Preface

Perhaps no history of an art is more lacking in documentation than that of jazz. The very meaning of the

word is obscure tomost persons, and even the dictionariesdo not agree. The chief complaint to be found with nearlyal l these definitions is that they are based on hearsay.

To compl icate matters, many words today carry hardlythe same meaning they did yesterday ; and those whodanced to the jazz that was popular forty years ago wouldnever recognize the music that is presently described bythe word .

Many historians speak of jazz as if it had alwaysexisted, as if the radical change in popular music around1916—a change so revolutionary that a new name was

required to distinguish it from the ragtime so prevalentthroughout the country at that time—never real ly oc

curred .

I believe I have presented new and incontrovertibleevidence that the Original Dixieland Jazz Band was thefirst to popularize the radical new music in the leadingmetropol itan centers of the world, first to increase itsspread by means of the world’s first jazz phonographrecord ; and that these men are, despite the attacks level led at them a few decades after their retirement, more

than entitled to the phrase that was always their bill ing :“The Creators of Jazz.

”

Preface

Information in this book was contributed by manymusicians and authorities connected with the OriginalDixieland Jazz Band . Foremost of these was the band’sleader and organizer, Dominic James (Nick ) LaRocca .

The interviews with Mr. LaRocca began in New Orleansin the summer of 1946 , lasted sometimes for weeks onend, and continued at regular interval s through the present year. Supplementing the personal talks is a corre

spondence file consisting ofmore than two hundred of hisletters, al l relating in detail to the subject of jazz and theOriginal Dixieland Jazz Band . Most of the photographsreproduced in this book were unearthed from his amazinggarage . Here, buried beneath the accumulation of nearly

seventy years—everything from 1898 fishing tackle to

homemade radio sets of 1927 vintage—were the contractsand records of the historic Original Dixieland Jazz Band .

Even Mr. LaRocca himsel f did not know what to expect,and every box or trunk opened was the source of a new

surprise . The documents recovered, having long ago beentossed haphazardly into a trunk or box, were not alwaysin the best state of preservation . Contracts were dogeared, newspaper cl ippings yel lowed , and photographstorn in half. But the many hundreds of items— account

books, ledgers, receipts, passports, letters, fan mail , nu

publ ished compositions—when final ly fitted together,formed a rough outl ine of the band’ s fascinating past.In 1958 these documents, now known as the LaRocca

Col lection, were taken over by the Archive of New Or

leans Jazz at Tulane University .

These papers establ ished dates, names, and places,but many additional detail s came from the memories

Preface

of the musicians themselves . Trombonist Eddie Edwardsand drummer Tony Sbarbaro in New York fil led in muchabout the history of the band , and their stories cross

checked to a remarkable degree . Other musicians who at

one time or another played with the Original Dixieland

Jazz Band— Emile Christian, J. Russel Robinson, FrankSignorel l i, Jimmy Lytel , and Henry Levine—contributedvaluable detail s.

One of my greatest regrets was that the great clarinetist of the Dixieland Band , Larry Shields, passed awaybefore making his personal contribution to the book. But

Mrs. Shields, now residing in Hol lywood, and HarryShields, a widely respected jazz clarinetist in his own

right, were very helpful .My research in New Orleans was made more pleas

ant by the genial co-operation of many persons withwhom I talked during my periodic visits to that city . The

interest in my project shown by such time-honored jazzmu51c1ans as Sharkey Bonano, Santo Pecora , and Tom

Brown wil l not soon be forgotten ; nor wil l the efforts of

Mrs. Bertha A . Maroney, who came al l the way downtown from her job at Ponchartrain Beach to add a few

more detail s to my account of her deceased husband ,pianist Henry Ragas of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band .

Special thanks are due Jimmy Durante for the

group photograph of his first jazz band and for his oc

casional notes . I am indebted to Aldo Ricci and CharlesR . Iucei of New York Local 802, and to Gus Fischer of

Boston Local 9, of the American Federation ofMusicians,

for their generous help in locating the scores ofmusiciansWhose careers had an important bearing on this work . I

am al so indebted to themany co-operative people at RCAVictor—among them E . C. Forman, H . C . Darnell

, and

Louise Sparks—for digging up facts about recordingsof the Dixieland Band . Thanks al so to Cl iff Schweikhardof Buffalo, whose patient and painstaking photographywas so essential to the il lustration of this book .

Final ly, it is important for the reader to be aware ofothers interested in establ ishing the Original DixielandJazz Band’s place in music history, whose efforts alongsomewhat different l ines run paral lel to mine.

A West Coast musician and symphony orchestraarranger, Don Fowler, has devoted many years of studyto this historic jazz band and has succeeded, where al l

others have failed, in translating their elusive music onto

paper. Working directly from the original phonographrecordings, Fowler created written arrangements whichrepresent the sounds of the band as closely as the limitations of the method will al low. Understandably, themanuscript became discouragingly complex, for the

musicians of the Dixieland Band—unable to read music—were not limited to conventional note values and

rhythms. Then followed many months of grueling laborin the rehearsal of five musicians competent enough (anddurable enough ) to follow the intricate scores . The product of their efforts was recorded in Hollywood on an

LP disc entitled Origina l Dixieland Jazz in Hi-Fi (ABCParamount ABC in which al l twelve of the 1917

18 Victor recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Bandwere recreated for modern phonograph reproduction.

Although the imitators sometimes fall far short of theirmasters

,the general ensemble effect is often uncanny in

its fidel ity to the original . The importance of Fowler’s

Preface

project is not so much in its degree of success as in theirrefutable fact that it is the first attempt at dixielandjazz as an interpretive rather than a creative art. And his

record, whatever its shortcomings under close technicalscrutiny, comes far closer to describing the music of theOriginal Dixieland Jazz Band than any other presentlyavailable to the publ ic.

In England, my good friend Brian Rust has beeninstrumental in the reissue of the seventeen sides groovedby the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in that countryduring 1919 and 1920 . The result-ant ‘LP records, described and identified el sewhere in this book, were copiedfrom his personal col lection and are in some cases clearerthan reissues made from original masters . The author of

several books and magazme articles on jazz, Rust’s

research on the Dixieland Band runs closely parallel tomy own , with perhaps more emphasis on the recordingaspect. He is presently at work on a jazz discographywhich promises to be by far the most complete in its field,even to the point of listing the matrix numbers of unissued recordings . Likewise, in my own tabulations ofphonograph records for this book, I have included un

issued as wel l as issued works . Many of these unreleasedmasters are stil l buried in the vaults of disinterestedrecording companies, and it is optimistically hoped thatpressings may some day be made available .

No one who has“

explored the colorful past of theOriginal Dixieland Jazz Band can fail to run across thename of J . S . Moynahan. A writer of no small abil ity,his Saturday Evening Post article of February 17, 1937,one of the greatest eulogies of the Original DixielandJazz Band ever written,

occupies a prominent place in

Preface

the scrap book of every devoted fan ; and his work on

the March ofTime film on the same subject wil l long beremembered . Moynahan, a jazz clarinetist, and his

brother “Fred, a drummer, were both active in the earlydays of the art, and are stil l among the Dixieland’s mostloyal disciples .

Last but by no means least, is Henry Hot LipsLevine (of

“Chamber Music Society of Lower BasinStreet” fame ) , who holds the distinction of hav1ng playedtrumpet in the Original Dixieland Jazz Band during itsdarkest days

,in 1926 . His lectures and writings on the

subject of dixieland jazz, and his continuance in the

medium with his own band in the Miami Beach area, are

deserving of special recognition .

To al l these good friends and col leagues, this firstauthentic history of the Original Dixieland Jazz Bandis sincerely dedicated .

H. 0 . B runn

Snyder, New York

February 16, 1960

Contents

Preface, vPrologue, xv

No Beer—No Mu'sic, 1Jack Laine and the

“Potato Men,17

Chicago : The Cradle of Jass, 26

Jass and the Underworld , 39New York and the Jass Revolution, 51

Tin Horns and Talking Machines, 63The Strange Case of the “Livery StableBlues,

”75

Hot Licks and Cold Wax, 88

Jazzing the Draft, 108The Silent Bandstand, 119London : Spreading the Gospel , 124At the Threshold of the Roaring Twenties,Polar Bears and Red Hot Mammas, 156The March of the Moral ists, 171Fin de Siécle, 181

The Lean Years, 190The Comeback, 201LaRocca and the Nine Young Men, 214

The Last Days of the Dixieland Five, 226Syncopated Echoes, 244AppendixTable of Personnel , Original DixielandBand, 256

Index,259

Illustratio

Stein’s Dixie Jass BandThe Original Dixieland Jazz Band in New YorkThe Original Dixieland Jazz Band at Reisenweber

’

s

Jimmy Durante’s Original New Orleans Jazz BandVictor Catalog, Advertising the World ’s First JazzPhonograph Record

On Stage at the PalladiumThe D ixieland Band at the Palais de Danse, LondonSoothing the Savage Beasts at Central ParkThe Dixieland Band in 1922The Dixieland Band in 1936Early Recording Techniques

Tables

Early New Orleans Bands in Which Nick LaRoccaPlayed Cornet, 9

Ragtime Bands Prominent in New Orleans Beforethe Chicago Exodus, 14

Ragtime Musicians Prominent in New Orleans Before the Chicago Exodus, 15

Compositions of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band,97

Recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band

(1917-1918 Series ) , 102Recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band

( 1919-1920 Series, England ) , 131Recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band

( 1920-1923 Series ) , 148Recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band

( 1936 Series ) , 218Recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band

(1 938 Series ) , 242

Prologue

On a bitter cold night in January, 1917, five laughing

young men mounted the orchestra stand at Reisenweber’sRestaurant in New York City and began an engagementthat changed the course of American music. They werethe Original Dixieland Jazz Band from New Orleans,and they introduced a music of their own creation—jazz.

As a new form of music, it was revolutionary. It

shocked , frightened, confused , and finally captivated thel istener. Their first recording of jazz sold over a mil l ioncopies ; the Dixieland Band became national ly famouswithin a few months . In al l parts of the country, the com

mercial possibil ities of their music were immediatelyrecognized by enterprising orchestra leaders, who con

verted from ragtime to jazz almost overnight. Jazz wasexploited at a dizzy pace, and although it existed in itspure form for only a few years, it became the basis forthe various styles of dance music that fol lowed .

The phenomenal success of the Dixieland Jazz Bandobscured al l other bands of the period . The most highlypaid dance orchestra in the world, they were noted as

an ensemble— their fortune depended upon their originalcombination . Today, after more than four decades, theDixieland Band has become almost legendary ; and

though few people remember anything about it, nearlyeveryone has heard of it.

Pro logue

Unfortunately for the future of jazz, the DixielandBand’s would-be competitors cared l ittle about its artisticvalue . The noisier they played, the more popular theybecame, and vice versa. Imitators were unable to divinethe secret that set the original combination apart fromal l others . New York bandleaders scoured the South andbrought north every parade band musician that couldblow a flatted seventh. And yet, somehow, the inimitablerhythm of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band could not bedupl icated . Every other spurious jazz band for the nexttwo years, as the record shows, was a dismal failure .

The Columbia Gramophone Company, understandably disturbed by the mounting popularity of the Dixieland Band’s first Victor records, sent a talent scout toNew Orleans in search of a rival jazz band to competewith Victor’s great find. But the scout, after combingevery café and place of entertainment in the CrescentCity, was finally compel led to wire back :

“NO J AZZ BANDS

IN NEW ORLEANS .

”Nor was the city ashamed of this lack.

In 1918 a Times-Picayune editorial disowned the five

young upstarts who had started this musical revolutionin the North and decl ined to admit that their fair cityhad had any part in the making of the rauens new

“jass .In the meantime, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band

had carried their innovation to London,where the horri

fied British refused at first to bel ieve their ears. But bythe time of their departure, merely a year later, the fiveclean-cut lads from Dixie had endeared themselves to al l

who had heard them . Behind them they left seventeenrecordings of jazz, al l made in England , and . a city ful lof budding Engl ish jazz bands . The British have neverforgotten this historic invasion of their homeland by the

xvii Pro logue

impassioned l ittle group of American rebel s . To this daythe arrival of the Dixieland Band in England is cele

brated annual ly by the jazz clubs of that country.

But back home the public psychol ogy that had eu

sured the world-wide popularity of jazz did not stop withmusic. The five men that had given the Jazz Age its veryname soon found themselves swept away in the mad and

furious postwar mode of l ife . Shimmy, bootleg“hooch,

and a new standard of morals had joined hands with jazzmusic to usher in an era that shocked the older generation. The more civic-minded of them formed vigilancesocieties and crusades to save their young . Music isalways judged by the company it keeps . Jazz, althoughonly an innocent manifestation rather than a cause, wasto take ful l blame. The drive to stamp out this dangerous“immoral

” dance music was successful ; perhaps fewpeople today would bel ieve that jazz was actually out

lawed on Broadway by legal action in 1921 .

The time was ripe for another musical revolution,and along came a classical violist with ideas for synthesizing jazz with classical music. The man was PaulWhiteman, and although the era of

“symphonic” jazzthat he initiated in the middle twenties contributed littleto jazz as a creative art, it did much to rel ieve its reputation. When “

hot”music was revived in 1935, at the

beginning of the Swing” Age, most of its severest criticshad vanished .

But this was the era of big band swing, and the

musician’s only freedom as an individual was expressedthrough his improvised solos, which often became auto

matic, meaningless exhibitions of technique .

And yet lovers of real jazz in its pure form were not

xviii Pro logue

entirely extinct. They were not great in number, it istrue, but with practical ly no real jazz being played any

where, no converts or recruits could he enl isted from the

new generation . The old school was unorganized, traditional ly inarticulate, and not a l ittle overwhelmed and

dumbfounded by the inspired exhibitionism of the

modern jazz addicts . But there were stil l enough of theold traditional jazz musicians around to warrant an

occasional ifmeek attempt at pure jazz . This was labeled“dixieland” to distinguish it from the ubiquitous formof music that had usurped the name of

“jazz.

” TommyDorsey recognized this faithful minority when he experimented with the Clambake Seven,

Bob Crosby found themark with his Bobcats, and stubborn groups of old-time

jazz men were working at the Commodore Music Shopduring the war years, turning out a diluted and halfsincere form of dixieland under the Commodore label.

Unfortunately, the Bobcats did not stay“dixie” very

long . The original smal l combination was gradual lyaugmented until final ly it equaled the size of its parentorchestra, and the

“dixieland band” which Crosby soloudly proclaimed became just another typical swingorchestra playing from written scores . Dorsey gave up theClambake Seven even earl ier. The publ ic was not ready.

Dixieland went underground and jazz entered anotherera .

Then in 1948 an amazing thing happened . Pee Wee

Hunt (of al l persons ! ) formed a dixieland combinationand put out what he probably considered a tongue-in

cheek version of Twel fth Street Rag .

”It was meant to

be“corny,

”to he laughed at

,but the coating of humor

couldn’

t disguise the honest jazz underneath. Another

Pro logue

generation that had never been educated in what wassupposed to be cal led corny was exposed to a new treat

real , honest jazz . To PeeWee Hunt’s amused amazement,these youngsters went wild . Most of them stopped jitterbugging long enough to l isten . They thought the rickytick choruses catchy and not at al l offensive . Why?

Because ricky-tick was brand new to them, and not justa hackneyed and has-been music, as it was to the now

mature proponents of progressive jazz.

Suddenly dixieland began to boom . Every yearbrought more and more young dixieland combinations tothe scene . The Tigertown Five roared out of their den at

Princeton, the Salt’ City Five of Syracuse University he

gan blazing a new (or ol d ) trail across the country, and

the Dukes of Dixieland invaded the North with a sol idbeat. Dixieland clubs were formed , dixieland phonographrecords jumped in sal es, and even special recordingcompanies were formed to cater to the now-establ isheddixieland cl ientele .

Surprisingly enough,this dixieland was the very

same music that was introduced as “jazz” by the OriginalDixieland Jazz Band that historic night at Reisenweber’

s

in 1917 . Only the audience had changed . Forty yearsearl ier, jazz was appreciated only as a dance music. Assuch, it aroused dancers as no other music had ever donebefore . Today, the trends in dancing would render purejazz almost obsolete, were it not for a new kind of interestshown by the publ ic : they now come to l isten. Whether itis played on Bourbon Street in New Orleans or at Nick’sin Greenwich Vil lage, the dance floors are today filledwith seated audiences . Dixieland jazz has at last come

into its own as an American classical music, and it has

Pro logue

under its ownsuch, it demands an intell igent criticism

authentic, detailed account of the five New Orleans menwho created it, introduced it, and carried it around theworld .

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The S tory of the D ixie land Jazz B and

However, Dominic was to be a problem child, forhis incl ination toward music was apparent before hewas old enough to go to school . Using junk he foundaround the house, he fashioned his own makeshift musical instruments and even drafted his brothers and

sisters—Rosario, Antonia, Maria,Bartholomew,

and

Leonard— into a family orchestra . Nick’ s first instrument consisted of an empty spaghetti box w ith bailingwire for strings, and a bow which made use of horsehairs obtained from a nearby l ivery stable .

Around 1895 Giarolamo LaRocca played cornet

at dances and parties ; on evenings when he played at

the Spanish Fort he always took his family along . Theywould l isten quietly and intently as their father playedeverything from marches and l ight opera to mazurkas,polkas, waltzes, schottisches, and cakewalks, but probably the most intent l istener of al l was l ittl e curlyhaired Nick . The music he heard was being absorbed byan impressionable young mind and would, through a

pecul iar process in his memory, someday be expressedin an entirely new form.

On his free evenings Mr. LaRocca would take hischildren on long walks along the river front. The

wharves were not covered or closed in as they are today,and people would strol l along the docks l istening to thewide variety of music emanating from the barques orsail ing vessel s anchored along the way . Every boatseemed to have its own orchestra . There were French,Spanish, Portugese , Ital ian, and Greek combinations,featuring mostly string instruments but with an occa

sional '

accordian, piccolo, or clarinet added . The Ger

man bands were mostly brasses, consisting of com ets,

No B eer—No Music

alto horns, bass horns baritone horns, and drums . Theyoften l eft their boats and passed through the waterfront neighborhood, going from corner to corner and

passing the hat for contributions .Sunday afternoon was “Open house on the boats,

with soft drinks, wine, cakes, and always music. Nickand his father were often invited to the various vessel s,where they would eat, drink, and l isten to the music of

a dozen national ities . The more l ittle Nick heard , themore he wanted to be a musician . This was the l ife of

gaiety and happiness, of dancing, laughter, and foodaplenty .

It was about this time that Nick began smuggl ing hisfather’s cornet out of the house and onto the porch of a

vacant house on Jackson Avenue, where he made hisfirst attempts at coax ing musical sounds out of the mysterious instrument. Nothing came but air at first ; but hehad been watching his father, and further attempts at

imitating his embouchure final ly produced the first emcouraging rewards of his experiment— sickening

,dole

ful moans, most l ikely, but beautiful music to the earsof the young musician . After a few days he had trainedhis l ip to produce bugle cal l s, and before long he wasleading parades down Magazine Street—long processions of kids pounding on wash boilers, ol d tubs

, pie

plates, with some carrying broomsticks for guns . Farahead of the procession, one boy proudly carried an

American flag and shouted “Down With Spain !”

Further experiments enabled Nick to find out whatthe valves were for, and he wrote down the valve num

bers as a means of memorizing tunes . When he had re

hearsed his first simple melody to his own satisfaction,

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

he approached his father and proudly announced thathe could play the comet. Tingling with pride as he stoodbefore his first audience, the young cornetist blew con

fidently, his stubby fingers depressing the valves he hadso careful ly memorized . Father LaRocca l istened patiently for the duration of the impromptu concert, then,

as little Nick waited for an ovation, he snatched the instrument from the child and smashed it with an axe until

it became an unrecognizable mass of flattened brass .From this day forward, the elder LaRocca never againplayed music. He felt that he had already been an un

favorable influence on his son.

But Nick’s compul sion to music was not easilyhalted . During his summer vacation he earned moneyby running errands and collecting scrap metal aroundthe neighborhood . At twelve, he had earned enough tobuy a used com et, which be bid at night by tying a

string to it and lowering it into the well.His father rarely saw this instrument, but he heard

it often. Nick locked himself in the outhouse and blewthe com et to his heart’s del ight. He practiced on simpletunes which he played from memory, or learned bywriting down the valve numbers on the wall of the out

house .

“There’s No Place Like Home” became a part ofhis early repertoire, but those who lived nearby beganto doubt the veracity of the title . Neighborhood kidsthrew rocks at the outhouse and poured water throughthe roof, his brothers and sisters turned the hose on the

structure and squirted water through the crescentshaped hole in the door, but it was of no avail—the

stubborn cornetist played on.

Within a year he had developed the knack of play

No B eer—No Music

ing by ear and thereafter dispensed with the habit of

writing down valve numbers . The com et, by th is time ,had become more than a musical instrument to youngNick. It was more l ike a close friend, and by far hismost valuable and cherished possession . He carried itto St. Alphonsus Parochial School daily, practicing during recess periods and on the way home . But papa LaRocca, stil l hoping to save his son from the dismal fateof a professional musician, viewed this situation withmounting alarm.

One day Nick was late for school and hurried off

without his precious possession. Returning home thatafternoon, he was horrified to find that the second com et

had met the same fate as the first : it had ended up a

hopeless mess of scrap metal under the determined axe

blows of his father. The remnant was hung on the doorof the outhouse, symbol izing both the degradation and

the futility of music as a l ivel ihood .

