Search - Original Dixieland Jazz Band :: Complete Original Dixieland Jazz Band (1917-1936)

One of the painful ironies of American musical history is that the first jazz band ever to record was the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a quintet of white New Orleans musicians who had moved north to Chicago in 1916 and began recording in New York a year later. More painful still, their first recordings to be released, "Livery Stable Blues" and "Original Dixieland One-Step," would launch a national jazz craze and a host of imitators, with the fad passing before any of the great African American New Orleans musicians--Kid Ory, Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong--first entered recording studios. However, while the ODJB lacked the art and inventiveness of Morton or Oliver, it had enough spontaneous energy and high spirits to explode on an unsuspecting public conditioned to staid popular music and relatively formal ragtime. While none of the musicians seems to have arrived at the improvised solo, the tracks are filled with characteristic New Orleans ensemble variations, with clarinetist Larry Shields coiling around Nick LaRocca's punching cornet lead work, and trombonist Eddie Edwards providing tailgate effects. While the quality of early recording would lose some of pianist Henry Ragas's work, drummer Tony Sbarbaro contributes what percussion effect acoustic recording could support. Tunes like "Tiger Rag" and "Clarinet Marmalade" would become bulwarks of the traditional jazz repertoire. This complete edition of the band's work contains all the band's influential recordings from 1917 to 1921 and 14 tracks from their reunion in 1936 in the midst of the swing era, both in small- and big-band formats. Those seeking just the significant material from the band's early years can find it on a single CD, The 75th Anniversary. --Stuart Broomer