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  • 5/3/2025
Original Dixieland Jazz Band Biography and Music Guide Video provides recommendations for the best recordings of this legendary jazz band.

The Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) was a Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their "Livery Stable Blues" became the first jazz record ever issued. The group composed and recorded many jazz standards, the most famous being "Tiger Rag". In late 1917, the spelling of the band's name was changed to Original Dixieland Jazz Band.

The band consisted of five musicians who had played in the Papa Jack Laine bands.

ODJB billed itself as "the Creators of Jazz". It was the first band to record jazz commercially and to have hit recordings in the genre. Band leader and cornetist Nick LaRocca argued that ODJB deserved recognition as the first band to record jazz commercially and the first band to establish jazz as a musical idiom or genre.

#jazz #oldjazz #neworleansjazz #classicjazz #nicklarocca #old music #1920smusic #1920s #earlyjazz #ragtime #jazzbands



Transcript
00:00The original Dixieland Jazz Band was originally an offshoot of Stein's Dixieland Jazz Band,
00:08and started out under the leadership of cornetist Nick LaRocca.
00:13By 1917, the band had moved from Chicago to New York,
00:18where in February of that year, they would make the first ever jazz recording,
00:23livery-stable blues.
00:26Dixie Jazz Band One-Step, for the Victor label.
00:31The recording was a huge commercial success,
00:35and it introduced jazz to a nationwide audience.
00:38The huge sales of that first recording motivated other record labels to record jazz,
00:44and thus sparked the spread of the music.
00:48The initial incarnation of the original Dixieland Jazz Band
00:53recorded several other excellent sides, including the following,
00:59Darktown Strutter's Ball,
01:01Ostrich Walk,
01:03and Tiger Rag.
01:05Their music was typical early Dixieland jazz,
01:08but the ODJB had some of the finest musicians in jazz music at the time,
01:16including LaRocca on cornet,
01:18Daddy Edwards on trombone,
01:21Henry Ragus on piano,
01:24and Larry Shields on clarinet.
01:27The ODJB was a white band,
01:31and LaRocca was a proud member of the white race,
01:35who always maintained that it was not African Americans who had created jazz,
01:41but white musicians.
01:44LaRocca's overt racism has probably hurt the reputation of the ODJB,
01:49and encouraged many observers to write them off
01:52as simply a bunch of second-rate, white musicians,
01:56who only had the opportunity to make the first jazz recording
02:01due to the institutionalized racism of the time.
02:05However, this is clearly not the case.
02:09Freddie Keppert,
02:11an African American cornetist,
02:13turned down the opportunity
02:14to make the first jazz recording in 1916.
02:18The original Dixieland Jazz Band
02:21reunited several times in the 1930s
02:24and toured Europe.
02:27Drummer Tony Sparrow
02:28was the only original member
02:31of the band
02:33to appear on all the band's recordings
02:35between 1917
02:38and 1938.
02:42Several compilations of the ODJB's early sides
02:45can be found,
02:46including the following.
02:48The complete, original Dixieland Jazz Band
02:521917-1938
02:55from 1995.
02:58The ODJB also appears on
03:00several compilations of early,
03:03classic,
03:04recorded jazz.
03:05The ODJB.
03:06Tapinta to the ODJB.
03:09Thank you,
03:10Mr Gracieland.
03:10See you soon,
03:16we'll see you soon.
03:19First of all,
03:20the ODJB inter껑
03:21over the internet
03:22pora is on腐 behind theäŗ‹
03:24and you may almost
03:25go to the outside
03:25the fort attractora
03:26and accented
03:27the 10 to 85
03:28and the lowở
03:31the ODJB.

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