“I told you before, son,”

exhorted the elder LaRocca,

“I don’

t want you to be a musician. Musiciansare l ike gypsies . They play for eats and drink, theywander around the country, they get drunk , they are al

ways penniless. Forget about music, my boy. Study tobe a doctor.

”

But if Giarolamo LaRocca proved anything at al l

to the neighborhood, it was that horns coul d be boughtfaster than they could be destroyed . Further savings,penny by penny, bought a battered ol d alto horn,

whichNick hid in a vacant lot, going there evenings for praetice . The valves on this instrument were so corrodedthey could not be operated, but the rel ic served to keephis l ip in trim.

The S tory of the D ixie land Jazz B and

Mr. LaRocca died shortly after Nick’s fifteenthbirthday and it became necessary for the boy to leavethe University School , a preparatory school he had beenattending for three years, for his mother could no longerafford the tuition. He secured a job as extra are l ightattendant at the Old French Opera where, in addition tohis odd jobs in the dayt ime, he worked evenings for twoseasons, more for the opportunity of watching the singers and musicians than for the pay of a dol lar a night.He l istened with particular fascination to the operaticfugues . Years l ater this very musical device was to become an important element in his own compositions.

The first few dol lars of Nick’s savings went intothe down payment on a brand-new silver-plated cornet,

with his brother-in-law standing in for the balance, as

Nick was stil l a minor. Al though his mother was no

more enthusiastic than his father had been, she al lowedhim to practice in the house . Here he played daily to theaccompaniment of a wind-up phonograph and records ofSousa’s band . LaRocca

’

s first love was always the mil itary parade band , and the influence of John Phil ip Sousais nowhere more apparent than in the structure of his

own original compositions , especial ly the one-steps.One evening while he was playing along w ith the

player piano, with his two brothers furnishing the manpower, a Mrs. Jacob Young came into the store to purchase shoes for her children . Hearing Nick on the

com et, she told Mrs. LaRocca that her son Henry, whowas about Nick’s age, was an ardent viol inist. She further suggested that Nick spend the summer with Henryat their summer home at Long Beach, Mississippi.

Nick was thril led at the prospect of playing with

No B eer—No Music

another musician, and it was during the summer of 1905that he and Henry formed a smal l orchestra . With Nickon cornet and Henry on viol in, the combination al so included Joe Guiffre on guitar and an older fel low knownsimply as

“Joe the Barber” on bass viol . This type of

orchestra was known as a no beer—no music outfit,for although Nick and Henry were both teetotalers, theyplayed for drinks only . They were active almost everynight, playing along the Mississippi Gul f Coast in B iloxi,Gul fport, Long Beach, Henderson

’s Point,Pass Chris

tian, and Log Town .

Henry Young returned to New Orleans with LaRocca the fol low ing winter and organized another bandin the Magazine Market section with Fonce Price and

the Tujague brothers (See Table Between 1906 and

1907 LaRocca played with other string groups, usingsuch local musicians as Sousou Ramos, Wil l ie Guitar,Jim Ruth , and Buzz Harvey .

In most of these ragtime groups the guitar playerwas the central figure. It was he who would shout out

the chord changes on unfamil iar melodies or on modulations to a different key . And the last chorus was knownin their trade as the

“breakdown, in which each instrumentalist would improvise his own part. It was throughthis frequent “

cal l ing out of chords by the guitaristthat many New Orleans musicians of that day, otherwisetotal ly ignorant of written music, came to recognize theirchords by letter and number ; and though they could notread music, they always knew the key in which they wereplaying. This thorough knowledge of chords was one of

the most distinguishing features of the New Orleans ragtime musician, who perceived every number as a certain

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

chord progression and was quick to improvise withinthe pattern.

In 1908 Nick LaRocca formed his first band and

expressed for the first time his preference for band instruments, both brass and reed . A valve trombone wasplayed by Jules Cassard, and fifteen-year-old LarryShields played clarinet. The front l ine of LaRocca, Cassard, and Shields was supported with a strong rhythmsection consisting of Joe Tarranto (guitar) , Joe Tujague

(bass ) , and Buddy Rogers (drums ) .Is is important to understand that no jazz was being

played here or anywhere el se in 1908 . LaRocca’

s firstband was strictly a ragtime combination, l ike al l the

others in New Orleans . The strong prevalence of stringinstruments up to this point in anything except mil itarybands reflects the spirit and orchestration of ragtime .

But, although the rhythm had not yet changed, LaRocea’

s

interest in parade bands had already begun to minimizethe string element.

The LaRocca band played mostly for dances and

parties and considered themselves lucky to get remu

neration in the form of food and l iquid refreshments .In this voracious outfit the bass fiddle served doubleduty as musical instrument and as a sort of epicureanTrojan horse. The musicians cut a porthole in the backof the instrument and furtively stashed away enoughsandwiches and cake to last the boys the rest of the week.

The early LaRocca band was handicapped by itsamateur status . Its reputation as an outfit that playedonly for “

eats” proved an insurmountable obstacle inthe search for paying jobs, and Nick final ly turned to

other orchestras in order to pick up a few extra dol lars .

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

T A B L E 1—ContinuedYEAR PLACE PERSONNEL

(bass ) , Nick LaR occa (cornet ) JoeTarranto (guitar )

1912 New Orleans Joe Ell erbusch (trombone ) , NickLaR occa (cornet ) Ed Roland (clarinet ) , and others

1912 New Orl eans Jack Laine’

s Rel iance Band : Nick1916 LaR occa (cornet and l eader ) , Alcide

Nunez (cl arinet ) , Leonce Mel lo

(trombone ) , Jack Laine (drums )1915 New Orleans Johnny Stein (drums ) , Nick La

1916 (Haymarket Café ) Rocca (cornet) , A lcide Nunez (clarinet) , Leonce Mel lo (trombone ) ,Henry Ragas (piano)

In 1911 he joined Barrocca’

s band (See Table 1 ) whichincluded Leon R apol lo on clarinet. Rapol lo was the

uncle of the famous clarinetist of the New Orl eansRhythm Kings and a cousin of Nick LaRocca’

s mother.

Like LaRocca’

s father, Leon Rapol lo the elder was an

Ital ian immigrant who had l earned music in the OldWorld tradition. He was strictly a note-reader but couldplay anything he memorized from a written score .

After a short period with Barrocca’

s band , followed by a stint with the band of B il l Gal l ity , LaRocca

became acquainted with the populous and remarkableBrunies family . Here be fil led the com et position in a

band featuring Henry Brunies ( trombone ) , Merrit

Brunies (alto horn ) , and Abbie Brunies (bass V iol ) .

Little Georgie Brunies was just learning to walk aboutthis time, but he was soon to take up the al to horn and

later become the famous trombonist of the New Orleans

No B eer—No Music

Rhythm Kings and one of the last of the real tailgatemen.

1

The low pay and the surplus of musicians in NewOrleans made music an unprofitable profession . Duringthe dayt ime LaRocca worked at many trades . He was, insuccession, a carpenter, plumber, electrician, and foreman of a demol ition company.

2

It was while LaRocca was working at Tom Gessner

’s that he met Eddie Edwards . Gessner owned a printing plant at 220 Chartres Street and a stationery storeat 609 Canal Street, where his office was located . La

Rocca functioned as maintenance man for the plant,starting up the pres

’

ses in the morning and keeping theequipment running properly during the course of the

day . The job left plenty of idle moments, during whichhe would retreat to the roof of the building w ith hiscornet and shatter the ether with the blaring notes of hisoriginal compositions . It is reasonabl e to assume thatsuch tunes as “Tiger Rag,

” “OstrichWalk,”and

“LiveryStable Blues were conceived on the hot, tar-coveredroof of Gessner’s Print Shop, while the presses thrashedout a steady rhythm on the floors below.

One afternoon, when a special problem had arisen

1 “Tailgate is the style of trombone counterpoint which has

become so charactertistic of dixiel and jazz, and which derives itsname from the position formerly assumed by the trombonist inthe horse-drawn wagon, when bra

’

ss bands pl ied the streets of New

Orl eans . To avoid knock ing‘

ofl the hats of other musicians in the

band, the sl ide trombonist normal ly sat on the tailgate of the ve

hiel e, pointing his horn aft—hence the term“tailgate trombone.

”

2 New Orleans residents may be interested to know that be

cl eared away such almost-forgotten landmarks as the Maginnis

Cotton Warehouse at Lafayette and Magazine streets and the old

Library Building at Lafayette and Camp , now occupied by the new

Post Office Building .

in connection with his maintenance duties, Nick LaRoccawalked over to see his boss at the stationery store .

While he was there Tom Gessner, who was Potentate of

the local Shrine temple, was talking with a young Masonby the name of Edwards, who had come into the storeto discuss plans for the next lodge meeting. Gessnerthought it would be a good idea for these two musiciansto know each other.

“Nick spends a good part of the day serenading thesea gul l s with his horn,

” said Gessner to Edwards and,

with that, a new friendship was born which was to havea tel l ing effect upon the course of musical history .

Edwin B . Edwards was born in New Orleans on

May 22, 1891 , the son of a salesman . He had begunviol in lessons at the age of ten and might have remainedan obscure viol inist had it not been for a wal let whichhe found on the sidewalk somewhere along St. JosephStreet in 1906 . The wal let contained nearly fifty dol lars ,a fortune of astronomical proportions to the wide-eyedtowhead . The temptation to keep the money was strong,but his conscience was stronger, for Eddie rememberedhis Sunday School lessons . Returning the money to the

owner, whose name and address were given in the wal let,he received a ten-dol lar reward, the beginning of a new

and wonderful era in his life .

With this ten dol lars he ordered a brand-new trom

bone from the mail -order house of Montgomery Ward ,and within a few weeks was assiduously teaching himsel fthe rudiments of his new horn . His method was purelyoriginal and rel ied more on the ear than on the eye . But

although he favored the trombone, the viol in was moreproductive of income during his early career. Jobs,

in

No B eer—No Music

theater orchestras provided modest part-time pay, and

LaRocca remembers seeing Edwards in the pit of a si

lent movie theater at the corner of Elysian Fields andDauphine streets long before the two musicians met.

As his trombone technique improved, the youngEdwards found jobs in parades and mil itary band con

certs . He played with such outfits as Braun’s Naval andMil itary Band, and Braun

’s Park Concert Band . At the

Tonti Social Club , around 1914, he joined Ernest Giardina’s band, a seven-piece ragtime combination consisting of Giardina (viol in ) , Edwards (trombone ) , EmileChristian (com et) , Achil le Bacquet (clarinet) , JoeGerosa (guitar) , Eddie Gibl in (bass viol ) , and TonySbarbaro (drums ) . Sbarbaro was eventual ly to go Northto play the drums in the Original Dixieland Jazz Band .

For the most part New Orleans musicians fell intothree categories : ( 1 ) the

“paper!

men”who could not

play by ear, (2 ) the educated “fakers” who could reador play by ear, as the occasion dictated, and (3 ) thepure “fakers” who couldn’

t read a note of music. (See

Tables 2 and As Edwards was primarily a note

reader and LaRocca couldn’

t read music, it is easy tounderstand why their paths had never crossed until thismemorable day at Gessner’s stationery store, eventhough Eddie lived at the corner of Fourth and Magazine, just four blocks away from Nick

’s house .

The friendship of LaRocca and Edwards grewrapidly. They formed a partnership, went into the elec

trical contracting business, and pursued this successful ly for nearly two years. Edwards belonged to severalbusiness and social organizations and had good contacts,so the partnership never lacked business .

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

T A B L E 2

Ragtime Bands Prominent in New Orleans

Before the Chicago ExodusREADERS

FAKERS AND FAKERS READERS

Abbie Brunies’ Frank Christian’

s Charl es Christian’

s

band band bandJoe Lal la’

s band Tom Brown’

s hand Gal lagher’

s bandBil l Gal l ity

’

s band The Rel iance band Vince DeCourte’

s

Johnny Stein’

s Joe Barrocca’

s bandband band Bertucci

’

s bandJohn Fischer’

s Bohl er’

s bandband DeDroit

’

s bandJack Laine’

s band Braun’

s Mil itaryBand

Emile Tosso’

s

Concert Band

They always took their musical instruments withthem . In attics of houses they were wiring, they wouldquit work periodical ly to harmonize on com et and trom

bone . They did al l the wiring themselves , and LaRocca’

s

only complaint was Edwards’ incl ination to doze off in

the warm, quiet attics of these newly constructed homes .Nick would be in the cellar, pounding on the wal l andshouting to Eddie to pul l up the wires, while Eddie wouldbe fast asleep upstairs. LaRocca recal l s with a smile,That man could sleep anywhere.

”

Occasional ly they would take a day off and go to

a vaudevil le show,mostly at the insistence of Edwards,

who would often sponsor the treat. Here they would pickup ideas in showmanship and discuss plans for a hand

they would some day organize—a band entirely differentfrom anyth ing in New Orleans . Eddie got Nick intoBraun’s Mil itary Band as third trumpet. “Play harmony

No B eer—No Music

T A B L E 3

Ragtime Musicians Prominent in New Orleans

Before the Chicago Exodus

CORNET

Nick LaR occaR ay LopezEmile ChristianFrank ChristianManuel Mel lo

John Lal laJoe Lal laRichard BruniesLawrence VegaGeorge BarthHarry ShannonJohnny DeDroit“Doc

”Behrenson

Pete Pecoppia

Freddie NeurothPete Dietrich

DRUMS

Jack LaineJohnny SteinTony SbarbaroBil l LambertB iddie Stephens“Ragbaby” StephensBuddy Rogers“Pansy Laine

TROMBONE

Eddie EdwardsTom

“R ed

” BrownJul es CassardBil l Gal l ityHenry BruniesRicky TomsMarcus Kahn

Leonce Mell o

Charl ie KirschGeorge

“HappySchil l ing

Sigmund BehrensonJoe El l erbusch

GUITAR BASS VIOL

Joe Tarranto Jon TujagueJoe Guiffre Wil l ie GuitarSousou Ramos Joe Barrocca

Arnold Loyacano Phil R ayJoe Tujague Whit LaucherDominic Barrocca Steve BrownWhit Laucher Bud Loyacano

Joe Gerosa Buzz HarveyJim Ruth George Giblin

Note : Because of the mobil ity demanded of New Orl eans bands,p ianists did not become prominent among the musicians who con

gregated in“Exchange Al ley .

”

CLARINET

Alcide NunezGus Muel ler

Larry Shi eldsAchil l e BacquetJohn Pal lachaisEddie RolandClem CampJohnny FischerLeon R apol lo(the el der )

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

don’

t play too loud, advised Edwards, and they’l lnever know you’

re a faker.

”He was right, for the fake

was never discovered ! Nick knew most of the marchesby heart, having played along with the Sousa records .

But the story of LaRocca and Edwards was aboutto take another fateful turn. The venerable Jack “Papa”

Laine was to enter the picture and set the stage for one

of the most significant events in the history of jazz.

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The S to ry of the Dix ie land Jazz B and

funeral s ; at prize fights, bal l games, and track meets ;at nickelodeons, cafés, and beer gardens . When a New

Orleans musician advertised “music for al l occasions,

”

he was prepared for anything.

With so much music around, it is not diflicult to

understand why so many New Orleans kids grew up to

be musicians . Every healthy, red-blooded boy in the

city, if he didn’

t want to be a fireman, certainly wanted

to be a musician. Before the days of radio and television,when even the phonograph was considered a screechytoy , if you wanted music you made it yourself; these

youngsters of the Crescent City emulated their elders bymaking their own instruments and practicing for the daywhen they, too, could take their places in the gloriousand exciting New Orleans parades .

The more talented ones real ized their childhoodambitions . The pride of being a parade band musicianwas nowhere more boldly expressed than in the uni

forms. Young bands that were hardly able to affordcarfare managed to scrape up enough change to buy

secondhand pol icemen’s coats and firemen’s dress hats,

to which braided patches would be attached, bearingthe name of the bandleader. The coats would be wornwith any matching blue trousers that the musicians happened to own.

The meeting place for musicians was ExchangePlace , between Canal and Bienvil le streets, especial lyPaul Elum’s Cafe at 116—118 . Here young musiciansof the day would congregate to obtain jobs paying up

wards of one dol lar.

The best contact for a job at this time was a fortyone-year-old parade band drummer by the name of Jack

19 Jack La ine and the “Po tato” Men

Papa Laine. La ine managed five different bands at

once and there was enough demand to keep them al l

simultaneously active . The twelve-piece Rel iance Bandwas the most famous ; this was a military band hired out

primarily for parades and outings . The others weresmal ler combinations—al l predominantly reed, brass,and percussion—and were used for parties, picnics, andbal lyhoo purposes .

On special occasions, such as Mardi Gras and otherfestival s, Laine would form several extra parade bands .

Although there were hundreds of New Orleans musi

cians, on these ‘ special days the jobs would outnumber

the players. Laine would sometimes organize marchingbands of ten or twelve men in which only eight or nine

would be actual musicians. The others would be “dum

mies”—drifters whom he hired merely to march and

carry instruments . To keep these non-musicians fromblowing on their borrowed instruments and making nonmusical noises, potatoes or rags were stuffed into the

bel ls of the horns, hence the term potato” men.

LaRocca and Edwards often came to“Exchange

Al ley,”as it was then cal led, to hang around , chat with

the other musicians, and pick up an occasional job.

They both played in the Rel iance Band at one time or

another, and LaRocca became a regular member. It was

Jack Laine who first recognized the abil ity of young LaRocca and made him leader of his Number 1 band .

At other times he would tel l LaRocca to appear at a cer

tain place, then would send other musicians there to

meet him . The resul ting band would always be an un

known quantity, for Nick would never know who was

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

going to show up—if anybody—or what their capabil

ities would be.

The most memorable example was New Year’sEve of 1915. Laine had sent LaRocca to the Woodmenof the World Hal l , Almonaster and Urquhart streets,promising that six other musicians would meet him therefor a job at a nearby party. LaRocca waited on the cor

ner for two hours and the only musician who showed upwas a bass player by the name ofWil l ie Guitar. Findingavailabl e musicians anywhere on New Year’s Eve waslike looking for snowhoes in the Sahara . So the two mu

sicians took the job and played for six straight hoursjust a com et with bass viol accompaniment !

On December 13 , 1915, one of Laine’s bal lyhoobands was playing on the corner of Canal and Royalstreets, advertising a coming prize fight between EddieCoul on and the popular New Orleans featherweight,Pete Herman, and receiving a total of for theirservices . Standing in the crowd was a dapper youngman named Harry James, a Chicago café owner who hadcome to New Orleans to witness the very same prizefight now being loudly heralded by Laine’s band .

1

James, who had been passing down Canal Street, hadbeen attracted first by this unusual ly loud and uncon

ventional ly fast combination . Now he stood enraptured,absent-mindedly fingering his diamond cuff l inks as he

1 Pete Herman, born in New Orleans in 1896 and managedby Sammy Goldman, was one of the most promising young boxersin the city at that time . He was a special favorite of James, whohad come al l the way from Chicago to see this match. A s the con

test with Eddie Coulon was Herman’

s only local fight of the season,

it definitely establ ishes December 13 as the date on which Laine’

s

band was first heard by Harry James.

Jack La ine and the “Potato” Men

l istened to a kind of music he had never heard before .

LaRocca, pointing his com et Skyward and blowing tothe point of apoplexy, ripped off the polyphonic phrasesof his own original melodies, as trombonist LeonceMel lo, seated on the tailgate of the horse-drawn wagon,answered in powerful blatting tones that rattled the

plate glass windows across the street. Over this pairrode the screaming clarinet of Alcide Nunez, and be

hind it the booming of Jack Laine’s big parade drum.

James l istened for nearly an hour, feel ing the

driving, relentless beat of this obscure little band, careful ly appraising the reactions of the passers-by . Be

tween numbers, while the young musicians were laughingand shovmg one another about on top of the wagon, hespoke to Jack Laine, who had momentarily stepped downto the street. He asked him if he would be interested intaking his band to Chicago. Laine explained that hislocal commitments prevented him from leaving town.

But he called LaRocca down from the wagon and toldhim the story. LaRocca said to James,

“If you want tohear some rea l music, come on over to the HaymarketCafé tonight after the fight.”

That night Harry James watched the fight at the

New Orleans Col iseum impassively, for he was stillhearing the band on the wagon at Canal and Royal.Herman scored a thril l ing four-round knockout overCoulon, but James hardly noticed . The spirited musicthat had been ringing in his ears al l afternoon continuedto haunt him. As he fought his way through the boisterous crowd after the main bout, he thought he heard theblaring brass of LaRocca’

s com et. He paused, cupped a

hand to one ear, but al l he heard was the constant bab

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

ble of human voices . Then, a few minutes later, he heardit again—a single, isolated, syncopated phrase—and

fol lowed in its direction until the sounds became more

frequent and final ly led him into the ramshackle Haymarket Café .

Here was the whole band—LaRocca on comet,

Mel lo on trombone, Nunez on clarinet, Johnny Stein on

drums, and Henry Ragas on piano . The music was rag

time, and there was a lot of it in New Orleans, but therewas something different about this bunch . Harry Jamesremained at the café until Stein’s band played its lastnumber at hal f past three.

It seems hardly questionable that the com et ofNick LaRocca was the outstanding feature of the two

bands heard by James that eventful day in 1915 . In

Laine’

s band at Canal and Royal , LaRocca was the onlyfuture member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band thenpresent. In Stein’

s band at the Haymarket Café,pianist

Henry Ragas was the only addition. A s Nunez and Mel lo

both played melody most of the time, the conventionalthree-voiced pattern of the typical dixieland combination certainly could not have been present. Therefore itcould not have been a distinctive ensemble that the gentleman from Chicago found stimulating.

Harry James returned to Chicago . But he never for

got the fast, raucous, blaring l ittle band that had set his

toes tapping uncontrol lably on that memorable one-day

visit to the Crescent City. He l istened to the soupy stringensembles that were bleeding the l ife out of ragtime inChicago, and he tried to visual ize these five southernlads on his bandstand at the Booster’s Club in the HotelMorrison. It seemed mad at first thought. A brass band

Jack La ine and the “Po tato” Men

at a honky-tonk café or outdoor bal lyhoo in New Orleanswas one thing—but at a civil ized Chicago café? Incredible . Harry James tried to put the idea out of his headbut instead of disappearing, it grew more obsessive .

How would reckless, fast-moving Chicago society take to

such an audacious experiment? James was a perceptivestudent of human nature—you had to be, in this busi

ness—and he thought he knew. So in February of 1916

he wired Johnny Stein to bring his band to the Booster’sClub, a ten-week contract guaranteed .

Stein stared unbel ievingly at the telegram. No one

in the band had taken James seriously that night backin December. He hurried over to Magazine Street immediately to tel l LaRocca, and the two of them discussedplans for their northward expedition. LaRocca suc

ceeded in convmcmg Stein that Eddie Edwards was thetrombonist to use in place of Leonce Mel lo . Mel lo, hesaid, played

“big com et

” —too much melody and not

enough counterpoint. Edwards was actual ly three trombonists in one—he played harmony part of the time ,

counterpoint part of the time, and at other times accentedthe beat like a bass drum . With Edwards a band alwaysseemed larger than it real ly was, for he gave it body.

In the words of LaRocca sometime later,“It

’

s . l ike a

dress—I cut the material , Shields puts on the lace, and

Edwards sews it up.

”

The decision to go north with the band was not aneasy one for Edwards to make . He had been pl ayingsemiprofessional basebal l around New Orleans and now

had an opportunity to join the Cotton States League at

Hattiesburg, Mississippi, as a third baseman. Basebal l

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

was a strong love, but music was stronger. Eddie joinedthe band .

LaRocca looked around for Larry Shields, but theadventurous clarinetist had gone to Chicago a whole yearearl ier with Tom Brown’s ragtime band, unknown to hishometown friends . So Alcide “Yel low” Nunez—so

named because of his peculiar compl exion—stayed withthem on clarinet.

“Yel low”was known al l over New Or

leans as the only man who could take his clarinet to

pieces down to the mouthpiece and stil l keep up with thehand. But LaRocca always preferred Shields to Nunezbecause of the latter’s stubborn insistence on playingmelody. The famous three-voiced interplay of the dixieland ensemble was always prominent in the mind of

LaRocca and he fought constantly for a clear field on

the mel ody. At this time the distinctive brand of counterpoint that was to be a distinguishing feature of jazzwas unfamiliar to New Orleans musicians.

After two short weeks of rehearsal s at JohnnyStein’s house, the band, now composed of Stein, La

Rocca, Edwards, Nunez, and Ragas , proclaimed itsel fready for the test, and on the morning ofMarch 1 , 1916,departed for Chicago.

2

This writer talked with Harry James at his home inNew Orl eans in May of 1957. Then in an extremelycritical state of health and under the care of his daugh

ter, he had lost none of his enthusiasm for the hand hediscovered . Vividly he described his reactions to the first

2 LaR occa had been hired by Jack Laine to play in the firstcarnival parade of the Mardi Gras on March 2, 1916, but Nicksent a trumpet player named John Provenzano to take his pl ace .

Laine didn’

t know until several days later that Stein’

s band hadgone to Chicago.

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Chicago : The Cradle of Jass

The exploration of Chicago by early New Orleans brassband musicians began as a trickle of adventurous soul sand gradual ly developed into a mass migration of hun

gry opportunists . It is diflicult to say just when the firstbrass ragtime band sounded its blaring notes in the

Windy City, but among the first was Tom “Red

” Brownand his squad of travel -worn minstrel s, who arrivedthere in the spring of 1915 . The six-piece combinationwas brought to Chicago by Louis Josephs, more popularly known by the stage name

“Joe Frisco .

”

Joe Frisco was one of the most picturesque vaudeville entertainers of the period . The whimsical, stuttering, rubber-legged l ittle man with the derby hat wasl iteral ly born for the stage, for his every gesture wasconducive to laughter. His specialty was an act called“A Charl ie Chapl in Imitation.

” Dressed in the familiarblack derby, diminutive moustache, and coat and tail s ofthe famous silent movie comedian, he waddled about thestage and danced an original soft-shoe routine . As heskated and sl id about the, floor, roll ing his derby up and

down his arm and twirling his cane, his audience wasdriven into paroxysms of laughter.

One night in November, 1914, Joe Frisco was doinghis act at the Young Men

’s Gymnastic Club in New

Ch icago : The Cradle of Jass

Orleans . Furnishing the music was Torn Brown’

s band .

Frisco was obviously impressed by his accompaniment,

because six months later, when he was preparing a showfor Lamb’s Café in Chicago, he remembered Brown’saggregation and brought them north for a six weeks’ en

gagement, beginning May 15, 1915 . The band at that

time was composed of Ray Lopez ( comet ) , Tom Brown

(trombone ) , Gus Muel ler (cl arinet) , Arnold Loyacano

(guitar) , Steve Brown (bass viol ) , and Bil l Lambert

(drums ) . They functioned without a piano, the guitarand bass viol providing the chord foundation. Bil led as

“Brown’s Band fromD ixie Land , their music consistedmostly of fast ragtime and wild renditions of

“Turkeyin the Straw,

” “Listen to the Mocking B ird,” “Reuben

Reuben,

”and similar tunes .

It was during the Lamb’s C'

afé engagement thatbandleader Bert Kel ly asked Tom Brown where he couldfind a good clarinetist. Brown recommended LarryShields and immediately sent a telegram to New Orl eans .Shields rushed to Chicago with al l the anxiety of a k id

on his way to a circus and joined Kel ly’s band at the

White City. But the northern musicians of the Wh ite

City outfit confused Larry, who couldn’

t quite figureout how to read music, and the young clarinetist becamemorose and melancholy in his new job. Tom recal l s thenight he saw Larry in the corridor of the Chicago hotelwhere they were both staying . Despondent, Larry hadjust come off the job with Bert Kel ly and was complaining desperately that he couldn’

t play the music.

“I justdon’

t fit,”he said sadly . An electric light flashed in Tom

Brown’s head . His own clarinetist, Gus Muel ler, had

The S tory of th e D ixie land Jazz B and

been restless and incl ined toward moving on to anotherhand. So Brown immediately arranged the swap, and on

August 4, 1915, Larry Shields became a member of

Brown’s Band from Dixie Land .

Despite their importance in the formative periodof the new music, the history of Brown

’s band reads likea textbook of failures . The attendance at Lamb’s Cafédwindled steadily . Finally, on August 28 , 1915, whenthe place closed for repairs for three weeks, Brown

’sband headed east on a vaudevil le tour, cal l ing themselves,

“The Kings of Ragtime .

”In December booking

agent Harry Fitzgerald got them a job at New York’sCentury Theater in NedWayburn

’

s Town Topics review.

The show had been running more than a month whenBrown ’

s musicians joined the cast, but it folded six dayslater. Brown claims they hung around the big city foreleven weeks, drawing pay under the terms of their contract. Early in 1916 they went into vaudevil le agam,

bil led as“The Ragtime Rubes . In this act the musi

cians dressed in overal l s, bright-colored shirts and strawhats, and Larry Shields played the part of

“the sil ly

k id.

”

They played the Columbia Theater where, according to Tom Brown,

“the applause was l ike rain .

”But

the rain must have ended in a complete washout, for thegroup disbanded in February, 1916 , and retreated to

New Orleans . Brown maintains that pay was not immediately forthcoming from the management and thatLarry Shields, hungry and disappointed, quit in a moodof utter despair, ruining the act.

There was, therefore, no other New Orleans band

Ch icago : The Crad le of Jass

in Chicago when Stein’s band arrived there on March 3,1916 , most of the southern musicians having been drivenback home by cold winds and empty stomachs . It hadbeen a long, hard winter in the Windy City, and the

frigid gales continued mercilessly into the early spring .

Stein’ s party of five had never been north beforeand were understandably il l -equipped for their new ex

perience. Harry James, seeking to protect his investmentfrom multiple pneumonia, quickly herded them into a

secondhand clothing store where he bought each of thema long overcoat of incredible weight. “They had never

seen overcoats before ,

”recal l s the dapper, wel l -dressed

Harry James with a chuckle,“and when they walked

out of the store in these long, black overcoats, theylooked just l ike five undertakers !”

Unfortunately, the Booster’s C lub, for which they

had been hired, had been closed by pol ice order a few

days before they arrived ; but through the further effortsof Harry James they were secured an audition at Schil

ler’s Café on the south side of the city. Ten people werepresent at the rehearsal , and LaRocca recal ls the pl ightof the five frightened musicians on that memorable night.Failure would have meant a complete fiasco for them in

the North and a humiliating retreat to New Orleans,where most people had doubted the success of their Chicago venture .

Their music went over. By eleven o’

clock on Saturday, the opening night, the club was fil led to capacityand crowds mil led about the entrance . Firemen were dispatched to control the throng, al lowing two people ad

mission for every ten leaving. They were soon the talk of

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Chicago night l ife , and these clean-cut southern ladswho cal led themselves simply

“Stein’

s Band from Dixie”

had made Schil ler’s Café on 3 l st Street a most popularspot.

It was during their run at Schil ler’s that the wordjass was first appl ied to music. A retired vaudevil le

entertainer, somewhat titilated by straight blended whiskey and inspired by the throbbing tempos of this l ivelyband, stood at his table and shouted,

“Jass it up, boys !

”

“Jass,

”in the l icentious slang vocabulary of the

vast Chicago underworld , was an obscene word but l ikemany four-letter words of its genre , it had been appl iedto almost anything and everything and had becomeso broad in its usage that the exact meaning had becomeobscure to most people.

Harry James, now the manager of Schiller’s , nevermissed a bet. When the unidentified inebriate bel lowedforth his now-famous “

Jass it up, boys !”

(and by sodoing, unwittingly wrote a ful l page of musical history )the gold-plated thinking machinery of the Chicago cafeexpert was once more set in motion. The tipsy vaudevil

lian was hired to sit at his table and shout “Jass it up,

every time he felt like it— al l drinks on the house . The

next day the band was bil led, in blazing red lettersacross the front of Schil ler’s :

S T E I N ’ S D I ! I E JA S S B A N D

Chicagoans then had a word for the heretofore unnamedmusic.

One important fact deserves emphasis : The dixieland band that came from New Orleans was a group of

Ch icago : The Crad le of Jass

sel f-taught musicians stil l experimenting with technique .

The music they played bore l ittle similarity to the musicfor which they are now noted . They lacked skil l and hadnot yet formulated a special kind ofmusic. It was alwaysplentiful in volume, but the New Orleans band playedin a slower tempo . The clarinetist had not acquired suf

ficient skil l for improv1s1ng continual ly around the

melody, and he usual ly played in unison with the com et,

or in harmony when he knew how. The trombone carrieda simple counterpart with loud blats and long gl issandi.

During the months of daily practice and nightlyperformance in Chicago, an important evolution tookplace. The artists final ly mastered their medium. More

sure of themselves, they speeded up the tempo to satisfythe frenzied spirit of the dancers . LaRocca’

s com et de

vised a new, driving style ; the cl arinet began its firstawkward attempts at

“noodling” around the melody ;

Edwards’ trombone accented the beat with deep, powerful tones and overlapped LaRocca’

s phrasing w ith a

new type of counter-melody—a style partly resembl ingthe ol d mil itary bands of New Orleans . The strong trombone was a very important feature of this new music ;in the words of LaRocca ,

“Daddy Edwards was the

daddy of al l tailgate trombonists .This , then, was the music to which the word jass

Was first given . The outstanding feature was its counterpoint. The three parts fitted together l ike the pieces of ajigsaw puzzle . The com et played melody, left gaps to befil led in by the clarinet, and was complemented by thetrombone . The big parade drums provided a firm foundation, and the rumbl ing

“back room” piano added the

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

finishing touches . It was a fast, travel ing, two-beat style.

1

This was “jass” as Chicago knew it. Itwas ensembleplaying with contrasting strains . There were no solos .For the most part, the tunes played were rags, and itwas the instrumenta l arrangement as much as the new

rhythm that distinguished this music as“

jass . Therewere changes in rhythm and accent as the tempo wasincreased, but these were secondary characteristics tothe band’s radical ensemble effect.

An_ ironic feature of any real jazz band is that re

gardless of who organizes, manages, or does the talkingfor the outfit, it is always the comet (or trumpet) playerwho is the real leader of the band . The very musical

1 The question of whether the rhythm of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band was two-beat or four-beat is deceptively simpl e on

the surface . Actual ly, even the original members themselves can

not agree . LaR occa and Sbarbaro are sure that it is two-beat, because of its parade-band origin ; Edwards insists that it is four.

The author is incl ined to go along with Edwards and has alwaysbel ieved that the Dixieland Band’

s fast one-steps had a four -beat“feel .” Unfortunately the recordings of the band were not at

l

al l

typical of their output and are misleading as exampl es . Don

Fowl er ventures the opinion that it is neither : The salient el ement

is syncopation. Dixieland tends to accent beats 2, 3, and 4. It hur

ries the beat, pl ays ahead of it. In the original records , Sbarbarodoes not pl ay two-beat or four-beat, but whatever fits the tune at

a certain moment. The original dixieland was syncopated, con

trapuntal ly conceived . The element of rhythmic surprise was cer

tainly a factor .

”And J . S . Moynahan agrees :

“The question of

2-beat or 4-beat is one of those tempests in a teapot which ama

teurs are always raising . It is a combination. Tony has a neat trickwhere he pl ays the bass drum after the beat a coupl e of measures

and then returns to the beat. Let’s say that it was more two-beatthan is general ly played today , but that it varied constantly withsyncopation and musical emphasis .

”But perhaps the statement of

Santo Pecora, whose dixiel and band is currently pl aying on Bourbon Street , is the cl incher :

“We used to play two-beat but had to

switch to four to keep the customers from walking out. It’

s the

four-beat that gets’em .

”

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The S to ry of the Dixie land Jazz B and

al l , the relentl ess drive exhibited in LaRocca’

s style wasthe very reflection of his personal ity, the ultimate integration ofman and instrument.

The desire to lead , to have things al l his own way,to take command of every instrument was always presentin Nick LaRocca . Tucked away in the cupboards of histurbulent musical mind were a dozen original compositions , al l waiting for the opportune moment. They werebeing saved for the day he would have his own hand, forthese compositions were not just melodies—they werewhole arrangements for com et, clarinet, trombone and

rhythmic background, and they demanded control overevery musician. The kind of counterpoint that later distinguished the Original Dixieland Jazz Band was bornin his musical imagination. The conversations,

”as he

preferred to cal l them, between the various musical instruments—the shouting, answering, arguing, and laughing of comet, clarinet, and trombone were the indirectfruits of his adolescent experience, the nights at the

French Opera when he l istened in awe to the fugues or“conversations” of Ital ian opera singers .These spirited jazz creations were l ike caged ani

mal s within his brain, al l fighting to break loose . One

of them ,

“Livery Stable Blues,” succeeded under the

fol lowing very curious circumstances. The band hadbeen playing two weeks at Schil ler

’s and the enthusias

tic patrons had been growing increasingly boisterousand hysterical over the music. Edwards describes theoccasion :

There were several people in the Schiller’s Cafe and one girl

in particular was evidently feeling jol ly and sky-larking to the

Ch icago : The Cradl e of Jass

amusement of the boys in the band, which prompted LaRoccato pick up the com et and play a horse whine on it . Everybodylaughed within hearing distance of it, and I told him at the

time it would be a good stunt to put this horse whine in a

number, and he said he had it in a number. I, of course, askedhim what number it was, and he replied,

“a blue number.

” Itold him some time we might try it and it might prove a good

number to us.

2

In the later morning hours, after closing time, theband rehearsed the new “Livery Stable Blues, LaRocca

humming the various parts to the other musicians, or

picking them out on the piano . The horse’s neigh, or

whinny, had been’

discovered by accident many yearsearl ier when a valve stuck on his com et. Experimentingfurther, he had found that by holding down the thirdvalve and shaking the horn, a l ifel ike imitation of this“whinny” could be produced . Now he instructed the

clarinetist to emit a rooster crow and the trombonist a

donkey bray . These three sound effects comprised the

breaks in“Livery Stabl e Blues .

”The chord structure

was borrowed from Stephen Adams’ “The Holy City

”

and modified by changing one chord and deleting thelast two measures . The melody imposed on this foundation was completely orl ginal .

In the lawsuit of October, 1917, the l ate HenryRagas describes the rehearsal : “

He [LaRocca] said hewil l play an old numbef of his, and he said ,

‘I will goover it and g1ve you an idea,

’

and he played it over on

2 From the court records of the“Livery Stabl e Blues l aw

suit, District Court, Northern District oi Il l inois, Eastern Division .

Testimony of Edwin B . Edwards , September 28, 1917, at ofi ce of

R ae Hartman, 165 Broadway , New York, N. Y. Signed copies in

LaR occa Col lection.

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

the com et softly and told me just exactly when to stopfor the runs to come in .

” 3

After the immediate success of Livery StableBlues ,

”three more of LaRocca

’s original compositions,

“Tiger Rag,” “Sensation Rag,

”and

“Ostrich Walk,”

were rehearsed and developed in that order. (The titlesemphasize the composer’s obsession with animal sounds,as many of his tunes were mental ly pictured as beasts .The musician who plays by ear, and who has never readmusic, visual izes music in terms of images or abstractpatterns, rather than marks on a musical staff. ) Thenew novelty numbers, especial ly “Tiger Rag

” with itsroar of the tiger, executed on trombone, increased thefame of the

“jass” band, and business hummed at Schil

ler’s .For three months, Stein

’s Dixie Jass Band heldforth at the popular S l st Street café, where nightclubgoers fought one another for admission, liquor was

served quite il legal ly until daybreak, and drunken orgiesran unabated . On Saturday night, April 29, the AntiSaloon League, in co-operation with the Church Federation, sent a delegation of sixty women on tour of the

south side cafés, apparently to investigate certain im

moral and il legal aspects of these places . Quite inevitably they found their way to Schil ler

’s, and the resultsof their “

investigation” were published in the ChicagoHerald for May 1 , 1916, providing an excel lent firsthand account of the environment in which “jass” was

fostered

3 From the court records of the Livery Stabl e Blues law

suit. Testimony oi Henry W. Ragas, ibid.

Ch icago : The Crad le of Jass

S I ! TY W O M E N R I P MA S K F R O M V I C E

The party adjourned to the New Schiller Cafe, at 318East Thirty-First Street.

A l ine of taxi cabs radiated from the Schil ler to the east,

west, north, and south . In front of the doors, a crowd of peopl e

fought for admission . A perspiring doorman held them back .

“Can

’

t come in,

”he shouted.

“We’

re crowded to capacity. Wait’

till some of the others come out.

”

This was o’

clock in the morning .

The crowd in front of th e doors kept increasing all the

time and the doorman had his hands full keeping the mob

from rushing him off his feet. No policeman was in sight. The

party finally obtained admittance and a table after much elbowing and shoving. It was impossible for anyone to be heard.

The shriek of women’

s drunken laughter rivaled the blatantscream of the imported New Orleans Jass Band, which neverseemed to stop playing. Men and women sat, arms about eachother, singing, shouting, making the night hideous, while theirunfortunate brethren and sisters fought in vain to jointhem.

The party ordered gin fizzes, cocktails and beer. Theywere served in a j iffy

LaRocca takes issue with the reporters

The part about no policeman being in sight was wrong. The

Fire Department had the management cut exits through the

back of the building, and they did have pol icemen and firemen

stationed at the Schiller Cafe. After the sensation we

created, other cafe owners sent to New Orleans for men who

were supposed to play our k ind of music. They imported any

body that could blow an instrument, and they all had New

Orleans Jass Band” in front of their places . We were neveradvertised in the papers, as every night was a ful l house .

The impact we had on the people of Chicago was terrific.

Women stood up on the dance floor, doing wild dances . Theyhad to pul l them off the floor . The more they would carry on,

the better we could play. Here is where the singers came to the

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

rescue as these patrons would never leave the floor and the

manager wanted them to sit and drink . Then the crowd wouldstart yell ing,

“Give us some more j ass . I can stil l see these

women who would try and put on a show dance, raise their

dresses above their knees and carry on,men shrieking and

everybody having a good time . I woul d let go a horse whinnyon my cornet and the house would go wild .

4

Despite the prosperity of Schil ler’s Café, no salaryincreases were forthcoming for Stein’

s band , and the

members found it increasingly difficult to l ive on twentyfive dol lars a week . They needed new clothes

, especial lyuniforms to replace the “dusters” they wore as substi

tutes, and extra cash for spending money . LaRocca and

Edwards convinced Nunez and Ragas that the time hadcome to move . By the unanimous consent of these fourmusicians it was decided to forsake Schil ler’s in favorof a higher-salaried engagement el sewhere in town .

Stein refused to take a chance on breaking the contract,

an argument ensued , Edwards punched Stein in the nose,and on May 26 1916

,the rebel l ious four took their

leave of Schil ler s Café in an explosion of southern ao

cents .Then it was that the Original Dixie Land Jass Band

came into being.

4 From a l etter to the author, dated March 16, 1959.

Jass and the Underworld

Sammy Hare, the owner of Schil ler’s Café, flew into a

rage . This was gratitude for you, he thought. Give thesefive kids a break, they make good, and what happens?

They leave you holding the bag. With a trembl ing hand ,he picked up his telephone and cal led Harry James . Hepleaded and bargained, ranted and raved, but the sobercafé manager was unmoved . What can you expect?”

said James , fingering his diamond cuff l inks . “Everybody has to eat, you know.

Hare served papers on the four deserting musicians,charging breach of contract. But the New Orleans boyswere not without friends in their predicament. SamRothschild, the affable manager of Del

’

Abe’

s Café inthe Hotel Normandy, had been watching the developments at Schil ler’s with a great deal of interest. A devoutfan of the new

“jass” music, he often came to the rivalcafé nightly to l isten and to chat with the musicians .He thought the Dixie Jass Band was being unfairly ex

ploited, resented the deal ings of his competitor and archenemy, and saw the chance to play his cards . He had en

couraged the“jass” band to leave Schil ler’s ; now he

offered them the services of his lawyer, Timothy J. Fel l.The rebell ious four cal led upon Timothy Fel l and

explained their case . The lawyer settled the matter for

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

them without leaving his swivel chair. He said that Stein,as leader of the band, was sol ely responsible. But he ad

vised them to appeal for an earlier hearmg and then toldLaRocca exactly what to tel l the judge, rehearsing himword for word. The judge must have been strongly impressed by the rustic simpl icity of these four poorlydressed musicians from New Orleans, with their gentlesouthern accents . He freed them from their contract immediately after LaRocca pleaded that they were not receiving a l iving wage at Schil ler’s , and that they wouldbecome a charge on the city of Chicago if they were denied the right to perform in local cafés . The case couldnot have been presented more effectively by the shrewdTimothy J . Fell himself.

Meanwhile, news of the overwhelming popularityand success of the Dixie Jass Band had spread to NewOrleans . Suddenly the northward migration of paradeband musicians turned into a wholesale excursion. The

trains running between the Crescent City and Chicagobecame a shuttle service for ambitious musicians, eagergroups venturing northward, who passed disappointed,starving compatriots on their way back home . For noneof them,

try as they m ight, could divine the secret of theLaRocca-Edwards combination ; none of them could supply the new

“jass” music that Chicago night life clam

ored for.

Johnny Stein finished out his contract at Schiller’swith a band composed of

“Doc

”Behrenson (comet) ,

Jules Cassard (trombone ) , Larry Shields (clarinet) ,Ernie Erdman (the house pianist at Schiller’s ) , and

himsel f on drums . A t the conclusion of the Schil ler job,sometime in May of that year, Stein left for New York

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

ing with the rest of the hand, he was traditional ly inventive . He was the first drummer to use cowbells ; andhis famous kazoo, which he picked up in a novelty storein Chicago, immediately set him apart from al l othersof the period . The col lection of doll s, teddy bears, andmiscel laneous gimcracks with which he decorated hisdrum installation establ ished him as a forerunner of the

modem “hot-rodder.

” Possibly his hoard suppl ies a

clue to the origin of the phrase trap drums, as anyonefal l ing headfirst into this assortment of junk in the darkwould certainly consider it a trap .

The drumming of Tony Sbarbaro has been re

ferred to by his contemporary descendants as a“

gal

lopin’ style, and this seems to describe it better than a

whole paragraph of technical terms . Basical ly, it was a

three-stroke “ruff

” with an accented press rol l . Again,the early New Orleans parade bands showed their influence . Tony used a gigantic, twenty-eight-inch streetdrum and made himsel f heard blocks away. At least oneand preferably two cowbell s were essential to the new

style, plus a large- sized woodblock for continuous useduring the choruses, when it replaced the snare drum .

Sbarbaro’

s practice involved use of the snare on verses,minstrel style” woodblock on choruses , returning againto the snare drum on the last hal f of the last chorus .Naturally, bru shes were never used . The

“minstrel”

woodblock reveal s the influence o f the minstrel shows,so common in New Orleans at that time .

The success of the Original Dixie Land Jass Bandreached new heights at Del

’

Abe’

s, when hundreds of

their fanatic fans from Schil ler’s came over to augmentthe growing café clientele from Hotel Normandy. Mean

Jass and the Underwor l d

while, the ever-industrious Harry James had bought a

hal f interest in the Casino Gardens at Kinzie and NorthClark streets, just outside the Loop, and now persuadedthe band to move there for a long-term engagement beginning Thursday, July 6, 1916 .

Business boomed in a similar manner at the Casino .

James had the wal l s torn down and the dining room

enlarged to accommodate the increased demand for

tables . While empl oyed at the Casino, the Dixie Land

Jass Band also tried its hand at vaudevil le . The effectof

“jass” upon uninitiated Chicago theatergoers is colorful ly il lustrated by a ' press review in Vaudevil le, August 31, 1916 :

Fogarty’

s Dance R evue and Jass Band hit it off l ike a

whirlwind in next place. The Jass band was a hit from the start

and offered the wildest kind of music ever heard outside of a

Commanche massacre . There are five men in this band, and

they make enough noise to satisfy even a north side bunch out

for entertainment in the vicinity of Belmont Avenue and

Racine

Said the Chicago B reeze, September 1 , 1916

Jimmy Fogarty’

s Dancing R evue and Jass Band” is a new

act which is seen at McVicker’

5 this week . Johnny Fogarty,who has been prominent as a dancer for many years, and who

has had big acts with society dancers for the last few years, hasseen the popularity of

“The Jass Band and turned it into

vaudeville. He has three couples for dancing, and the band not

only accompanies most of these exhibitions, but it has a num

ber to itself. The band is composed of five white men—piano,drums, sl ide trombone, cornet, and clarinet The band tookbig applause Monday night at the first show (17 minutes, fullstage ) .

The S tory of th e Dixie land Jazz B and

And in B il lboard, September 1 , 1916

No . 5—Fogarty’

s Dance Revue and Jass Band, consisting of

eight men and three women offered a conglomeration of mod

ern dancing and incidentally introduces vaudeville’s newestcraze,

“The Jass Band,” and the way the five of them tear away

at their instruments brought down the house. Each member is

an artist. The revue is elegantly dressed and all step l ively tothe tuneful sounds of the band . Everyone co-operated in its

success. Twenty-three minutes, full stage ; two curtains.

Although the Dixie Land Jass Band was begmmngto cl ick, there remained one weak spot in its constitu

tion. The unrel iabil ity of“Yel low” Nunez became a

constant source ofworry to the more serious members ofthe band . In its incipient stages, this lack of interestmerely took the form of tardiness at the bandstand . The

band would be poised on the stand, ready to begin a

set, while Yel low would be talking with patrons in a

darkened corner of the club, or getting himsel f lubricated at the bar upstairs . His del inquency increased at

an alarming rate ; sometimes he would wander off the

bandstand and disappear for the balance of the night.At other times he wouldn’

t even show up for the firstnumber. In this case the band would form a posse, mak

ing the rounds of l ikely neighborhood spots in searchof the missing clarinetist. The drinks he charged to theband reached staggering total s, and the payment of the

musicians became confused .

1On October 31, 1916, La

1 Eddie Edwards, as business manager, claims that he wouldpay Nunez in one-dol lar bil l s and give him a

“short count (count

ing the same bil l twice , etc. ) each week until Nunez’ debt waspaid off. LaR occa, on the other hand, refutes this statement withthe explanation that Edwards did not handle the money for the

band, and that in Chicago the members were always paid individual ly by the management.

Jass and the Underwor ld

Rocca fired Nunez from the Original Dixie Land JassBand . The combination limped along without a clari

netist for the next three days, pending the arrival of

Larry Shields.Nunez returned to New Orleans, where he formed

a band with Emile Christian (comet) , Sigmund Behrenson (trombone ) , himsel f (clarinet) , Eddie Shieldsbrother of Larry (piano ) , and Johnny Stein (drums ) .

The group ventured to the Vernon Café in Chicagowhere they bil led themselves as a

“jass” band with verylittle success . About a year after the Original DixielandBand had made their first phonograph record, Nunez

put together a band called the Louisiana Five and madeone side of a record for Columbia (No . A2768, serialNo. very appropriately titled The Alcohol icBlues . Readers who are curious about the style of

Alcide Nunez wil l learn much from this rather obscuredisc, which features a combination of clarinet, trom

bone, guitar, piano, and drums—no comet. Nunez leadsthe band on clarinet, playing straight melody from startto finish without so much as a single improvisation.

(This bears out LaRocca’

s claim that Nunez alwaysfought with him for the melody, resulting in an un

tuneful clash between com et and clarinet—or in La

Rocca’s term, His tone is strong, broad,and reminiscent of the old-time parade band musicians .

In 1927 he returned to New Orleans, where he joinedthe pol ice force, and in his spare time played in the

New Orleans Pol ice Band .

Larry Shields was born September 13, 1893, andfirst showed an interest in music at the age of fourteen,when he bought a secondhand clarinet from a New Or

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

leans musician of local fame . Like LaRocca he was en

tirely sel f-taught, could not read music, and learnedeverything by trial and error. This writer is not alone

in his Opinion that Shields was the greatest jazz clarinetist of al l time . His technique was flawless, his tone clear

and ful l of character, and his ideas twenty years aheadof their time . The

“noodling” style of clarinet solo so

successful ly exploited by Benny Goodman during the“swing” craze of 1936—38 had its seeds in the ensembleplaying of Larry Shields and was well displayed in theOriginal Dixieland Band records of 1917 and 1918 .

Shields was, in fact, long the idol of Goodman,who

practiced at an early age by playing along with theserecords .

The addition of Larry Shields brought the OriginalDixie Land Jass Band to its final configuration. It was

this combination of LaRocca , Edwards, Shields, Ragas,and Sbarbaro that went on to the heights of popularityreached by no other jazz band of that period .

By 1916 the growth of gang warfare in Chicagowas wel l under way . Two or three bodies were fished out

of the Chicago River every week, and the“protection”

racket was becoming one of the city’s leading industries .

Al though the “Tommy gun”and the long black touring

car had not yet come upon the scene, the ruthless gangsters of the Windy City managed very wel l with whatthey had.

The friendl iness and good-natured innocence of the

five Southern gentlemen were no assets in this seethingmetropol is . In those days it was hard to remain neutral .

Before you knew it, your best friend was connectedwith some gang, and you needed the gang for protection.

Jass and the Underwor ld

The pol ice, corrupt from the beat to the top desk, conveniently looked the other way or just weren’

t aroundduring troublesome outbreaks .

Unknown to Harry James, making its headquartersat the Casino Gardens was the North Side Gang of

Mickey Col l ins . By night, this mob of underworld characters systematical ly pil laged the surrounding com

munities but, as if some code of ethics was involved,they never robbed within a fifty-mile radius of the

Casino . In the afternoon they returned to the café withtheir loot, called the rol l , and took inventory. LaRocca

recall s their flashy moll, a sl im brunette named Faye ,who arrived every day loaded with jewel ry and trinkets .

In the midst of al l this opulence, the plain, bar

gain-basement attire of the band members must haveseemed appall ing to the showy mobsters . The poorlyfitting black overcoats donated by Harry James hadbeen abandoned the first time the musicians were cal ledhayseeds” by wisecracking Chicagoans . Now they woreinexpensive clothes which fitted but which were woeful lyinadequate for the heavy northern winters . During thecoldest part of December they stuffed newspapers downthe backs of their flimsy topcoats to protect against thebiting Chicago gales .

One afternoon as LaRocca was hanging up his coatand removing the wrinkl ed newspapers, one of the“boys” known as Earl Deer swaggered over to him and

asked him why he didn’

t buy himsel f a decent overcoat.When Nick explained that he had been sending most ofhis money home to his mother and couldn’

t afford it,Deer said,

“Meet me at Sears Roebuck tomorrow afternoon and I

’l l buy you one .

”

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Nick waited at the store that day for an hour, trying on overcoats and expressing his choice to the cl erk,but Deer never showed up . When Nick reached for hisold topcoat that night at the Casino , he found that it hadbeen slashed to ribbons . The next afternoon Deer presented LaRocca with the very same overcoat he hadpicked out at the clothing store the day before—or one

very similar to it. The wisdom of accepting a gift fromthe mob was dubious, but Nick, with his old coat tornto shreds, was afraid to return the new one and too coldto give it away.

From that day on, the musicians decided theywould have nothing more to do with the Col l ins’ mob.

But such hasty resolutions were easily forgotten by theimpetuous young bandleader, whose mind was on womenmore often than music. Nick had been dating an athleticblonde by the name of Jessie, a popular lady wrestler inthose parts . But unknown to him , Jessie was the girlfriend of Joe Bova, leader of the rival South Side Gang.

Bova was quick to make his displeasure known to the

cornetist—so unmistakably, in fact, that LaRocca begancarrying an automatic in his coat pocket and was neveron the bandstand without it. “We called him ‘Nick theGunman,

’ says Edwards .One night, after Nick had defied the notorious

gangster by spending that afternoon with Bova’s ladyfriend, he was paid a visit by Bova. Bova, withoutmincing any words, told LaRocca that if he wasn

’

t out

of town by sunrise the Chicago River would claim a

waterlogged com et player.

Mickey Col l ins had been watching this conference

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

agent, Max Hart, in New York weeks later, he did such a

thorough job of sel l ing that Hart made a special trip toChicago just to hear the Original Dixie Land Jass Band .

When he had heard them, he signed them immediatelyfor a two-week try-out at Reisenweber

’

s Restaurant inNew York City, to be fol lowed by a guaranteed contract

of $750 per week if the band made good .

The popular movement which Nick LaRocca laterreferred to as

“The Revolution in Four-Four Time was

about to begin.

New York and the Jass R evo lution

It was January, 1917 . Germany was preparing to re

sume unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1 ,and most Americans stil l did not suspect that the

United States would be drawn into the conflict withinthree month s .

In New York City, people tried to forget international troubles . Some went to see Eva Tanguay and the

Marx Brothers in the vaudevil le at the Palace . Otherssaw Nora Bayes at the Eltinge, or stood in l ine forchoice seats at Treasure Island, the season

’

s smash hit.Col lege boys flocked to see Anna Held in “

the girl iestshow in town” at the Casino.

The January 15 issue of the New York Times car

ried a ful l-page advertisement by Gimbel ’s DepartmentStore, announcing a big sale of

“fur-lined coats for

motoring .

”The largest ad on the amusement page read

as follows

Margaret‘

Hawkesworth’

s

“PA R A D I S E”

The Smartest, Most Beautifuland Most Modern Ballroom in America

in the R eisenweber Bldgat Eighth Avenue and 58th Street

announces

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

The First Sensational Amusement Novelty of 1917“THE J A S Z B A ND ”

Direct from its amazing success in Chicago,where it has given modern dancing new l ife and a new thrill .

The Jasz Band is the latest craze that is sweeping the nation like a musical thunderstorm .

THE JASZ BAND

comes exclusively to Paradise, First of al l New YorkBal lrooms,

and will open for a run TONIGHT (Monday ) .

You’ve Just Got to Dance When You Hear It.

The debut of the Original Dixieland Jasz Bandat the Paradise was an experiment that was very cau

tiously undertaken by the management. The band beganplaying there on January 15 for a two-week trial, duringwhich they played two numbers each night while the

regular house orchestra rested . The response at first wasdisappointing . Blasé New Yorkers vacated the dancefloor and stared numbly while the southerners knockedthemselves out with their own fast, blaring, syncopatedmusic. Most of the spectators considered the wholeaffair a rather audacious publ icity scheme .

On Wednesday, January 17, an advertisement inthe New York Times announced the formal opemng of

the new Reisenweber Building,“New York’s newest,

largest and best-equipped restaurant with private diningrooms , bal l rooms, beefsteak gril l , tiled kitchens, typhoon ventilation, and seven dance floors .” Gus Ed

wards’ girlie revue, Round the Circle, with Norton Leeand a company of thirty entertained guests in the MainD ining Room, while in the Paradise Bal lroom , Mar

New York and the Jass R evo lution

garet Hawkesworth and Alexander Kiam performed ex

hibition dances . But what had happened to that “sensational amusement novelty of the

“jasz” band?The habitual reader of the New York Times amusementpage might have had cause to wonder.

The public’s initial apathy for the new music, demonstrated in the Paradise on Monday night, had tem

porarily discouraged the management. But two numbershad not been a fair trial for any such radical experiment, and Monday night was not the most popular nightin the week for dancing. Public response to “jasz” increased rapidly during that critical week. After the firstweek end the management decided to hold the band forthe formal opening of the “

400” Club Room on Satur

day, January 27. The 400” Room, originally sebed

uled to open with the rest of the new building on the

seventeenth, had not been ready in time because of de

lays in interior decorating. In the meantime the five

musicians were busy getting fitted for their first tuxedos

(they owned no uniforms ) , but found time to playanother “

experimental” set at the Coconut Grove .

When the band arrived at the“400

”Room on

opening night they found themselves in total darkness.Feeling their way about the place, they located the

bandstand , helped Tony set up the drums, and then thetwo ex-electricians, LaRocca and Edwards, went intothe basement to trace the house wiring . After some preliminary investigation, LaR occa discovered that the

wiring had been improperly connected to the main fusebox, and after reversing the polarity of the lines, quicklybrought illumination to the darkened club room .

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

The crowd that gathered in the 400 Room thatcold winter evening may have expected to hear “PoorButterfly,

”the season’s hit tune, rendered in the style

of the larger, softly playing string groups popular at

the time ; or one of the many Hawaiian orchestras thathad appeared there in Gus Edwards’ revues , such as

Jonia and her Sister, the Heavenly Hawaiian Twins,and their South Seas Troubadours .”

It is not difficult to see how they were momentarily

stunned when,after a short introduction by the man

ager, the wavy -haired bandleader blew a few“licks” on

his com et, stamped his energetic foot twice , and openedup with a steaming version of

“Tiger Rag,” fol lowed by

his l ively companions . It was as if a bomb had explodedwithin the room . The powerful shock waves of TonySbarbaro

’

s big parade drums shook the wall s ; Edwards’

trombone blasted and slurred with brassy bass notes that

rattled every champagne glass in the room ; the stridentscreams of Shields’ clarinet echoed down the mirroredcorridors and made people in the street stop to lookabout

The effect on the uninitiated was summed up quitevividly, al though with not too much accuracy, in a

newspaper article publ ished a few months later. The

following, by F . T. Vreeland, appeared in the New

York Sun,November 4, 1917, while the Dixieland Band

was stil l engaged at Reisenweber’

s :

The young man with a face that seems to have grownflorid from blowing his cornet to the point of apoplexy looksaround at his handful of fel low players commandingly and

begins thumping earnestly with his fashionably shod foot and

New York and the Jass R evo lution

instantly the whole pack is in full cry. The musical riot that

breaks forth from the horns and variants of tin pan instru

ments resembles nothing so much as a chorus of huntinghounds on the scent, with an occasional explosion in the sub

way thrown in for good measure.

It is all done in correct time—there is no fault to befound in the rhythm of it. Even though the cornetist is con

stantly throwing in flourishes of his own and every once in

awhile the trombonist gets excited about something and takesit out on the instrument, their tapping feet never miss step. The

notes may blat and collide with a jar, but their pul ses blend

perfectly . In fact, they frequently inj ect beats of their own be

tween the main thumps just to make it harder for themselves,yet they

’

re always on time to the dot when the moment arrivesfor the emphatic crash /

of notes.

But it takes a good deal of straining of one’

s aesthetic

sense to apply the word music to the resultant concussion evenas modem s understand music after years of tympanic educa

tion by Strauss and the more flamboyant school of Russian

composers . The performers have no score before them ,indeed

all of them are playing by ear, so their art isn

’

t tied down to

any mere earthy notes , and they go soaring . Consequently, themelody that they are ostensibly playing dies an untimely death

from drowning .

Occasional ly the cornetist makes valiant efforts to resus

citate it, but he is only one against several , al l of them deter

m ined, so after a mad spurt, he gives up and goes careeringoff on a wild spree of his own. The clarinetist whoodles and

whines, the trombone chokes and gargles, the viol ins snickerand shriek, the piano vibrates like a torpedo boat destroyer at

high speed in an endeavor to make itself heard above the

tumult ; and the drum, labored by a drummer who is sur

rounded by all the most up-to-date accessories and instruments

of torture, becomes the heavy artillery of the piece and makesthe performance a devastating barrage

The author of this imaginative article seems tohave been somewhat carried away, the exact extentindicated by his account of snickering” and shriek

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

ing viol ins . There were no viol ins in the DixielandBand . However, it is an excel lent example of the stateof bewilderment suffered (or enjoyed ) by those who hadno warning of this new brand of music. The observationthat “

they frequently inject beats of their own betweenthe main thumps” reveal s a style of syncopation so novel

that even newspaper columnists were at a loss for words .And if the melody seemed to die “

an untimely deathfrom drowning,

”or the cornetist occasional ly went

“careering off on a wild Spree of his own,

”it was be

cause improvisation in dance music was an art virtuallyunknown to New York . The rhythm, tempo, counterpoint,and volume of this band were so completely radicalthat immediate acceptance was impossible . People whohad come to dance merely stood and gazed, first at themusicians, then at themselves. Other customers bangedon their plates with silverware and yel led : “Send thosefarmers back to the country !

”

Once more the manager stepped to the bandstandand nervously announced : “This music is for dancing.

The band played another selection, somewhatslower in tempo. A few pioneering couples gave it a

try—others fol lowed . Before this historic performance

was an hour ol d, its audience was intoxicated withjazz.

The word spread quickly. Newspapers,in their

age-old tradition, carried exaggerated stories . Friends

told friends . Night-clubbers flocked to Reisenweber’

s to

be frightened by this compact l ittle group of rebelmusicians .

From that evening on, the 400 Club Room

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Reisenweber’

s emergence as the center of the jazzworld is revealed in Variety for March 19, 1917 :

Music is becoming more and more potent and prominent

among the cabaret attractions. Gingery, swinging music is

what the dancers want, and it is even looked for by those whodo not dance . A group ofmen, the other evening, each knowingonly too wel l al l the cabarets of New York, decided the bestrestaurant orchestras in the city are Rector

’

s, Healy’

s, and the

Tokio’

s . These orchestras get nearer to the legitimate jazzstuff” than any of the others. The genuine

“jazz band” at R eis

enweber’

s, however, notwithstanding the sober opinion of it,

appears to be drawing business there. Late in the morning the

jazzers go to work and the dancers hit the floor, to remain there

until they topple over, if the band keeps on playing. It leavesno question but what they l ike to dance to that kind of music

and it is a“kind.

” If the dancers see someone they know at the

tables, it’

s common to hear,“Oh, boy !

”as they roll their eyes

while floating past, and the“Oh, boy !

”expression probably

describes the Jazz Band music better than anything else could .

Among the first musicians who came there to catch

the new style in music were Henry Busse, Ross Gorman,

Vincent Lopez, and Earl Ful ler. Ful ler lost no time in

converting to jazz . His“DeLuxe Orchestra” Was playing

at Rector’s,and the very next day after the Dixieland

Band had opened the “400

” Room,he cut his personnel

down to a five-piece combination and adapted the jazzstyle. According to Ernest Cutting, who was generalmanager for Fuller from 1916 to 1920 ,

“We organized the Earl Fuller Jazz Band to compete with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band which was functioning at

Fuller led his band on piano, othermembers includingWalter Kahn (com et) , Harry Raderman (trombone ) , John Lucas (drums ) , and the up

-and

coming Ted Lewis (clarinet) .

New York and the Jass R evo lu tion

The phonograph records of Earl Ful ler’s FamousJazz Band” 1 made in early 1918

—a ful l year after the

first recording of the Original Dixieland Jazz Bandare excel lent examples of the first attempts at imitatingjazz. They managed to sound l ike the Dixieland Band,in a crude way, with their prominent counterpoint, butthe rhythm was entirely different. The cornetist handledhis instrument with remarkable ease and technical skil l ,but the style would be more fitting in a

“Merchant of

Venice” concert solo. Trombonist Raderman l imitedhimsel f to a continuous series of long gl issandi ; and

Ted Lewis, not yet conversant with the l iquid style of

Larry Shields, tril led most of the time. The drummerused a

!

mil itary style with frequent rol l s on the snaredrum and, l ike Sbarbaro, employed a minstrel style”

wood-block on choruses . The Dixieland Band’ s stockending, the

“dixieland tag,” faithful ly concluded every

number. The general effect was that of a concert bandin Central Park rendering a jazz tune especial ly ar

ranged for a mil itary combination .

One of the most sincere advocates of the new musicwas a l ittle-known pianist by the name of Jimmy Dur

ante . In 1917,more than a decade before the organiza

tion of that great vaudevil le team of“Clayton, Jackson

81 Durante, Jimmy was holding forth at the Alamo

Café, located in the basement of a burlesque house on

125th Street, where he played piano and sang songs in

1 Victor No. 18321 Sl ippery HankYah-de-dah

”

Victor No. 18369—“The O ld Grey Mare

‘Beale Street Blues”

Victor No. 18394—“L i

’

l Liza Jane”Coon Band Contest

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

a voice that sounded like someone writing on a blackboard with an ice pick . He frequently stopped in at

Reisenweber’

s after his own show, sometimes as late as

five o’clock in the morning, and once invited the wholeband over to the Alamo for a late snack . The snackturned out to be a veritable banquet, with a long tableset with everything from salami to pe

’

ite de foie gras.

After the feed, the Schnoz” sat in on piano with thehand, while quiet Henry Ragas , by himsel f in the comer,

took generous advantage of“drinks on the house .

”

Durante, l ike al l other ragtime pianists of the day, hadtrouble catching the rhythm , but he was determined toform his own jazz hand . He asked about other NewOrleans musicians . LaRocca suggested Frank Christianand Achil le Bacquet. Durante fol lowed this recommendation and organized a five-piece band that was billedat the Alamo intermittently for eight years , playing at

various resorts during the summers . The outfit, featuring Frank Christian (com et) , Achil le Bacquet (clarinet) , Frank Lotak (trombone ) , Jimmy Durante (piano ) ,and Johnny Stein (drums ) , was a particular sensationat the College Inn on Coney Island .

2

The fame of the Original Dixieland Band had nowbegun to spread across the continent. An army of ener

getic young men in riding breeches and caps worn backwards descended upon Reisenweber’s. They represented

3 Recordings by Jimmy Durante’

s Original New OrleansJazz Band

Gennett No. 4508—“JadaHe

’

s Had No Lovin’For a Long,

Long Time”

Gennett No. 9045—“Why Cry BluesOKeh No. 1156—“

Ol e Miss”C‘

Jada”

New York and the Jass R evo lution

the World Film Corporation of Hol lywood, Cal ifornia,and they moved their hand-powered cameras and batteryof arc l ights into the Columbus Circle restaurant to film

a comedy entitled The Good For Nothing, starringCharl ie Chapl in.

3The Original Dixieland Band appears

in a particularly animated slapstick night club scene .

Mov1e audiences throughout the nation were, for the firsttime in history, to see—but not hear—LaRocca and the

innovators of jazz.

Manager Max Hart was deluged with a hundredoffers for the Original Dixieland Jazz Band—dances,Broadway musicals; vaudevil le tours, conventionsmore jobs than the band could handle in a single lifetime. At a one-night benefit on the stage of the CenturyTheater, the Dixieland Band appeared between EnricoCaruso and Billy Sunday. Publ icity continued at its

peak Sheldon Brooks, composer of“Some of These

Days and“Darktown Strutters’ Bal l , visited Reisen

weber’s and was so thril led that he went directly homeand wrote When You Hear That Dixieland Jazz BandPlay

Verse

Mister Sousa has a reputation,But not for syncopation,

He plays al l those high class marches and operas grand.

There’

s a jazzy band that’

s got me dippy,I’

l l tell you it’

s some hand.

I’

m going to tell you all about it,They call it Dixieland.

3 Copyright 1917, registration LU11783 (unpubl ished motion picture photop lays ) Library of Congress. Produced by Wil l iamA. Brady , directed by Carlyle Blackwel l . Titl e changed from “Jackthe Good for Nothing .

The S to ry of the Dixie land B and

Chorus

Folks have you heard that Dixie Jazz Band? Say ! It’

s a bear,That boy can play cornet, you bet,

With a feeling so appealing,

They’

ll make you go and get your dancing shoes,

They sway and play the Livery Stable Blues .

I love to hear that trombone moan, so beautiful .Now if you get blue and melancholy, ask that leader to playThat j azzy every day, to drive the blues away to stay,

Deacons, preachers, Sunday school teachers, will have tosway

When they hear that Dixieland Jazz Band play.

4

4 Copyright 1918 by Wil l Rossiter,-

Chicago.

T in Horns and Talk ing Mach ines

It is doubtful that even the imaginative Thomas A.

Edison knew just what he was starting when he yel led,“Mary had a l ittle lamb !” into a tin funnel one day in1877 and thereupon made history by recording hisvoice on a rotating cyl inder.

Few people, and certainly no musician of high re

pute, took this toy seriously until the invention of the

disc record by Em ile Berl iner m 1896 . Even then, withlarge-scale mass production a practical ity, reputableartists were slow in adapting to the new medium . It was

seven more years before opera singers could be persuaded to transcribe their voices in the scratchy wax.

The Columbia Gramophone Company was the firstAmerican concern to accompl ish this cultural revolu

tion. In 1903 they began recording the voices of suchinternational operatic personalities as Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Suzanne Adams, Antonio Scotti, Edouardde Reszke, Giuseppe Campanari, and Charles Gil ibert.The British Gramophone and Typewriter Company(“His Master’s Voice” ) was not to be outdone . In that

same year its United States aflil iate , the Victor TalkingMachine Company (now RCA -Victor) , retal iated withan ambitious program of opera recordings includingAda Crossley, Zel ie de Lussan, Louise Homer, RobertBlass, and—as the final cl incher—the great Enrico

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Caruso. Victor had soon stolen the thunder from Co

lumbia .

In January, 1917, Victor was leading phonographsales with Sousa’s Band and Enrico Caruso, while Columbia was searching desperately for a means of re

gaining its lost favor. Then someone mentioned thatlatest explosion on Broadway, the Original DixielandJass Band . Less than a week after their spectacular opening at R eisenweber

’

s, the New Orleans musicians wereunder contract to make the world’s first jazz phonographrecord .

From the very beginning the Columbia people didnot seem to grasp the idea of jazz . Although the Dixieland Band had a repertoire of a dozen original com

positions, Columbia officials did not believe that thesetunes were popular enough to promote sal es . After al l ,

who had ever heard of“Tiger Rag,

” “Ostrich Walk,”

“Livery Stable Blues, or any other of these crazy

animal novelties? The company therefore decided upon“Darktown Strutters’ Bal l” as the

“sell ing” side of the

record , and, in keeping with establ ished practice, backedit up with an unknown tune that had been forced on

them by the publ ishers . “Indiana (“Back Home in

Indiana” ) had been given l ittle chance for success andit was hoped that “Darktown” would help it along.

The Original Dixieland Band had received the re“

cording offer purely on the strength of their reputationat Reisenweber

’

s. It is doubtful if Columbia, which hadnever even recorded ragtime and had not yet been ex

posed to jazz, knew exactly what it was purchasing . It

is easy to imagine the state of confusion which resultedwhen the band started play ing. The volume of this

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

order to attain sufficient power to drive the stubbornrecording stylus, everything, including tonal fidel ity,had to be sacrificed . Qual ity was but a secondary con

sideration. A huge tin horn was used to col lect the soundand concentrate it upon the diaphragm of the recordinghead This monstrous funnel of sheet metal—known as

the pickup horn”— became the central and dominantfeature of every recording studio .

The accoustical problems presented by a jazz bandwere new to the industry. The engineers at Columbiawere obviously baffled by LaRocca

’

s unorthodox squadof music-makers . In recording opera singers, they hadbeen able to exercise some measure of control . On par

ticularly loud notes, for example , the singer was instructed to draw away from the pickup born to avoid“blasting.

” Conversely, he was l iteral ly shoved downthe mouth of the horn in order to save low notes or thoselacking reproduction qual ities . This process was far lessdignified than an appearance on

‘

the concert stage, and

some of the more famous artists, not wishing to be

soiled by the greasy hands of the mechanics, actual lyhired assistants to help guide them back and forth beforethe born.

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, however, didnot lend itself to control of this or any other sort. Because of the band’s volume, the engineers feared distortion in placing the musicians too close to the pickuphorn . But in placing them fifteen feet away, an echowas produced that turned the contrasting voices of the

jazz hand into a meaningless howl .The problem was solved by the sound engineers at

Victor, who succeeded in transcribing the band with

Tin Horns and Ta l k ing Mach ines

great clarity and sharpness . They placed the musiciansaccording to the recording strength of their instruments,and many test records were made before proper balancewas attained . LaRocca was located about twenty feetfrom the pickup horn, while Sbarbaro wielded his drumsticks about five feet behind '

him . (The bass drum was

not used on this record because of its tendency to

Edwards’ powerful trombone was only twelve

to fifteen feet from the horn, accounting for its prominence . Clarinetist Shields stood about five feet away, andRagas

, on piano—the instrument least l ikely to be

heard—was closest of al l . It is important to remember,however, that these distances were not determined by therelative volume level s of the instruments . Because the

sensitivity of the recording apparatus varied widelyfrom one tonal range to another, certain instrumentswere more easily picked up than others . In actual ity,LaRocca, Edwards, and Shields were very evenlymatched in loudness .

LaRocca describes the first recording session in

these words : “First we made a test record , and thenthey played it back for us. This is when they startedmoving us around in different positions . After the firsttest record, four men were rushed in with ladders andstarted stringing w ires near the ceil ing . I asked themwhat al l these w ires were for, and one of the men toldme it was to sop up the overtone that was coming backinto the born. The recording engineer at Victor had thepatience of a saint. He played back our music until it

sounded right.” 1

1 From a note to the author, written on the back of the first

draft manuscript. Charles Souey was the patient Victor engineer.

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

But despite these efforts at balancing the instruments, the trombone and clarinet dominated the finalrecords . LaRocca attributes this to nervousness on the

part of his fel low musicians, who were inclined to playlouder on the real

“take.

”

The stamping of a foot would be heard veryclearly, and at this time they had not yet discovered a

method of erasing” an unwanted sound from a record .

For this reason LaRocca was not al lowed to “stomp off”

his band in the usual fashion. Instead, the musicianswere instructed to watch the red signal light, count twoafter it came on, and then begin playing. It is indeedmiraculous that they were able to start out together, andeven more of a wonder that they immediately fel l intothe same tempo.

The world’s first jazz phonograph record was boldlylaunched with a special issue of the Victor Record Review, dated March 7, 1917 The company, after firstwarning the customer that a Jass band is a Jassband, and not a Victor organization gone crazy,

” went onto introduce the new type of record in th1s ve1n

Spell it Jass, Jas, Jaz, or Jazz—nothing can spoil a Jassband. Some say the Jass band originated in Chicago. Chicago

says it comes from San Francisco—San Francisco being awayoff across the continent. Anyway, a Jass band is the newestthing in cabarets, adding greatly to the hilarity thereofSince then the Jass band has grown in size and ferocity, and

only with the greatest effort were we able to make the OriginalDixieland Jass Band stand still long enough to make a record.

That’

s the difficul ty with a Jass band . You never know whatit

’

s going to do next, but you can always tell what those whohear it are going to do

—they’

re going to“shake a leg.

”

The Jass Band is thevery latest thing in the development

Tin Horns and Ta lk ing Machines

of music. It has sufficient power and penetration to inject newlife into a mummy, and wil l keep ordinary human dancers on

their feet til l breakfast time

The Dixieland Jass Band One-Step, later to be

come known as the Original Dixieland One-Step,”was

intended to be the feature attraction on this disc, al

though its reverse side proved to have more popul arappeal . Like al l the one-steps composed and renderedby this band, it is delivered at tremendous speed . Hereindeed is al l the martial timbre of reed, brass, and percussion. LaRocca

’

s horn is confident, driving, yet re

markably control led . His l ip slurring in al l choruses ismasterful . Shield’s manipulation of his clarinet throughrapid, involved, polyphonic passages is breathtaking,and at a cl imactic point in each chorus the clarinetscreams with al l the excitement of a roaring crowd—itis as if someone had just scored a touchdown . In fact,the extraordinary teamwork of Edwards and Shields atthe peak of this psychological build-up is wel l worth thelistener’s careful attention. Edwards is inspired to the

point where he takes over the melody ; or to be moreSpecific, his tailgate becomes the melody. It runs rampant for about three bars until Shields scores a defin itecl imax with his simple but well-timed gl issando and

Sbarbaro emphasizes the point with a dramatic cymbalcrash.

Although real dixieland jazz is considered a purelyabstract art, as Opposed to the descriptive or programmatic art of classical music, there are intervals whenjazz does approach the programmatic. The chorus of

the“Dixieland Jass Band One-Step” is one of these

moments . Something—some violent and thril ling spec

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

tacle—is being described by this passage . But music isdiflerent things to different people

, and the l istener isbest left to his own interpretation.

The“B” side of this platter, the controversial Livery

Stable Blues,” 2

surprised both the band and the recording company with its overwhelming popularity . It was

responsible for the sale of more than a mil l ion copies of

this issue .

3 As such, it surpassed anything so far re

corded by either Caruso or Sousa’s Band and establ ished a new sales record for the company . That it wasinstrumental in spreading jazz throughout the countrycannot be denied . Even today, with the nation

’

s popu

lation increased by more than 40 per cent and the number of phonographs multipl ied possibly a dozen times,

a one-mil l ion sale is considered the occasion for a spe

cial award : the gold record . And yet there are jazz histories which do not mention this record .

“Livery Stable B lues”was among the earl iest of

the LaRocca compositions . As previously mentioned, itresulted from an improvisation on a sacred anthem,

“The Holy City,

”and it was developed by changing one

chord and deleting two measures . In the clearly definedfugues of the verse, we are constantly reminded of the

influence of the French Opera in New Orleans, whereLaRocca spent many evenings of his youth as an are

light attendant. In the verse the com et makes a statement and is answered by the clarinet, first pol itely and

then again with a degree of impatience . The tromboneenters into this “

conversation” of instruments, contribu2 See Chapter 7 for detail s.

3 Letter to the author from E. E. Oberstein, Manager, Artistsand Repertoire, RCA Victor, dated September 22, 1937.

Tin Horns and Ta lk ing Machines

ting a third part and—so to speak—adding its own

opinions.The animal imitations which comprise the three

bar breaks of the chorus are incredibly l ifel ike and may

have been contributing factors in the record’s popularity.

Shields executes the rooster crow on clarinet,LaRocca

uses his comet to whinny l ike a horse, and Edwardscontributes a brash donkey bray on trombone . Theseeffects have been repeated thousands of times over byother musicians but somehow never seem to equal thecharacter and spirit of the original s .

4

It was not until “Livery Stable Blues had become

a . smash hit that Columbia recovered the master from its

dead files and made pressings of Darktown Strutters’

Ball” and“Indiana” on A2297 . Fol lowing on the heel s

of the Victor release, it was a moderate success and

2903 was issued on Engl ish Columbia . But the Co

lumbia recording can in no way be considered a workof art. Lacking the spirit and vital ity of the first Victordisc, it is understandable why Columbia didn

’

t release ituntil after its competitor had made the Dixieland JazzBand a familiar name to al l music stores . Its im

portance l ies in the fact that it was first.It was on this historic Columbia record that the

Dixieland Band introduced “Indiana” (“Back Home in

Indiana” ) to the phonograph audience . The band members reported to the publisher’s office where they wereassiduously taught the melody . After it had been im

pressed on their minds by a pianist who played the tune

4 In another of the band’

s more popular numbers, “Walkin’

the Dog,”Shields used his clarinet to imitate the high-

pitched“

yipe”of a Pekinese. It was never recorded.

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

over and over, they left the publishing house and headedfor Columbia’s studios,

5 humming the tune en route sothat it would not be forgotten before they arrived . It isinteresting to note how their interpretation differs fromthe composer’s version. LaRocca confides that he forgota great deal of it before he reached the studio but wouldrather have played one of his own numbers, anyway. Ifnothing el se, the rendition affords an excellent oppor

tunity for the study of Tony Sbarbaro’

s woodbl ock technique, for this stands out on the record as if it were thefeature attraction. The back room

” piano of HenryRagas, almost completely obscured on al l other records,is al so plainly heard on several occasions.

“Darktown Strutters’ Ball , on the reverse side, reveals the pains of a band in its efforts to adjust to an

unfamil iar vehicle . Some parts of this tune are im

prov1sed to the point where they seem to become an

entirely different melody. Adding to the group’s discomfort was the handicap of playing in the wrong key .

They had rehearsed the piece in the key of“C, but

LaRocca, at the mercy of his pecul iar musical memory,started off in

“D .

” His colleagues had no choice otherthan to fol low suit, for they had known the futility offighting the determined cornetist. “I didn’

t real ize any

thing was wrong,”

comments LaRocca,“until we had

finished the number and Edwards and Shields tried towrap their instruments around my neck !

Meanwhile, the success of Livery Stable Bluescontinued unabated . The sales of this record in New

5 Located on the fourteenth floor of the Manufacturer’s TrustCompany Buil ding on Columbus Circle at 59th Street and Broadway, presently the site oi the New York Col iseum.

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The S tory of the D ixie land Jazz B and

has not yet come out in civilization’

s wash . Indeed, one mightgo further, and say that Jass music is the indecent story

syncopated and counterpointed. Like the improper anecdote ,also, in its youth, it was listened to blushingly behind closed

doors and drawn curtains,but, l ike all vice, it grew bolder

until it dared decent surroundings, and there was tolerated be

cause of its oddityIn the matter of jass, New Orleans is particularly inter

ested, since it has been widely suggested that this particular

form of musical vice had its birth in this city, that it came,in

fact, from doubtful surroundings in our slums . We do not rec

ognize the honor of parenthood, but with such a story in circu

lation, it behooves us to be last to accept the atrocity in polite

society, and where it has crept in we should make it a point ofcivic honor to suppress it. Its musical value is nil , and its possibilities of harm are great.

A few days later, the Times-Picayune received and

publ ished a letter from an angry reader who resentedthe editorial remarks about his favorite delicacy—the

grease-dripping doughnut !

The Strange Case of the“Livery Stabl e B lues

Besides being the world ’s first jazz phonograph record,“Livery Stable Blues” “Dixieland Jass Band One-Step

,

”

was probably al so the first record in history to instigatea lawsuit for each of its sides . If laid end to end, the

legal documents resulting from the sale of this recordwould extend the ful l length of Canal Street and wouldprobably tie up traffic for two weeks .

The Dixieland Jazz Band that ventured northwardfrom the Sunny Southland in 1916 was composed of

five innocents who had never heard of a copyright andnever suspected that anyone would be so mean as to

steal another man’s tune . They were unfamil iar w ith the

ways of the North, but in the words of LaRocca, We

sure learned fast !”

That “Livery Stable B lues was the rightful property of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, both in name

and substance , cannot be doubted . The tune was com

posed by LaRocca in 1912 and was brought to Chicagowith Stein’s band in March of 1916 (see ChapterIt carried no name until it was introduced by this banda few weeks later, at which time Ernie Erdman,

the

house pianist at Schil ler’s, contributed the title .

But the Victor Talking Machine Company foundLivery Stable Blues an objectionable title . They could

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

not, they felt, al low such a vulgarity to appear alongside time-honored and respected operatic titles on the

pages of the Victor record catalogue . So J. S . Mac

Donald of Victor suggested “Barnyard Blues” as a

polite substitute . On April 9 Max Hart, the band’s agent,

copyrighted the composition under this title (and in hisown

Everything would have turned out fine if someonesomewhere along the l ine had not made ‘

one of thoseclerical errors, one of those boners that turns up dailyin every business and often jams the clockwork of our

complex machinery of civil ization. Due to somebody’ssl ip-up, the record was labeled and issued as

“LiveryStable Blues,

”therefore legal ly unprotected and free

for the world to copy.

Alcide Yellow” Nunez, former clarinetist of the

Original Dixieland Band and at this time playing withBert Kelly’s band at Chicago’s Casino Gardens,stumbled into this golden opportunity . He had heard therecord, but when he tried to purchase arrangements hediscovered that the composition had never even beenreduced to writing ! Checking with the Library of Congress, he learned that no such title as

“Livery Stabl eBlues had ever been registered .

Yel low rubbed his hands together in anticipationof a real kil l ing. There was nothing dishonest, he ration

1 Reg istration No. E-404182 (unpubl ished composition) , Library of Congress. Surprisingly enough, this copyright was not

secured until a month after the record was placed on sale. A p

parently no one considered this of importance until advance sal es

indicated a demand for sheet music and band arrangements. Then

the red tape of writing up a piano arrangement of the p iece and

submitting it for copyright added to the delay.

The Case of the“L ivery Stable B lues

”

al ized, in publishing a song he used to play at Schiller’swith Stein’s Dixie Jass Band. Nick and the boys wouldn’

t

care—they obviously weren’

t interested in publ ishing it,anyway. And with the Original Dixieland Band presently providing free advertising of the tune from coastto coast and plugging it nightly at Reisenweber

’

s, he

could make himself a fortune . Besides, didn’

t Nickthrow him out of the band at Casino Gardens? Thiswould be nice, juicy revenge . Consequently, Nunez con

tacted Roger Graham, a Chicago music publ isher, and

in 1917“Livery Stable B lues” was first printed and

circulated by that company. On the published Copies,Alcide Nunez and Ray Lopez (Tom Brown’s formercomet player, then playing with Bert Kel ly

’s band ) weregiven as composers and credited with being members ofthe Original Dixieland Jazz Band . The cover carried a

reference to the Dixieland Band’s Victor record .

LaRocca went into action immediately upon learning of the theft and publ ication of his brainchild . A wel lknown New York theatrical attorney, Nathan Burkan,was engaged and, fol lowing his advice, the members ofthe Original Dixieland Jazz Band filed an injunction toenjoin Roger Graham from continuing publ ication . Due

to the customary delays, the case was not cal led foranother five month s . In the meantime, New York publ isher Leo Feist brought out the number as

“BarnyardBlues, l isting D . J . LaRocca as composer, and carryingthe warning “Dealers Are Subject to Damages for Sel ling or Having Copies of the Spurious Edition In TheirStock .

”But the discrepancy between the title of the

record and the title of the sheet music was a severehandicap to the sales of the latter. So the musicians

The S to ry of the Dixie land Jazz B and

brought suit against the Victor Talking Machine Com

pany, claiming loss in sheet music royaltiesbecause of the mix-up . In July LaRocca took his bandto the Aeol ian Company for a series of four records

(discussed in the next chapter ) . The Victor case wassettled out of court for plus the band’s agreement

to return to the fold and record exclusively for Victor.

On October 2 , 1917, the case of LaRocca, Edwards ,Shields, Ragas, Sbarbaro and Hart versus Roger Graham was heard in the United States Federal Court,Northern District of Il l inois. Traditional ly on the al ert

for anything that could be turned into slapstick comedywere the local newspaper reporters, who stampeded intothe Chicago courtroom with moistened pencil s and overstimulated imaginations . From the beginning, jazz wasa naughty word in that city and deserving of appropriatetreatment. You could no longer ignore jazz musicians,but you could stil l make fun of them.

The Chicago Daily News of October 11 , 1917, inan article headed “

DISC OVERER or J AZZ ELUC IDATES INC OURT,

” sarcastical ly portrayed LaRocca as“the Jazz

Kid himsel f, the giddy boy whose brain first got the bigidea and reported that he “bounced” into the court

room “al l rigged out in a pair of cloth-topped patent

leathers, a purple striped shirt and a green tunic.

” Then,according to the writer

,

“he identified himsel f as the

genuine Columbus of the Jazz , the Sir Isaac Newton of

the latest dance craze . LaRocca’

s southern vocabularybecame strictly Lower East Side for the purposes of thiscolorful article , with as much of a Jersey accent as couldbe suggested through the medium of newsprint.

The headl ines hawked :

The Case of the“L ivery S table B l ues

J AZZ BAND MAY PLAY IN C OUR T (Chicago Ameri

J AZZ BAND e L WAIL ‘

B LUEs’

IN C OURTROOM

(American Inquirer )BARNYARD SYNCOPATION To EDIFY J UDGE (Ameri

can Inquirer‘

J AZZY B LUEs’ TO MOAN LURE IN U .S . COURT (Chi

cago American)

But Federal Judge George A . Carpenter changedhis mind about l etting a jazz band play in his courtroom .

Things were embarrassing enough, he thought, withouthaving donkey cries and horse whinnies echoing up and

down the hal lway of the Federal Building . Daily hestruggled to retain his professional dignity as the scenein which he had unwittingly and helplessly become a

principal actor threatened to resemble a comedy skit ona burlesque circuit.

From the very beginning the case was doomed toend in total confusion, for the actors in this l ittle playcould never meet on common ground . The stage was

fil led with musicians who could not explain what theycomposed or played because they coul d not read music ;highly educated music authorities who could not understand the musicians ; lawyers who could not understandthe authorities ; and a judge who was utterly disgustedwith the whole business .

Prosecuting attorney Burkan cal led in experts toprove that “Livery Stable B lues

”and

“Barnyard Blues”

were one and the same, and that this composition hadoriginated in the Original Dixeland Jazz Band, a co

operative organization claiming joint ownership .

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Theodore F. Morse, composer of nearly five hun

dred popular songs, including“Blue Bel l” (one and a

hal f mil l ion copies sold ) and Mother Put Them AllTogether They Spel l testified that the disputedblues compositions were similar in al l respects : “

The

introduction is identical as to harmony, rhythm and onlysl ightly changed in melody in the third bar. The firststrain is practically identical and also the second and

third strain . I think these two numbers could be playedat the same time and no difference would be noted thatthey were different compositions .

”

“

Lee Orean Smith, a composer and music editor

employed by Leo Feist and Company, took a similarview : The theoretical structure is practically the same,both as to melody, not so much identical as to harmony,but the rhythmical feel ing is practically identical , therefore the metre is conceived in the same strain the

tone progression is practical ly identical, that being whatconstitutes the melody . There are sl ight variations whichto the layman

’s ear would be imperceptible Theycould be played together with almost complete satisfaction to the ear, as regards melody. Discords wouldoccur at points where harmony varies.

Graham and Nunez based their defense on the

premise that al l blues, having the same chord progression, were al ike, and therefore plagiarism was

possible . They argued stil l further that “BarnyardBlues” was copied from an older tune cal led “More

Power Blues .”

Miss May Hill, a music critic, was called to testifyfor the defense . She flaunted an array of sheet musicbefore the judge, including such examples as “Chicago

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The S to ry of the D ix ie land Jazz B and

with Kel ly’

s band—in the Sherman Hotel and al l over. I’

m en

titled to the authorship of the‘Livery Stable Blues,

’

me and

Lopez, as much as LaRocca, that’

s why I went to Roger Graham and had him publish it . LaRocca done me dirt, so I saysto myself,

‘

He’

s done me dirt and I’

ll let him out .’

He goes and

has our‘Livery Stable Blues

’

put on a phonograph record as

his’

n . Wel l ain’

t that dirt?”

Nick LaRocca was the only member of the Dixieland Band to appear in person at the trial . The othersremained in New York and testified in absentia . Thereis ample evidence that LaRocca recognized the publicityvalues latent in the case . Throughout the many newspaper accounts of these hearings there runs an overtoneof subtle showmanship , witness the fol lowing item fromthe Chicago Journa l , October 11 , 1917 :

JAZZ BAND MASTERPIECE AUTHORSHIP IN DISPUTEDominic C la ims Alcide Purloined His Tone Picture

ofEmotions ofLovesick ColtDominic LaRocca was once an electrician . The lure of

the com et tore him away from the business of giving l ight tothe citizens of New Orleans. He roamed the streets, puttingheart and soul into his wonderful horn. Dominic real ized whatspiritual messages might mean. He interpreted, through his

cornet, the sweet braying of the lonesome donkey, and the

gentle neighing of the love-sick colt.

Such was the birth of the“Livery Stable Blues, swears

Dominic, and before Judge Carpenter in the Federal Court

today, he asked an injunction against the envious, jealous,A lcide Nunez, clarionet [sic] player of the Original Dixie JazzBand. A lcide is charged with steal ing the song, selling it to the

Roger Graham Music Publishing Company, and l iving proudlyon the income and reputation it has won him.

It matters not that the new title of the song is“Barnyard

Blues . According to A ttorney Bryan Y. Craig, his client,Dominic, will speedily demonstrate to

'

the court that the mcllif

The Case of the“L ivery S table B lues

luous harmonies could never have proceeded from a barnyard,but only from a livery stable.

When the thirty-five witnesses have completed their testi

mony, and Judge Carpenter has heard from jazz experts, cab

aret owners, and l ivery stable keepers, the composer of the

world’

s greatest jazz music will be identified. The LiveryStable Blues,

”along with the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy,

will have become history.

Ernie Erdman, Schil ler’s pianist, could have settled

the whole matter, for it was he who originally suggestedthe title . But Erdman wasn’

t in business for his health,either. In a letter to LaRocca he explained the conditionsunder which he would appear as witness for the prosecution

Y. ou readily admit l n your letter, as far as the LiveryStable Blues” is concerned, that this was my title, and also that

there was some transaction relative to counting me in on the

number, but up to the present time, this is the first l ine I haveever had from you on the sub ject one way or another

Consequently you will understand my position in the matter

thoroughly, and also realize how inconsistent it would be forme to do anything unless I am given my one-sixth of the

royalties

Thus stil l another staked his claim to joint ownership and a cut on the fabulous profits of “Livery StableBlues .” But the band stubbornly refused to pay for

Erdman’

s testimony .

The hearings dragged on for ten days, during thecourse of which Judge Carpenter showed visible effects .The Chicago American reported that he repeatedly “

fled

to his chambers for ice water.

”He confided to his

friends that he was beginning to wake up in the middleof the night and hear donkey cries emanating from his

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

butler’s pantry and horse whinnies from his iceboxroom . He said he was determined to clear this businessfrom the courtroom before he got roosters in his winecel lar.

On October 12 , Judge Carpenter rendered his decision :

Gentlemen, there is not any law to this case otherwisethan would be ordinarily submitted to the determination of a

jury . It seems to me it is a disputed question of fact, and it is

passed on to the Court just as any l ike case would be passed on

to a jury.

There is a dispute between the plaintiff and the defen

dant, two publishers, each claiming a right to the monopoly of

this song, this musical production.

No claim is made by either side for the barnyard calls

that are interpolated in the music, no claim is made for the

harmony. The only claim appears to be for the melody.

Now, as a matter of fact, the only value of th is so-cal led

musical production apparently lies in the interpolated animal

and bird calls—that is perfectly apparent from the evidencegiven by all the witnesses, and in a great many unimportant

features the Court has great difficulty in bel ieving what some of

the witnesses on both sides of this case have told the Court

under oath , but that does not go to the real merit of this con

troversy .

The cat cal ls and animal cal ls were not claimed in the

bill and they were not included in the copyright, so we are to

exclude them in this question.

The only question is, has there been a conceived idea of

the melody that runs through this so-called“Livery Stable

Blues”

The last witness says this More Power Blues” is fifteenyears O ld and the plaintiff

’

s best witness Mr. LaRocca says it

is ten years old, and from the evidence here which is in dispute—of the two young ladies who testified that these are alike and

unl ike, the Court cannot attach any great value to it in this case

because they do not agree .

But the Court is satisfied, from having looked over the

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

the Original Dixieland Band from rehashing MorePower Blues .” Anyone then proving plag1ar1sm wouldautomatically reverse the court’s decision. In order tobring about just such a test case, the Original DixielandBand l ifted “More Power Blues, making a few minorchanges and claiming it as their own number .

“Mournin’

Blues” (Victor 18513 ) was the result. Strangely enoughno one ever chal lenged the theft, and today

“Mournin

Blues” is accepted as a standard part of the OriginalDixieland Band’s repertoire of original compositions .

No sooner had the “Livery Stable Blues”l itigation

run its unsuccessful course , than someone took a closerlook at the reverse side of the platter. Song publ ishersJoseph W. Stern and Company (now Edward B . MarksMusic Corporation ) of New York claimed that the trioof “Dixieland Jass Band One-Step” had been pilferedfrom one Of their numbers,

“That Teasin’

Rag,” written

by Joe Jordan in 1909 . Jordan had since sold his copyright to Stern and so Stern brought action against theOriginal Dixieland Jazz Band , based on the rather weakcoincidence that two bars of the trio were similar. Victorimmediately withdrew al l available copies of the recordfrom its distributors and reissued them with new labelson which the phrase “Introducing ‘That Teasin’

Rag’

was added to the title, thereby turning the number into amedley and accounting for the discrepancy in labels thathas intrigued record col lectors for more than forty years .

In the meantime LaRocca beat a weary path to thedoor of the publishers and, in a conference that lastedfour hours, succeeded in salvaging one third of the

royalty rights to the number he had composed . The othertwo-thirds were rel inquished to the company, who stil l

The Case oi the“L ivery S table B lues

publ ish the Original Dixieland One-Step, al thoughThat Teasin’

Rag”has long since been discontinued .

Although Livery Stable Blues” (al ias“Barnyard

Blues” ) disappeared from the jazz scene many decadesago, its companion Original Dixieland One-Step” hassince become the national anthem Of dixieland musicians. Probably no dixieland band presently in existencecannot render a version of it on request, and as a finaltribute to this great grand-daddy of jazz band compositions, the Edward B . Marks Music Corporation has re

cently publ ished a fol io of band arrangements known as

“The Original Dixieland Concerto” -

a fascinating medley of

“Original Dixieland One-Step ,” “Jazz Me Blues,

and Bal lin’

the Jack”—aimed at the vast market of

high school bands orchestras throughout the coun

Hot Lick s and Col d Wax

The Bol shevik revolution and the subsequent collapseof Russia in the spring of 1917 brought the morale oftheWestern nations to a new low. Effective al lied propaganda had whipped the passive indignation of Americans into a fervid crusade spirit, and when Germanyfinal ly extended its unrestricted submarine warfare to

the sinking of Belgian rel ief vessel s and American merchant ships in March of that year, it was the proverbiallast straw. On April 16, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany.

In New York City, the mass release of human emo

tions manifested itsel f in a number of ways . “War

j itters” brought a new boom in the entertainment business, as thousands sought escape from internationaltensions in the fast-moving night l ife ofManhattan. And

it was jazz music that struck the new tempo.

The Original D ixieland Jazz Band, encouraged bythe immediate success of “Livery Stable Blues,

”moved

into its greatest creative period, out of which emergedsuch classic jazz compositions as “Clarinet Marmalade,

”

“Bluin’

the Blues,” “Fidgety Feet,

” “Lazy Daddy,”and

At the Jazz Band Bal l .” These numbers, which havebecome standards with every present-day dixielandjazz band, were born at Reisenweber

’

s during a series of

jam sessions held by the hand during the early hours of

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The S tory oi the Dixie land Jazz B and

the melody. But in the sense of classical music, especial ly symphony, where the theme is frequently sub

ordinate to the Overall score, the contributions of the

other musicians must not be overlooked .

Certain passages exist in many of the LaRocca com

positions in which the countermelody, more Often the

trombone part, becomes dominant. The chorus of“Fidg

ety Feet,”for example

,stripped of its counterpoint,

would sound more like a hymn than a jazz number. In

many cases, such as“Livery Stable Blues” and

“OstrichWalk,

”LaRocca instructed his musicians in just how

this counterpoint was to run. The musicians themselveshave al l testified to this in a court of law ( see Chapter

The whole arrangement, l ike the score of a sym

phony, developed in the m1nd of the composer beforethe first sounds were uttered .

Just where the autocracy of LaRocca ended and

the group effort began is a difficult matter for conjecture .

The world wil l never know, for there is l ittl e agreementamong the surviving members on this point. But al

though the evidence is mainly circumstantial , it is veryheavily weighted in favor of LaRocca .

Larry Shields comes to the foreground as the

second most important element in the group’s composingeffort. His great virtuosity, coupled with the very natureof his instrument, made him the

“showpiece” of the

band . Most of the “breaks” in the dixieland masterpieces are therefore clarinet breaks ,

” designed to Showoff the great skil l and imagination of this musician . The

ideas in the “breaks” are always Larry’s, and sometimes

his hand is demonstrated in the body of the chorus, as inClarinet Marmalade .

”For this reason

,the names La

Ho t L ick s and Co ld Wax

Rocca and Shields often appear together beneath the

titles on sheet music, arrangements, and phonographlabel s. (In al l other LaRocca compositions, the composeris presently designated as

“The Original Dixieland Jazz

Band,”the resul t of disputes that were never settled . )

The relationship of LaRocca and Shields was col laboration in its highest form, and the rehearsal s at which thesetwo men worked out the details of such scintil lating numbers as “

A t the Jazz Band Bal l” must have been memor

able occasions .The highly talented but intractable Edwards, ao

cording to LaRoccafs complaint, slept late in the day

and rarely attended jam sessions or rehearsal s . This traitperhaps suggested the title

“Lazy Daddy,” “Daddy”

Edwards being so named because he was the first bandmember to become a father. Eddie had married a showgirl in Gus Edwards’ review at Reisenweber

’

s in 1917,

and when l ittle Branford Edwards was baptized, Nickappeared in the role of godfather.

The absence of“Daddy

” Edwards at rehearsal swas a constant source of irritation to LaRocca, who wasanxious to develop a repertoire so extensive that the

band could play al l evening without resorting to

the works of other composers . It was al so found that theband was at its best in rendering its own compositions,that only the musicians themselves could provide the

custom-built framework so critical to their needs . ButEdwards was always confident of his abil ity to pick up

a tune on the job, relying on his quick ear and acute

memory to carry him through a new number. It is conceivable that he considered himsel f a superior musician,being the only member of the group who could read

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

music. In fact, LaRocca relates how Edwards woulddemonstrate new numbers received from the publishers,playing them over on his trombone directly from the

lead Sheets until LaRocca had learned the melody.

The fact that Daddy Edwards could read musicwaskept a closely guarded secret for many years . For publ icity purposes, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band wasproclaimed far and wide as a col lection of supremelytalented musicians, who, in the New Orleans tradition,

could not tel l a dotted eighth from a hole in the ground .

It is understandable, then, how a competent, formallytrained reader such as Edwards might well be consid

ered a dangerous reactionary and a threat to the sub

l ime musical virginity of the organization. He mighteven have been fal sely accused of playing from memoryinstead of by ear. That his versatil ity was intentional lyunderplayed must certainly have gal led Edwards, whowas known in private to mock the audience’s adulation.

“Oh, aren’

t we wonderful ?” he would exclaim.

“We

can’

t read music !”

In real ity, the abil ity to read music is neither a helpnor a hindrance to the jazz musician Whether style isinfluenced by the manner in which a faker” conceiveshis music—the abstract patterns which take the place ofmusical notes in his mind ’s eye— is an open question forpioneering psychologists .

The Dixieland Band was set up as a co-operativeenterprise, but no organization can progress withoutcentralized leadership . By mutual agreement LaRoccahad originally been appointed musical leader and Ed

wards the business manager. These two senior membershad always considered themselves a partnership. Ed

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LAND JAZZ BAND in New York, JanuaryLeft to right, Larry

Nick LaR occa, and

TH E ORIGINAL DI ! IE

1917 . R eisenweber’

s demanded tuxedos .

Shields, Eddie Edwards, Tony Sbarbaro,

Henry R agas .

AL DI! IE LAND JAZZ BAND at R eisenweber’

s . Tromrds did not ordinarily stand inside the piano.

FRONT COVER of V ictor catalog for March 17, 1917

the world’

s first jazz phonograph record.

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SOOTH ING THE SAVAGE BEASTS at Central Park Zoo

AND BAND in 1922 . R obinson got mad, Shields got

eft to right, Henry Vanicel l i, Artie Seaberg, Laards

,and Sbarbaro .

AND BAND in 1936. They coul d stil l out it. Left tords

, Sbarbaro, LaR occa, Shiel ds, R obinson .

EARLY R ECORDING Tfeaturing the Original Dixiel and Jazz Band .

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

is that a pecul iar quirk in his musical mind made it impossible for him to repeat a tune exactly as he heard it.His imagination was so violently active that there wasno room for exact interpretation. The tunes that madesuch an impression on his mind at concerts in NewOrleans were not remembered in the ordinary manner.

When he returned home to try them out on his com et,

entirely new melodies resul ted . It was not loss of memory but a continuous process of improvisation whichwent on in his brain.

He explains that the first part of Fidgety Feetcame out of an attempt at playing “Georgia Camp TownMeeting,

” written by Kerry Mil ls in 1897. By examining these two compositions, it wil l be noted that bothare of the same length and have a common chord pro

gression. Yet they are so different in melody and rhythmthat probably no one has noticed this basic similarity.

“At the Jazz Band Bal l” is another example of La

Rocca’

s method of composition in which the chorus isactual ly an improvisation of

“Shine On Harvest Moon.

”

Here again, the chord progressions are identical.Nowhere was the facul ty of deriving new melodies

from old ones more skilful ly exercised than in La

Rocca’

s Tiger R ag.

”But here the eclectic process in

volved not just one establ ished tune but several. Thefirst two bars of the verse were a note-for-note copy of

the get over dirty” phrase so popular with New Orleans

musicians of that day .

1The second part of the verse was

1 “Get Over dirty was not a ful l song, but merely a two-bar

lick —something l ike the“shave-and-a-haircut

”and

“over-the

fence-and-out”

routines—and had a certain esoteric significanceknown only to the musicians, in the manner of a private joke .

Ho t L ick s and Co ld Wax

actual ly a simpl ified version of London Bridge Is Fal ling Down

”in stop-time . The trick was not new and was

commonly used by vaudevil le orchestras to accompanyacrobatic acts. LaRocca’

S treatment, as was his custom,

was Sl ightly skeletonized .

The chord progression upon which the Tiger Ragchoruses were built was borrowed from the

“NationalEmblem March,

”but the melody has other origins . The

“riffs” 2 which comprise the second, or

“hone-

ya-da,

”

chorus began as a humorous imitation of the alto partin a German band . The third, or

“hold that tiger,

chorus evolved gradual ly from the hone-

ya-da

”se

quence through several stages of improvisation. The

first and last choruses were stil l further improvisations .If such Odd phonetic phrases as

“hone -

ya-da

”

sound contrived and unwarranted to the reader, theywere nevertheless of vital importance to the members ofthe Dixieland Band, most ofwhom could not read musicand had no other way of identifying the parts of theircompositions . “Hold that tiger” served the same functionbut did not come into use until the number was namedby the recording company . In passing, it is interestingto note that the tiger roar in the third chorus was original ly executed on com et.

The genius that manifested itsel f in such unfor

gettable music obviously did not extend to the printedword . Some of the names suggested by LaRocca for hiscompositions would have been more suitable for race

horses . Although “War Cloud” and“Belgian Dol l” were

2 “R ifl

”: A simple phrase , usual ly of two measures, repeated

for the duration of a chorus ; nowadays more frequently used as

the background to a solo.

The S tory of the Dixieland Jazz B and

timely, considering America’s entry into the war and

her popular sympathy for Belgium, the Victor Company,according to official correspondence, did not considerthem “particularly appropriate .

”J . S . MacDonald of

that company, who had already created utter chaos bysubstituting “Barnyard” for “Livery Stable,

”was ready

with bright new titles . At his suggestion “War Cloudbecame “Fidgety Feet,

”and

“Belgian Doll” turned into’Lasses Candy.

”

The creative output of Nick LaRocca is partly re

vealed in Table 4 . This list, representing nineteen jazzcompositions, does not include his efforts in the field ofpopular songwriting, which resulted in

“The Army

Mule” “When You Rol l Those Dreamy Eyes”

(1917 )“King Tut Strut” and

“Some RainyNights In addition there were any number ofmelodies handed out to wel l-known but unscrupulouslyricists of the day, only to be stolen outright or plagiarized by competitors . Such productivity may seem even

more remarkable when it is considered that the com

poser, minus any faculty for reading or writing music,carried al l these numbers around in his head until someone showed an interest in transcribing them on paper.

With so many musical ideas straining to breakloose from the brain in which they were imprisoned , a

'

certain amount of confusion was inevitable . Certain petphrases of LaRocca

’

s, common to several of his com

positions, proved to be perilous traps for himself and

the hand during performances. He would sometimesstart out playing one number and end up playingother

, much to the consternation of his fel low musicians .

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The S to ry of the D ix ie land Jazz B and

Dancers close enough to the bandstand might see Ed

wards drop his horn and shout to LaRocca,“Hey, Joe !

Where youDuring the suit against the Victor Talking Machine

Company, fol low ing the“Livery Stable Blues” mix-up,

the band temporarily broke off relations with the com

pany . Max Hart secured a contract with the Aeol ianCompany , and in July of 1917 the band

[

went over to

Aeol ian Hal l to record several of their compositions (seeTable including the one that had already incited a

federal court injunction .

Al though disc records had by this time replaced theolder cyl inders, the controversy over lateral versusvertical (

“hil l and dale” ) recording stil l raged—a com

mercial conflict somewhat comparable to the battle of

the turntable speeds” in 1949,when Columbia’

s 33%

rpm long-playing record emerged victorious over RCA’S

45-rpm doughnut.” In 1917 Aeol ian,l ike Edison,

was

producing records with “hil l and dale” grooves , in

which the needle vibrated up and down instead of Sideways . Both Victor and Columbia had gone to lateral

recording because of the increased volume obtainable .

The final resul t of this “war of the needles” was that

lateral recording became standard, and Aeol ian,with a

fortune tied up in special ly built phonographs, went outof business . (They reorganized later using lateral re

cording methods . ) The old Aeol ian-Vocal ion records

3 LaR occa was nicknamed Joe Blade because of his shrewdbusiness manipulations. The phrase

“Old Joe Blade, Sharp as a

Razor” was coined by Eddie Edwards early in the band’

s career

and later became the title of a popular song composed by LaR occaand J . Russel Robinson.

Ho t L ick s and Co ld Wax

have Since become col lectors’ items and never fail tointrigue l isteners, partly because they can be played on

a modem phonograph without producing a s ingle sound !It is possible, however, to hear these records by turningoff the phonograph ampl ifier and keeping an ear closeto the pickup arm . Al though modern phonograph cart

ridges do not respond to vertical motions of the stylus,a certain amount of vertical vibration is picked up and

reproduced mechanical ly by the pickup head .

On July 29, 1917, the musicians gathered for theirfirst Aeol ian recording session. But the two numbersrecorded on that aftem oon—“Indiana” and

“OstrichWalk”— got only as far as the master disc. After hearingthe playback, both sides were rejected by unanimousdecision of the band .

“There it Goes Again and That Loving Baby of

Mine were similarly junked by the musicians . Edwardsrecal ls that Metropol itan Opera star Florence Eastman,

one of the earl iest fans of the Dixieland Band , was inthe studio when “That Loving Baby of Mine” was beingcut. The selection would have turned out quite to their

satisfaction, Edwards bel ieves , if Miss Eastman had not

been standing so close to the pickup born when she

shouted ,“Oh, boys, that

’s good !” The record was ruined .

The Dixieland Band did,however, wax seven sides

that met w ith their own approval and that of the recording company . These were released during the fal l of

1917 .

“Ostrich Walk,”in a faster tempo than on any

other record to fol low, reveal s the band at its peak of

prec1s10n, with Shields taking more l iberties than usualon the breaks . The choruses of “Oriental Jass” are someof the finest examples of LaRocca’

s driving syncopation.

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Oriental Jass was actually a number cal led Sudan,but the boys didn’

t know it at the time and who couldblame them for making up th eir own title? )

“Reisenweber Rag

”is interesting mainly as a lesson in how to

play the“Original Dixieland One-Step without getting

sued . To avoid spl itting any more royal ties with the

copyright owners of “That Teasin’

Rag”

(see ChapterLaRocca shrewdly improvised a new chorus for the

One-Step” and changed the title .

In describing its new series of jazz records, the1917 Aeol ian catalogue remarked : “

The fascination of

jazz music is in its barbaric abandon . Jazz was first introduced to the world a year ago by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and immediately captured the fox

trotting publ ic with its bizarre instrumentation and nu

ique rhythm . A full measure of the weird characteristicsresponsible for the remarkable vogue of this form ofdance music w il l be found in the record selections of theOriginal Dixieland Jazz Band .

”

It is indeed unfortunate that these curious old A eolian records, with their golden, rococco labels and un

orthodox playback requirements, are so incredibly rare

and that they cannot be played even when they are

found . In some ways they are superior to the famousVictor series . Proper balance among the musicians wasmore nearly achieved, with LaRocca more to the front,and less confusing echo is in evidence . And if dynamics,or

“Shading,”is considered new stuff to present-day

dixieland bandleaders, they would do wel l to l isten to

LaRocca’

s treatment of “At the Jass Band Ball” (Aeo

l ian No . Here the Dixieland Band decrescendosinto the second chorus and plays it at a mere whisper,

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S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

These Victor records of March—July 1918 (seeTable although not approaching the spectacular salesvolume of

“Livery Stable Blues, were successfulenough to saturate the market from coast to coast and

may still be found lurk lng in the dusty com ers ofsecondhand furniture stores .4

“At the Jazz Band Bal l appears to have been the

most successful . The Victor version is very Similar to theold Aeol ian, except for a much faster tempo . LaRocca

’

s

wel l -known style of“hitting before the beat”

?

is verypronounced on this disc, and his four com et breakscertainly come under the heading of musical pyrotechnics .

“Fidgety Feet, another fast one-step, shows off

the co-operation of the three wind instruments and theirflawless execution of every note . In the chorus LaRoccasuppl ies a mere framework for the ensemble—a subtle,skeleton mel ody with many openings for the quicklymaneuvering trombone and clarinet. His famous “flyingtackle” com et breaks are the outstanding feature of thisrecord and deserve careful attention. The four-bar introduction, l ike that of the

“Original Dixieland One-Step,”

was fashioned from the snare drum “rol l -off

” frequentlyemployed by parade bands . Comments the Victor recordcatalog of September, 1918 :

‘Fidgety Feet’

is a cleverpiece ofmusic by LaRocca and Shields in which a novel

4 RCA unearthed the ol d Victor masters a few years ago and

produced a ten-inch LP (Label “! ,

”No. L ! 3007) on which eight

of the original twelve numbers were reissued . More recently , a

group of five dedicated musicians on the West Coast have turnedout an LP album cal l ed Orig inal Dixieland Jazz in Hi-Fi (ABCParamount No. ABC-184) intended as an exact repl ica of the

historic 1917—18 releases. Al l twelve numbers are included on this

l 2-inch disc.

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

ing experiment in its day but quite common to modern

jam sessions.Clocking the speeds of these one-steps, it is inter

esting to note that “Clarinet Marmalade” is the fastest,and that four others are rendered at precisely the sametempos :

T ITLE M INUTEClarinet Marmalade

At the Jazz Band BallDixie Jass Band One-StepTiger RagSensation R agFidgety Feet

Of the slower numbers, Ostrich Walk and LazyDaddy

”are particularly designed for the clarinet. In

“Ostrich Walk,” Larry Shields takes no fewer than

fifty-one breaks, and although they are of short duration,

when considered col lectively they seem to form a melodyin themselves .

“Skeleton Jangle is a fox trot which was builtaround its trombone solo, reversing the conventionalprocedure . This trombone solo was inspired by FranzLiszt’s “Second Hungarian Rhapsody,

”so often played

by the O ld concert bands in New Orleans,and bears a

marked resemblance to it. The solo, played in the trombone’s lowest register, is heard twice on this record .

With its long, sustained tones , it is indeed a diflicult

passage, and any trombonist who has ever tried it wil lattest to the amount of wind it requires . Edwards re

call s that he banged his sl ide against a chair, jarringthe mouthpiece from his l ips and causing the pecul iarinterruption in the first solo .

Ho t L ick s and Co ld Wax

An indication that jazz was stil l a fad and not real ly

appreciated is found in the fol lowing blurb in the Victorcatalog for June, 1918 :

“A jazz band is a unique or

ganization of which it may be said the worse it is, thebetter it is. If you have heard a jazz hand before, and

feel that you already know the worst, try this record .

Yet out of the mass of sounds there emerges tunes, andas the music proceeds you get order out of chaos, and a

very satisfactory order at that. One that not merelyinvites you, but almost forces you to dance .

”

But whatever the reason, for its goodness or its badness, jazz was growing ever more popular. Eighteenmonths had passed since the Original Dixieland JazzBand had introduced the new music to New York City,and strangely enough

'

no competition had yet appearedon Broadway. Columbia, in a frantic attempt at findinganother genuine jazz band to Compete w ith Victor, sentRalph Peer, its Director of Artists and Repertoire, toNew Orleans to look around . After three weeks in the

Crescent City, Ralph Peer w ired back :N O JA Z Z BAN D S I N N EW O R L E AN SIn desperation, Peer stopped off at Memphis on

his return trip and brought back a colored orchestra ledby trumpet player W. C . Handy. The Handy orchestrarecorded half a dozen sides for Columbia, none ofwhichcommanded much publ ic attention . Handy remainedin New York and went into the music publ ishing business with his brother.

It was not until the arrival of Wilbur Sweatmanand his

“Original Jazz Band l ate in 1919 thatColumbia was again able to sel l “jazz” records on a

profitable scale .

Jazzing the Draft

The musical cyclone that swept New York in 1917 lefta multitude of enthusiastic but somewhat bewildereddancers in its wake . The bunny hug and turkey trot fel lfast into the discard as the driving, throbbing, agitatingbeat of jazz demanded an entirely new style of expression. There had been one-steps many years before“Fidgety Feet,

” “Sensation Rag,”

and the OriginalDixieland

,but here was a faster tempo and a new kind

of rhythm . The ol d establ ished patterns of dancingno longer fil led the bil l .

A few experts tried their hand at rel ieving the

confusion. The leading organization of dance instructorsknown as the Inner Circle held its annual convention In

New York in September and, as expected, jazz was themain topic of discussion . In an article entitled “

How to

Dance the Jazz,”appearing in the New York American

of November 18 , 1917, they advised as fol lows

The Jazz, the most nervous of music, is wedded to one

of the most erratic dances of the season .

Eccentric as is the fickle, changeable, erratic dance it

has the approval of the Inner Circle, the body of dancingteachers that stands for progress in the terpsichorean art in

America. At its convention, held in New York in September,it recommended the Jazz as a kind of paprika of the evening

’

s

programme. The Jazz is the evening’

s romp.

The convention selected four dances as the leaders of the

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

The one-step, original ly the vehicle for the quicklymoving music, was fast being replaced by a new dancepattern . Jazz was becoming slower and swmgl er, and

across the country dancers were developing new vari

ations of the fox-trot that had swept into popularitywith “Bal l in’

the Jack . From San Francisco’

s BarbaryCoast came Frank Hale and Signe Patterson, a vaudevil le dance team bringing with them a new western craze

cal led the “shimmy-shewabble, later to be known Sim

ply as the“shimmy.

”

That Frank Hale’s native Chicago was the birthplace of shimmy

”as wel l as of jazz appears evident

from the research of various experts who, by stretchinga point or two, have been able to trace this dance backas far as the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893.

The so-cal led “Egyptian Dancers”who performed their

scandalous “hootchy

-kootchy”on the Exposition’s mid

way may wel l have been the pioneers of the dance craze

that was to sweep the nation almost three decades later.

It seems l ikely that the “kooch” dance was first appl iedto popular music about the same time as the word “jass

,

and that the new version of this dance— the“shimmy

shewabble”

-was actual ly a by-product of the first

“jass” music played in that city by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band . Its westward m igration evidently beganwith vaudeville troupes of that period, who were respon

sible for its immediate popularity on the Barbary Coast,and especial ly in what were then known as

“closed dance

hal l s .”

Unl ike the Charleston Of the next decade, the

shimmy”was primarily an exhibition dance , l imited

mostly to the musical comedy stage and to the very'

Jazz ing the Draft

young, athletic, uninhibited, and—above al l— daring .

Strictly a solo routine, it was performed with the toestogether, the heel s apart, and the arms raised almost toshoulder level . From that position, it was simply a

matter of putting the shoulders in motion and lettingnature take its course . The general publ ic, however,was content with the slower fox-trot, with its body-to

body clutches and cheek-to-cheek intimacy .

In November of 1917, the Original DixielandBand formed a vaudevil le act with Hale and Patterson

and opened at Keith’s Colonial Theater. Variety reportsthe success of the “jazzy syncopated

” shimmy-shewabble

in its issue of November 30 :

Frank Hale and Signe Patterson haven’

t been dancing to

gether Since last spring and although for several weeks theyhave been framing the present routine, it is said they opened

cold at the Colonial Monday matinee . Some changes wereeffected for the second performance, probably in the way of

el iminations. Whatever it was, the team went over with a hangat the night Show. One thing chopped after the matinee was a

Chinese orchestra, and at night the Chinks draped themselvesin fancy regalia in the rear of the back hangings, Sitting amid

smoking incense . This was, however , merely during the second

number billed as the dance Quan Chung,” a waltzy thing thatthe dancers did very prettily, garbed in creations celestial . The

Opening number was programmed as a comb ination of“Strut

ters’

Ball ,” “

Shimme-Sha-Wabble,”

and“Walking the Dog .

”

It is a dance number of the jazzy syncopated type. Mr . Hale

and Miss Patterson seemed imbued with the“let

’

s go”

spirit

during the dance and their efforts quickly brought the houseto a realization something was going on . After they exited for

the Chinese change, the“Dixieland” (five men ) orchestra took

up the pace with a flying start . This is the same bunch stirringup things at Reisenweber

’

s and they are“some jazz players .

Hale and Patterson were to have had two orchestras on the

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

stage, but after Monday night they should be satisfied that theChinese aren

’

t needed. The jazz players syncopated“China

town” for the dancers’ Chinese number and it sounded verygood. The boys also had two numbers alone, one being

“Livery

Stable Blues,”

and that alone planted them sol idly with the

house . If Hale and Patterson can carry the jazz players, theirnew turn is sure-fire. The final dance was the “Whirl ing Dervish,

”similar to the finish number of last season, but Hale is

robed as an East Indian prince and his partner shows consid

erable of her Slender form. Hale is accredited as one of the bestof what are known as syncopated or jazz dancers and the crowdsure took to his body evolutions. The pair went over an easy hit.

The busy musicians of the Dixieland Band barelyhad time to pack up their instruments, dash out of the

theater, and hurry over to Reisenweber’s, where theybegan playing nightly at ten o’clock. As if this were notenough, their round-the-clock schedule al so includedregular Sunday night concerts at the Winter Gardenduring the season of 1917—18, appearing on the samebil l with Jack Norworth, Frank Fay , Ed Wynn, ChicSale, and Fred Astaire . During the week, at this sametheater, A l Jol son was electrifying the crowds in Sinbad .

Then there were the private engagements forcedinto an al ready overcrowded schedule—everything froma senior dance at a girl’s high school in Mamaroneck,Long Island, on May 1 , 1918, to the fabulous privateparties of A l Jol son. The band played at three of theJ ol son events that year—one on St. Valentine’s Day,another on March 23, and stil l another on June 1 . Theseparties , held at the various homes of JOlson

’s friends onLong Isl and, were lavish affairs. LaRocca recall s that“champagne flowed like water” and beautiful girls

abounded by the score . Nick, however, was a teetotal ler,

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

hours of a jazz musician. The applicants had strippedand were standing in a long jagged line awaiting theirmedical examination, when Nick’s dancing shoulderbegan its erratic movements . One of the doctors, whohad been watching this phenomenon from across theroom , came over, pul led the wavy-haired cornetist outof l ine, and had him stand in a corner, where the otherscould not see him.

“DO you always do that?

” demanded the doctor.

Do what?’

asked Nick .

This,” said the doctor, jerking his shoulder.

Nick went on to explain he had been under treatment many months for this nervousness with l ittle suc

cess . Another doctor came over and expressed the

opinion that the whole thing was an act and demandedthe name of the special ist who had been treating him .

Other physicians joined the consultation until LaRoccawas compl etely surrounded by doctors, no two agreeingon the exact meaning of the symptom . Final ly one of

them waved LaRocca back to the cloakroom.

“Get out of here,

”he ordered,

“before you haveus al l doing it.”

The bandleader was classified 4-F because of the

malady, but the federal agents tailed him for a few

weeks just to make sure the twitch stayed with him .

These investigators could be seen sitting at a table inReisenweber

’

s , in the Greek restaurant across the Circle,where LaRocca usual ly ate , and sometimes in the firstrow of the Colonial Theater .

1LaRocca

’

s ailment re

mained with him during his l ifetime but seemed directly1 From the author

’

s interview with Nick LaR occa, July, 1957.

Jazzing the Draft

connected with his musical expression, for it rapidlyd iminished after he quit the entertainment business .

Larry Shields was l ikewise deferred from the draftbecause of a highly sensitive nervous system thatcaused him many sleepless nights . While the OriginalDixieland Band was playing at R eisenweber

’

s, Edwards ,Shields, and Sbarbaro rented a room in the Reisenweber Building . Edwards recal l s the nightmares of

Shields and remembers especial ly one particular nightshortly after the clarinetist had received his draft notice .

Larry woke up screaming,“They

’

re coming after us !”

The jocular Edwards, disturbed from a sound sleep,shouted back,

“That’s right. Better have your musketready !”

But although LaRocca and Shields had been re

jected by the medical board and Sbarbaro was too youngto worry , the troubles of the Dixieland Band had not

yet ended . Just when the jazzmen considered themselvessafely through the storm, their ship was upset by a

mighty blow. On July 20 , 1918 , Eddie Edwards wasdrafted .

Although the first reaction was one of panic, the

musicians quickly adjusted to their problem . It may havebeen Nick LaRocca’

s steadfast determination and un

wavering confidence in r

the Original Dixieland JazzBand that kept it from breaking up during this criticalhour. Edwards played with the band until the date of

his induction ; on July 30, 1918 , when the trombonistmarched off to Camp Upton

, NewYork, to join the 152ndDepot Brigade of the famous Rainbow Division

,the

four remaining members boarded a train for New Or

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

leans in search of a substitute. It is interesting to notethat although the Original Dixieland Band at this timewas the highest-paid dance orchestra in the world and

could have its pick of almost any trombonist on earth,the members were forced to return to their home townfor the replacement.

Then a most amazing, almost unbelievable thinghappened . Instead of accepting one Of the many dozensupposedly competent tailgate men who had been clamoring for the job in the Crescent City, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band selected a com et player and taught himto play trombone !

Emile “Boot-mouth Christian, a comet player of

no mean abil ity who had played with many smal l combinations in New Orleans and Chicago, now took overthe trombone chair in the hand he had for so long idolized . Emil e had been a close buddy to the members ofthe Original Dixieland Band many years in advanceof their northward expedition in 1916, had cheeredthem from the sidel ines during their great success i nNew York, and it is likely to assume that he had thrownhis hat into the ring long before any substitutes wereneeded .

For five solid weeks the Original Dixieland JazzBand practiced at Larry Shields’ house in New Orleansbefore returning to the capital of jazz in the North. AsChristian had played sl ide comet and al ready knew the

sl ide positions Of a trombone, it was only necessary forhim to develop an embouchure for the larger mouthpiece.

Day after day, the Victor records were played over and

over on a wind-up phonograph while the industrious

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S to ry of Dixie land Jazz B and

week— then equivalentAmerican money.

But the greatest tragedy of al l was about to strike,an unexpected turn of fate that threatened to crush theband at the peak of its popularity .

The Silent B andstand

By late autumn of 1918 the great influenza pandemicthat was sweeping the world had sent many mil l ions ofAmericans to bed with aching bodies and high fever.

Nearly a half mil l ion of the more unfortunate had al

ready died from its compl ications . Although the healthy

young musicians of the Original Dixieland Jazz Bandhad survived the first two waves of the dread disease,the last and comparatively minor epidemic of that winterwas about to take its fatal tol l . Henry Ragas, whosephysical condition had been severely undermined bylate hours and an excess of alcohol , was an easy targetfor influenza .

Henry’s decl ine had begun the previous summer.

Plagued with family problems that drove him to distraetion, he quickly turned to drink as the only escape . In

November, real izing the gravity ofHenry’s state ofmind ,

LaRocca had sent him home to New Orleans in hopesthat he could straighten

”

out his personal affa irs . Butwhen the anguished pianist returned to the band earlyin December, matters had grown only worse, and as he

lost himsel f in alcohol his absenteeism from the bandstand became more frequent and of increasing duration.

A fail ing appetite and lack of nourishment brought onthe - l ong chain of miscellaneous illnesses, the inevitable

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

flu, and now pneumonia . The other members of the

band contributed to Henry’s expenses during his longperiod of unemployment, but medicine, doctor bil l s,room rent, meal s, and a hundred debts had left thedying pianist totally destitute.

His fellow musicians, who had stayed away duringthe flu contagion (or because of the vicious bul ldog hekept in his hotel room ) , now cal led regularly at Ragas’

bedside . LaRocca remembers that the despondent pianisthad lost al l desire to live.

The end came at Bel levue Hospital around eighto

’

clock on the cold and gloomy evening of February18 , 1919

—just two days before the band was to sailfor England . A few days later the fol lowing blackbordered memorium to the twenty-eight-year-old musioian appeared simultaneously in al l New York newspapers :

In fond remembrance of our dear pal and pianist,H . W. Ragas, who departed from this worldFeb. 18 , 1919. May his soul rest in peace.

The Dixieland Jazz Band

The loss of Henry Ragas was a tragedy of majorproportions to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band forprofessional as wel l as personal reasons . The rhythmof the new jazz music had been the hardest thing to

imitate, and in this respect the piano was the most important instrument. Although he had never taken a lessonin his l ife and could not read music

,Ragas was beyond

doubt one of the greatest ensemble pianists in the historyof jazz. His

“heavy” left hand provided a strong chordfoundation for the structure of the music, while his

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The S to ry of the Dixie land Jazz B and

tion if the band did not follow through with its Londoncommitments .

One afternoon, while Nick sat unhappily in hislonely room at the Pontchartrain, nervously fingeringthe valves of his cold cornet, his reverie was interruptedby an unfamil iar knock on the door. The caller, a dappergentleman with a neatly trimmed moustache, introducedhimself as J. Russel Robinson. Word of the band’spredicament had been passed up and down publ ishers’

row , and Robinson, who was manager forW. C . Handy’spubl ishing firm, was anxious for a crack at the job.

Later that day he sat in with the band at a practice ses

sion and amazed the members by play ing a solid pianopart behind every one of their original numbers .

Robinson’s adaptabil ity to the style of the Dixieland Band was no accident of nature . Although he wasborn in Indianapolis on July 8, 1892 , most of his youthwas spent in the South . Feel ing the wanderlust at an

early age , he and his brother, the late John C . Robinson,formed a two-man piano and drum team and played insilent movie theaters in the larger cities throughout theSouth, beginning in Macon, Georgia, in 1908 , and spanning the Gul f to New Orleans . On Canal Street theyplayed for the Herman Fitchenberg Enterprises

, 3

company operating the Wonderland, Dream World,Princess, and Alamo theaters . Russ claims that theywere known as the hottest piano and drum team in thatcity. In 1909 his first composition,

“Sapho Rag,”was

only the first of more than six hundred publ ished worksto fol low, including such perennial favorites as

“Margie,” “Mary Lou, and Singin’

the Blues .Russ and his brother played along with the first

The S ilent B andstand

phonograph records of the Dixieland Band when thesediscs began flooding the South in 1917, picking up the

new rhythm and learning the original Dixieland com

positions as they played through their daily routines atCanal Street nickelodeons . When Russel , wel l imbuedwith the D ixieland spirit, returned north a few yearslater to cut piano rol l s for the QRS Company, it wasonly natural he choose the Original Dixiel and OneStep (QRS No. 100800 ) as his first number. At the

time he joined the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1919he had cut hundreds of rol l s for this company and was

already known throughout the country for his outstanding work in this field .

Although the Dixieland Band played its last engagement at Reisenweber

’

s in the latter part of January,1919, the band continued to rehearse there for anothermonth. With Robinson on piano they finished theirvaudeville stint on the Keith circuit and made lastminute preparations for their historic misson of carrying jazz across the seas to Europe.

London : Spreading the Gospel

Larry Shields bounded up the stairs of the Pontchartrain Hotel four steps at a time, so anxious was he tobreak the news . On the third floor landing he spottedNick LaRocca, spun him around a few times in an awk

ward waltz pivot, and blurted his glad tid ings : he and

Clara had just been married .

“Buy me another ticket, exulted the lanky clari

netist.“I’

m takin’

my family along .

”

Four years earlier in Chicago,when Larry was

playing with Tom Brown’s hand, he had first met thegirl of his dreams . Lamb’s Café was then one of theWindy City’s most popular spots for dancing, and ClaraBel le Ferguson and her beaux had come there oftento turkey-trot to the l ively tempos of the Band fromDixieland . It was here that Clara first became acquaintedwith the New Orleans clarinetist ; and now, just a few

weeks before the Original D ixieland Jazz Band was tosail for England, they had become man and wife .

The trip to England was, therefore, more of a

honeymoon than a job for Larry—not that playing theclarinet was ever real ly work for him to begin with . On

March 22 , 1919, he and Clara waved farewel l to the

Manhattan skyl ine as the R .M.S . Adriatic steamed out

of New York harbor carrying the members of the now

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

The five American musicians warmed up on the

stage as a terrified group of British journal ists huddledtogether in a far corner of the theater. Their reactions tothe sounds of jazz are typified in this release in the

April 10 issue of The Performer

I had an experience the other evening . Whether I’m to be en

vied or not depends on personal tastes a semiprivate ex

position of real jazz by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. At

least I was told by Mr. deCourville that this was THE OriginalDixieland Jazz Band, and from the noise

“kicked up Imay wel l bel ieve him I am assured that there are only two

original jazz bands in America. Why two, I cannot say I’

m

told that the other of the two original bands is but an imitation ;a fact which seems to clear the atmosphere somewhat. ThenI’

m told that the Dixieland lot are the original , so it seems that

poor America has to be content for the nonce with a mere sub

stitute

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band opened at the

Hippodrome in the musical rev1ew “Joy Bel l s

”on April

7, appearing in a special ly staged café scene . The

ovation fol lowing their first number was deafening, duein large part to the number of American doughboysscattered throughout the audience . Many of these hadbeen fans of the Dixieland Band before the war, had

heard them on the first Victor records, and now came

to cheer and applaud their idol s . The fever spreadthrough the theater until every last man and womanwas ! on his feet

,shouting and clapping in a manner

pecul iarly un-British. That night when the curtain came

down , George Roby, the star comedian of the show,

approached deCourvil le in a seething rage and servedhis ultimatum : Roby orthe jazz band would have to godeCourvil le could have his pick. And so it was that the

London : Sp read ing the Gospe l

Original Dixieland Jazz Band was permanently removedfrom the cast of “

Joy Bells after an engagement thatlasted exactly one night.

Town Topics, in its is'sue of April 12 , conjured up

an explanation of the mysterious disappearance :

The Dixieland Jazz Band appeared in Joy Bells at the Hip

podrome last Monday but since has been withdrawn, presum

ably on account of that ubiquitous complaint, influenza. On

the occasion of their performance, they gave us a demonstra

tion of undiluted jazz, and it must be admitted, despite all that

has been thought and said to the contrary, there was a certain

charm in the mou‘

rnful refrains, dramatical ly broken by cheeryj ingles and a miscellany of noises such as one generally hears

Especially fascinating to Town Topics was the use

of solo “breaks during ensemble'

choruses, as this reporter goes ou to explain

At one moment, the whole orchestra would down tools whileone member tootled merrily or eerily on his own account, and

the whole would resume again, always ready to give a fairhearing to any other individual player who suddenly developeda

“stunt .

”The conductor was most urbane about it al l

,but

everybody was perfectly happy, not excluding the audience who

appreciated a novelty not unartistic.

Tony Sbarbaro recal l s with a chuckle that everyBritish orchestra at that ‘

time used two drummers, one

for the bass drum and one for the snare . It is easy tounderstand, then, how the London Daily News seemed soobsessed with Tony

’s drum instal lation : “The trap

drummer who plays the big drum with his feet and a

side drum, the cymbals, and heaven knows what besides, is the most important man of them al l

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

DeCourvil le was not worried in the least aboutgetting stuck with a jazz band. Newspaper reports, a

near-riot at the Hippodrome, withdrawal of the bandfrom “

Joy Bel l s, al l had served to arouse public interest. Thousands sought the oportunity to hear this strangemusic firsthand, if only out of curiosity, and few Londoncafé owners were unwil l ing to give it a try . The OriginalDixieland Jazz Band opened at the Palladium on April12, drawing this wry comment from The Star, April 19

It is an interesting study to watch the faces of the dancers

at the Palladium when the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, whichis said to be the only one of its kind in the world, is doing itsbest to murder music. Most are obviously bewildered by the

weird discords, but some, to judge by their cynical smiles,

evidently think that it is a musical joke that is hardly worthwhile attempting. Perhaps they are right.

Weekly periodical s continued to battle one anotherover the relative merits of jazz, witness this quote-withina-quote from Pa l l Ma l l, April 23

‘

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band has arrived in Londonsays an evening paper. We are grateful for the warning.

—Punch

I can’

t help thinking Mr . Punch left the sentence unfinished ;it should have continued, surely :

“for the warning to go to the

Palladium early and book seats.

”

Despite the relentless attack on them by the Londonpress, the Dixieland Band became increasingly popular.

Alternating between the Pal ladium and a theater inGlasgow, Scotland, they pulled down the Americanequivalent of per week. There was standingroom only wherever they played .

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The S to ry of the D ixie land Jazz B and

company official s were so overcome by the agitatingbeat of jazz that they signed the band for another sevenplatters (See Table

The last five of this series, including titles such as

Mammy O’

Mine”and

“I Lost My Heart in Dixieland,”

are a real“find

”for connoisseurs of good dixieland

jazz, for they are the only existing recorded exampl esof how the Original Dixieland Band actual ly soundedon standard dance tunes of the day , numbers more

commonly played by the band for dancing. As such,they are much slower and more relaxed . It is a nostalgic,plaintive, melodic kind of jazz—perhaps “

melodic”

describes it more closely than any other word . Better balance is achieved among the wind instruments

,as com

pared with the Victor series, with LaRocca’

s inimitablesyncopated cornet driving steadily but with amazing easethrough the wel l -composed ensembles .

Emile Christian’s counterpoint is always in goodtaste , and the work he does in “Satanic Blues” rankswith the best of Edwards . The wal tz numbers, such as

“Al ice Blue Gown,

” prove that LaRocca’

s distinctivehabit of rushing the beat—the very root of his syncopation—was not l imited to four-four time, and that waltzesactual ly can be jazzed without altering their basic time .

Unfortunately, his bril l iant syncopation in the chorusesof

’Lasses Candy is largely buried under the prominent clarinet-trombone counterpoint, but when these“l icks” come to the surface they reveal a kind of synco

pated phrasing dupl icated by no other cornetist The

band again recorded what was cal led Oriental Jass on

the Aeol ian disc, this time under its correct title,

London : Sp read ing the Gosp e l

T A B L E 6Recordings of the Origina l Dixie land Jazz Band

(1919—1920 Series, England )

RECORDING DATE COMPANY BER TITLE

April 16 1919 Columb ia 735 A t the Jazz Band Ba11*Barnyard Blues**

May 12 1919 Columbia 736 Ostrich Walk*

Sensation R ag**

May 19 1919 Columbia 748 Tiger R ag**

Look at’em Doing it

*

August 13 1919 Columbia 759 Satanic Blues*’Lasses Candy*

January 8 1920 Columb ia 804 Tell Me*

Mammy O’

Mine*

January 8 1920 Columbia 805 My Baby’

s ArmsI’

m Forever Blowing Bubbles(wal tz )

January 8 1920 Columbia 815 I’

ve Got My Captain WorkingFor Me Now**

I Lost My Heart in Dixieland*May 14 1920 Columbia 824 Al ice Blue Gown (wal tz)

Sphinx**

May 14 1920 Columbia 829 Sudan**

Reissued on Engl ish Columbia No. 335 1087

Reissued on Engl ish Columbia No. 335 1133

PersonnelCornet Nick LaRoccaClarinet : Larry ShieldsTrombone : Emile ChristianDrums Tony SbarbaroPiano : (first four records) : J. Russel Robinson

( last five records) : Bil ly Jones

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Sudan. LaRocca expla ins that the tune was taughtthem by Frank Hale of the Hale 81 Patterson team for

accompaniment to one of their oriental dance routines,and that they never knew its right title until they arrivedin England .

Fortunately, al l seventeen sides of this series havebeen revived by the Columbia Graphophone Company intheir two recent LP reissues, The Original Dixieland

Jazz Band in England Volume 1 (No. 335

1087 ) and Volume 2 (No . 335 Excel lent photographs of the band with Bil ly Jones on piano grace thefront covers, backed up with wel l -worded commentariesby Brian Rust. In his commentary for Volume 1, Mr.

Rust expresses the feel ings of many

Of course, not everyone liked, or even approved of the

apparently crazy new music ; it was, and to some extent still

is, the target for a great deal of ill-informed criticism and dia

tribe from the pulpit, the Press and even pol iticians . But it

survives ; it has changed somewhat with the passage of years, as

any art form must, but the earl iest genuine jazz performances,

caught for us by the crude recording apparatus of those days,still sound as fresh and exhilerating as when they first bloomed.

Derided during the’

thirties,when everything was for Swing

and elaborate arrangements, original Dixieland music is now

accepted by young and old al ike, the latter perhaps with feelings of acute nostalgia, the former in the same spirit of inno

cent pleasure as their forebears of 1920. We have all found that,so far from being stiff and old-fashioned, the Dixieland rhythms

are much more supple than the metronomic chugging that

passed for“swing

” just before and during the second World

War, and the melodies had real tunes, that were not wearyrepetitions of threadbare phrases.

The Dixieland Band closed at the Pal ladium on

April 26 and opened two days later at the Martan Club

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Hotel for the great Victory Ball. Among those presentwere King George and the royal family, Marshal Fochand General Petain, General Pershing and his staff, theAmerican ambassadors, and al l the crowned heads of

Europe . The 150-piece Marine Corps Band played forthe ceremonies preceding the celebration . On hand to

provide dance music was the Original Dixieland JazzBand . While the teddy bear atop Tony Sbarbaro’

s hugebass drum waved a miniature American flag, the New

Orleans musicians opened the dance program with the“Star Spangled Banner,

”astounding the multitude of

guests by playing nearly as loud as the much largerMarine Band . When they stopped playing, cries of“Bul ly !

”and Viva !” echoed from the gaily decorated

rafters of the hall . With the house now firmly on theirside, the Dixielanders immediately stomped off with a

steaming version of“Tiger Rag.

” Soon the dance floorwas a tossing sea of bright-colored uniforms, lavish eve

ning gowns, and gl ittering jewelry, as dignified peopleoi a dozen national ities explored their talents for doingthe American one -step . Meanwhile, a squad of Marine

Corps musicians gathered around the bandstand to find

out how so few men could play so much music.

Before the expiration of the deCourvil le contract,LaRocca negotiated a deal with the agency of Mitchel land Booker, who in turn secured a job for the DixielandBand at Rector’s, 31 Tottenham Court Road, beginningJune 29 . The band had its longest stay at this club, playing for crowds that grew constantly in size until a largerplace was cal led for. Mitchel l and Booker then arrangedthe engagement at the Palais de Danse, a huge dance

London : Sp read ing the Gosp e l

hal l at Brook Green, Hammersmith . Robinson, however,didn’

t l ike the move, felt that the band was losing it’

s

prestige , and walked out on October 11 . That same

night he was replaced by Bil ly Jones, the British pianistwho had been studying the jazz piano style very assiduously during the four months his own hand had beenalternating with the Dixieland at Rector’s .

That a larger hal l was demanded to accommodatethe growing number of jazz fans in England is borne out

in the gate receipts for opening night,when the Palais

de Danse boasted the amazing total of paid ad

missions . The whole character of the Palais soonchanged due to the new music, as an entirely differentcl ientele replaced the original dance hal l crowd . On

November 22 the Palais de Danse Opened as a nightclub, complete with tables, drinks,waiters, and brandnew decorations. In its first issue, dated April , 1920 ,the Palais Dancing News published an interview withNick LaRocca in which he is purported to have claimedthat “jazz is the assassination, the murdering, the slayingof syncopation. In fact, it is a revolution in this kindof music I even go so far as to confess we are

musical anarchists. our prodigious outbursts are

seldom consistent, every number played by us ecl ipsingin original ity and effect our previous performance.

”The

editor, having thus skil ful ly translated LaRocca’

s American slang into King’s English of incredible pol ish, wenton to proclaim that the members of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band were “

musical geniuses . for they are

unable to read from music, and play from memory, thusconcentrating their attention on producing and inventingnew

,but appropriate and much appreciated, dance ac

The S tory of the D ixie land Jazz B and

companiments. Such an insight into the true nature ofjazz was indeed advanced for this early period .

Mitchel l and Booker were Optimistic enough to

exercise the six-month option clause in their contract,

securing the band’s engagement at the Palais until June26, 1920 .

A short vacation following the Palais job gaveLarry Shields and his bride their long-awaited chancefor a honeymoon in France. Clara had been studyingFrench for a whole month in preparation. But her newlyacquired knowledge was never put to use, for they wereescorted al l over Paris for two weeks by an old friendof Larry’s—a French juggler he had met in vaudevil lemany years before.

Meanwhile , back in London, the dashing, wavyhaired leader of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band con

tinned to“make out

”l ike a best-sel l ing novel ist at a

garden club tea party. Reports that the cornetist ro

manced with nearly every girl in London are grossly exaggerated, as he had time to meet only hal f of them. In

fact, the tour of the Dixieland Band in England ended ona sl ightly sour note when an enraged Lord Harrington,father of one of London’s most beautiful debutantes,chased the hand down to the docks at Southampton witha loaded shotgun in his trembling hands . Years later aFrench magazine writer, delving into the mysterious pastof the famous jazz band, inquired of its leader :

“Why came you never to Paris?”

LaRocca replied ,“I was lucky to get out of Eng

land alive !”

The Dixieland Band , safely aboard the S . S . Fin

land, left England at P .M . on July 8, 1920, and

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The S to ry of the D ixie land Jazz B and

Well , Joe, I guess we’

ll go to Paris as soon as I can get

my combination together. Mitchell asked me if I could get themen over . I said yes, LaRocca told me if I wanted anybody tolet him know, and Mitchell said, