|
Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZORIGINAL DIXIELAND JAZZ BANDThe group that recorded the first jazz records. Original lineup: cornettist Dominic James 'Nick' LaRocca (b 11 April 1889; d 22 February 1961, New Orleans), clarinettist Larry Shields (b 13 September 1893; d 21 November 1953, Los Angeles), trombonist Edwin Branford 'Eddie' Edwards (b 22 May 1891; d 9 April 1963, NYC), drummer Tony Spargo (b Antonio Sbarbaro, 27 June 1897; d 30 Octtober 1969, Forest Hills NY), pianist Henry Ragas (b 1890; d 1919, NYC). The young white enthusiasts from New Orleans were a sensation in New York and beat Kid Ory, King Oliver etc to the studio by several years. They recorded two sides for Columbia in January 1917, but the label was not enthusiastic; 'Livery Stable Blues' was made the next month for Victor and a huge hit by June, soon exceeded in sales by 'Darktown Strutters' Ball' on Columbia. They recorded for Aeolian Vocalion the same year, but the records were of the obsolescent vertical-cut type (see Recorded Sound) and most of their records were on Victor. The biggest hit was 'Tiger Rag' '18, probably the equivalent of a national no. 1. Shields was the best musician (Barney Bigard played his solo on Duke Ellington's 'Tiger Rag' '29) and LaRocca was an influence on the very young Bix Beiderbecke; as an ensemble the ODJB established enduring patterns. But they also did much to establish jazz as a noisy party music in the public mind: the music and even the acoustically-made records managed to sound harsh and brilliant for the time, appealing to a generation that wanted to reject convention in the aftermath of WWI; they captured an early jazz style like an insect in amber, but had none of the beauty or the easy swing of the music of King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band or of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. Yet as John Norris noted, publisher of Canada's Coda magazine, reviewing Ragtime To Jazz 1912--1919 on Timeless Historical, 'the ODJB (whatever we may think of them now) were infinitely superior to most other outfits to record at that time'. With a changing lineup they carried on through '22, switching to OKeh that year; Sbarbaro used the name on Vocalion '35 with a sextet including Russ Morgan on trombone; LaRocca, Shields and Sbarbaro were reunited in a 14-piece band and with Edwards as the Original Dixieland Five on Victor '36. The last gasp was a septet led by Edwards with Shields and Sbarbaro, backing vocalist Lola Bard on Bluebird '38. By then their appeal was limited to old fans nostalgic for the 'jazz age', and jazz had long since passed them by. LaRocca had copyrighted 'Tiger Rag', 'Fidgety Feet' and other New Orleans classics; interviewed by Leonard Feather '36, he believed that white musicians had made the worthwhile music and black musicians had learned it from them (described by Feather in The Jazz Years '86). In a letter in 1957 he thought that W.C. Handy 'and others' had 'contaminated the History of Jazz.' |