeville acts. The ODJB, on the other hand, played for dancing and were hence the first "jass" band to get a following of fans in New York, and then record at a time when the USA's recording industry was almost entirely centered in New York and New Jersey.
Shortly after arriving in New York they were offered a chance per a letter dated January 29, 1917 to audition for the Columbia Gramophone Company which took place on Wednesday, January 31, 1917. Nothing came of this audition (though Columbia would invite them back to record after their success with Victor).
The band then recorded two sides ("Livery Stable Blues" and "Dixie Jass Band One Step") on February 26, 1917 for the Victor Talking Machine Company. The record with these titles came out on March 7. The ODJB's records, first marketed simply as a novelty, were a surprise hit, and gave many Americans their first taste of jazz. Musician Joe Jordan sued, since the "One Step" incorporated portions of his 1909 ragtime composition "That Teasin' Rag". The record labels were subsequently changed to "Introducing 'That Teasin' Rag' by Joe Jordan".
The surprising success of the ODJB influenced other groups to form jazz bands and to record the new music of jazz, such as the Earl Fuller's Famous Jazz Band, the Frisco Jazz Band, and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings.
The seminal 78 releases by the ODJB include the following Victor, Columbia, and Aeolian Vocalion recordings:
1) Dixie Jass Band One Step/Introducing That Teasin' Rag/Livery Stable Blues, 1917, Victor 18255.
2) Ostrich Walk/Tiger Rag, 1917, Aeolian Vocalion A1206.
3) Bluin' the Blues/Sensation Rag, 1920, Victor 18483.
4) Margie/Singin' the Blues/Palesteena, 1920, Victor 18717.
5) Reisenweber Rag/Look at 'Em Doing it Now, 1917, Aeolian Vocalion 1242.
6) At the Jazz Band Ball/Barnyard Blues, 1917, Aeolian Vocalion A1205.
7) Mornin' Blues/Clarinet Marmalade, 1918, Victor 18513.
8) Fidgety Feet (War Cloud)/Lazy Daddy, 1918, Victor 18564.
9) 'Lasses Candy/Satanic Blues, 1919, Columbia 759.
10) Oriental Jazz or Jass, recorded November 24, 1917 and issued as Aeolian Vocalion 12097 in April, 1919 with Indigo Blues by Ford Dabney's Band.
11) Skeleton Jangle/Tiger Rag (1918 version), 1918, Victor 18472.
12) Darktown Strutter's Ball/Indiana-One Step, 1917, Columbia A2297.
13) Soudan (also known as Oriental Jass or Oriental Jazz), 1920, recorded in London in the UK in May, 1920 and released as English Columbia 829. Soudan was composed by Gabriel Sebek in 1906 as In the Soudan: A Dervish Chorus or Oriental Scene for Piano, Op. 45.The B side was "Me-Ow" by the London Dance Orchestra.
14) Broadway Rose/Sweet Mama (Papa's Getting Mad)/Strut, Miss Lizzie, 1920, Victor 18722.
15) Home Again Blues/Crazy Blues/It's Right Here For You (If You Don't Get It, Tain't No Fault O' Mine), 1921, Victor 18729.
16) I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles/My Baby's Arms, 1920, Columbia 805.
17) Sphinx/Alice Blue Gown, 1920, Columbia 824.
18) I've Lost My Heart in Dixieland/I've Got My Captain Working for Me Now, 1921, Columbia 815.
19) Royal Garden Blues/Dangerous Blues, 1921, Victor 18798.
20) Tell Me/Mammy O' Mine, 1921, recorded in the UK and released as Columbia 804.
21) Jazz Me Blues/St. Louis Blues, 1921, Victor 18772.
22) Bow Wow Blues (My Mama Treats Me Like a Dog), 1922, Victor 18850. The B side featured Railroad Blues by the Benson Orchestra of Chicago under pianist and composer Roy Bargy.
23) Toddlin' Blues/Some of These Days, 1923, Okeh 4738.
24) You Stayed Away Too Long/Slipping Through My Fingers, 1935, Vocalion 3099.
25) Original Dixieland One-Step/Barnyard Blues, 1936, Victor 25502.
26) Who Loves You?/Did You Mean It?, 1936, Victor 25420, which featured vocals by Chris Fletcher and Nick LaRocca on trumpet.
27) Ooooo-Oh Boom!/Please Be Kind, 1938, RCA Bluebird B-7442.
28) Good-Night, Sweet Dreams, Good-Night/In My Little Red Book, 1938, RCA Bluebird B-7444, which featured vocals by Lola Bard.
29) Tiger Rag (1943 version), 1944, V-Disc 214.
30) Sensation Rag (1943 version), 1944, V-Disc 214B2.
31) Shake It and Break It/When You and I Were Young, Maggie, 1946, Commodore C-613.
Later history of the band
After their initial recording for Victor, they recorded for Columbia (after the first Victor session, not before as has sometimes been said) and Aeolian-Vocalion in 1917, and returned to make more sides for Victor the following year, while enjoying continued popularity in New York. Trombonist Edwards was drafted in 1918 and replaced with Emile Christian, and pianist Henry Ragas died in the Spanish Flu Pandemic the following year of influenza, to be replaced by pianist and composer J. Russel Robinson, who composed the jazz standard "Eccentric" ("That Eccentric Rag"), "Margie", "Jazzola", "Singin' the Blues (Till My Daddy Comes Home)", recorded by Bix Beiderbecke, Frankie Trumbauer, and Eddie Lang, "Mary Lou", "Pan Yan (And His Chinese Jazz Band)", "How Many Times?", "Aggravatin' Papa (Don't You Try to Two-Time Me)", "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", "Yeah Man!", "Reefer Man" for Cab Calloway in 1932, "Dynamite Rag", "Meet Me at No Special Place", recorded by Nat King Cole, "Alhambra Syncopated Waltzes", "Te-na-na (From New Orleans)", "Beale Street Mama", recorded by Bessie Smith and Cab Calloway, and "Palesteena (Lena from Palesteena)". In 1916, Joseph Russel Robinson, whose name appeared as "J. Russel Robinson", co-wrote the song "Ole Miss Rag" with W.C. Handy. In 1919, Robinson co-wrote "Though We're Miles and Miles Apart" with W.C. Handy and Charles N. Hillman which was released by Handy's publishing company.
Robinson's compositions for the ODJB in 1920, the classic "Margie", "Singin' the Blues", and "Palesteena (Lena from Palesteena)", released as a 78, were among the most popular and best-selling hits of 1920. "Aggravatin' Papa" was composed with Roy Turk and Addie Britt and was recorded by Alberta Hunter in 1923 with Fletcher Henderson's Dance Orchestra and also by Bessie Smith, Sophie Tucker, Florence Mills, Lucille Hegamin, and Pearl Bailey. Robinson also wrote with lyricist Roy Turk the compositions "Sweet Man O' Mine", "A-Wearin' Away the Blues", and "Mama Whips! Mama Spanks! (If Her Daddy Don't Come Home)" for blues and jazz singer Mamie Smith and her Jazz Band in 1921, which were released on the Okeh label.
Robinson was a member of the ODJB until it broke up in 1923 and rejoined the band when it reformed in 1936.
The ODJB classic "Margie", composed by J. Russel Robinson with Con Conrad, with lyrics added by Benny Davis, has been covered over a hundred times. "Margie" has been recorded by Louis Armstrong, who also covered the ODJB's "Tiger Rag", Ray Charles, Al Jolson, Duke Ellington and His Orchestra in 1935, the Billy Kyle Swing Club Band, Claude Hopkins, Red Nichols, Django Reinhardt, George Paxton, the Dutch Swing College Band, Fats Domino, Sidney Bechet, Don Redman, Cab Calloway, Jim Reeves, Gene Krupa, and Benny Goodman.
"Margie" was a #9 hit for the ODJB in 1921 with J. Russel Robinson on piano. Eddie Cantor had the biggest hit version of the ODJB classic, spending 5 weeks at #1 in 1921. The song was also featured in the movie The Eddie Cantor Story and was the theme of the television series of the same name in 1961-1962. Gene Rodemich and His Orchestra reched #7 with their version in 1920. Ted Lewis and His Band reached #4 in 1921. Frank Crumit had a #7 hit in 1921. Claude Hopkins and His Orchestra reached #5 in 1934 with Orlando Peterson on vocals. Don Redman and His Orchestra got to #15 in 1939 with a cover of the ODJB song. Dave Brubeck, Bix Beiderbecke, Bing Crosby, Jo Stafford, Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, Charlie Shavers, Jimmy Smith, Joe Venuti, Ray Barretto, and Shelly Manne have also recorded the song. Jimmie Lunceford recorded the song in 1938 with a Sy Oliver arrangement that featured Trummy Young.
Other New Orleans musicians, including Nunez, Tom Brown, and Frank Christian, followed the ODJB's example and came to New York to play jazz as well, giving the ODJB competition. LaRocca decided to take the band to London, where they would once again enjoy being the only authentic New Orleans jazz band in the metropolis, and again present themselves as the Originators of Jazz because they were the first band to record the new genre of music dubbed jass or jazz. In London, they made twenty more recordings for the British branch of Columbia. While in London, they recorded the second, more commercially successful, version of their hit song Soudan (also known as Oriental Jass).
The band returned to the United States in July 1920 and toured for four years. This version of the band played in a more commercial manner, adding a saxophone to the arrangements in the manner of other popular orchestras. In the 1920s LaRocca was replaced by teenaged trumpeter Henry Levine, who later brought this kind of repertoire to the NBC radio show The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. Jazz pianist and composer Frank Signorelli, who co-wrote the jazz standards "A Blues Serenade", recorded by Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington, "Gypsy", and "Stairway to the Stars", joined the ODJB for a brief time in 1921.
The band broke up in the mid-1920s and its originators scattered. During the Depression, trombonist Eddie Edwards was discovered operating a newsstand in New York City. Newspaper publicity resulted in Edwards fronting a local nightclub band.
In 1936 the musicians played a reunion performance on network radio. RCA Victor invited them back into the studio, and they recorded six numbers as "The Original Dixieland Five." The group toured briefly before again disbanding. Clarinetist Larry Shields received particularly positive attention on this tour, and Benny Goodman commented that Shields was an important early influence.
Edwards and Sbarbaro formed some bands without other original members in the 1940s and 1950s under the ODJB name. In 1944, a new version of "Tiger Rag" was released as a V-Disc or Victory Disc, V-Disc 214, by the reformed band. "Sensation Rag" was also released as V-Disc 214B2. V-Discs were non-commercial releases recorded for the U.S. armed forces.
Back in New Orleans, LaRocca licensed bandleader Phil Zito to use the ODJB name for many years. Nick LaRocca's son, Jimmy LaRocca, continues to lead bands under the name The Original Dixieland Jazz Band today.
In 1960 the book The Story of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band was published. Writer H.O. Brunn based it on Nick LaRocca's testimony, which sometimes differs from that of other sources.
Music of the ODJB
Their first release "Livery Stable Blues" featured instruments doing barnyard imitations and the fully loaded trap set, wood blocks, cowbells, gongs, and Chinese gourds. This musical innovation represented one of the first experimental exercises in jazz. At the time their music was liberating. Those barnyard sounds were also experiments in altering the tonal qualities of the instruments, and those clattering wood blocks were experiments in breaking up the rhythm. The music had attitude to spare compared to the vapid pop music of the time.
It can also be argued that they were amongst the most talented composers of popular music of their day. Many of the tunes first composed and recorded by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, such as "Tiger Rag", were recorded by all the major jazz bands and orchestras of the twentieth century, black and white. "Tiger Rag" was recorded by everyone from Louis Armstrong to Duke Ellington to Glenn Miller to Benny Goodman. "Tiger Rag", in particular, became popular with many colleges and universities with a tiger as a mascot. In the biography John Coltrane: His Life and Music, published in 1999, Lewis Porter noted that the ODJB's classic "Margie" was a "specialty" of John COltrane, a song he performed regularly in his early career. "Tiger Rag", "Margie", "Clarinet Marmalade", "At The Jazz Band Ball", "Sensation Rag", and "Fidgety Feet" remain much played classics in the repertory of Dixieland and Traditional Jazz bands today. Their tunes were published as co-compositions of some or all of the entire ensemble, including band leader Nick La Rocca.
Compared to later jazz, the ODJB recordings have only modest improvisation in mostly ensemble tunes. Clarinetist Larry Shields is perhaps the most interesting player, showing a good fluid tone, and if his melodic variations and breaks now seem overly familiar, this is because they were widely imitated by musicians who followed in the ODJB's footsteps.
Their concept of arrangement was somewhat limited, and their recordings can seem rather repetitive. The lack of a bass player is also scarcely compensated for by the piano on their earlier, acoustically recorded sessions.
The ODJB's arrangements were wild and impolite and definitely had a jazz feel, and that style is still referred to as the style of music known as Dixieland.
Louis Armstrong acknowledged the importance of the ODJB in the evolution and development of jazz and the influence they had on him:
“Only four years before I learned to play the trumpet in the Waif´s Home, or in 1909, the first great jazz orchestra was formed in New Orleans by a cornet player named Dominick James LaRocca. They called him "Nick" LaRocca. His orchestra had only five pieces but they were the hottest five pieces that had ever been known before. LaRocca named this band, "The Old Dixieland Jass Band". He had an instrumentation different from anything before, an instrumentation that made the old songs sound new. Besides himself at the cornet, LaRocca had Larry Shields, clarinet, Eddie Edwards, trombone, Ragas, piano, and Sbarbaro, drums. They all came to be famous players and the Dixieland Band has gone down now in musical history.” - Louis Armstrong, Swing That Music, 1936[2]
The ODJB's original 1917 composition "Tiger Rag" became a jazz standard that was later covered by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ted Lewis, Joe Jackson, and the Mills Brothers.
There were 136 cover versions of ODJB's copyrighted jazz standard and classic "Tiger Rag" by 1942 alone. "Tiger Rag" was recorded by:
- Louis Armstrong, who released the ODJB classic as a 78 single, in 1930 on Okeh and in 1934 on Brunswick.
- Benny Goodman and his Orchestra.
- Frank Sinatra.
- Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra.
- Edward "Kid" Ory with his Creole Jazz Orchestra.
- Bix Beiderbecke with the Wolverines or the Wolverine Orchestra.
- Ethel Waters and the Jazz Masters in 1922.
- Billie Holiday.
- Sidney Bechet.
- Bob Crosby and his Bobcats.
- Fats Waller.
- Gene Krupa,
- Phil Napoleon and his Orchestra in 1926 on Edison.
- Abe Lyman and his Orchestra.
- Harry Reser.
- Whiteway Jazz Band.
- The New Orleans Rhythm Kings in 1922 on Gennett.
- Fletcher Henderson.
- Jelly Roll Morton in 1938.
- Ray Miller's Orchestra in 1929 on Brunswick.
- Red McKenzie.
- Freddy Fisher.
- Acker Bilk.
- Harry Roy and his Orchestra.
- The Maple City Four.
- The Saint Jazz Band.
- Isham Jones' Orchestra.
- Eddie Condon.
- Pete Fountain released "Tiger Rag" as a 45 single on Coral.
- Tommy Dorsey.
- Glenn Miller and his Orchestra.
- Muggsy Spanier.
- Teddy Wilson.
- Alvino Rey.
- The Mills Brothers in 1931.
- The Washboard Rhythm Kings.
- Art Tatum in 1932.
- Bert Ambrose and his Orchestra.
- Jack Hylton.
- Lew Stone.
- Billy Cotton.
- Jack Payne.
- Ray Noble.
- Joe Jackson.
- Django Reinhardt with the Quintette of the Hot Club of France.
- Roy Smeck.
- Tiger Rag was covered on the 78 series entitled Studies in Swing No.1, 1927, with Nat Gonella on solo trumpet.
- The Paul Whiteman Orchestra.
- Jimmy Dorsey with Spike Hughes.
- Les Paul and Mary Ford in 1952.
- In 1954, "Tiger Rag" was featured in the MGM cartoon "Dixieland Droopy", directed by Tex Avery, which Droopy plays on his record. It's also what the flea jazz band that gets on Droopy performs in this cartoon.
The ODJB's "Tiger Rag" was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2002 [1].
Finally, "Tiger Rag" was recently used in a famous ad, the "Banned Xbox 360 Ad: Best Ad Ever!", advertising the Xbox 360 console from Microsoft.
The ODJB deserves recognition as the first band to successfully record jazz and for establishing and creating jazz as a new musical idiom and genre of music.
Notes
- ^ "Tom Brown". The Red Hot Archive. Retrieved on 2007-10-27.
- ^ Armstrong, Louis (1993). Swing That Music, Da Capo Press. pp. 9–10. ISBN 0306805448. http://books.google.com/books?id=Oq2yWIdKezIC&dq=louis+armstrong+swing+that+music&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=temvSMLuNv&sig=k9skX48cDAgW_O02AJacKGjLevQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPA10,M1.
References
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Original Dixieland Jass Band |
- The ODJB on RedHotJazz Contains .ram files of their vintage recordings.
- Jimmy LaRocca's Original Dixieland Jazz Band
- Horst H. Lange: Wie der Jazz begann 1916-1923". Berlin, 1991. ISBN 3-7678-0779-3
- H.O.Brunn: "The Story of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band". London, 1960.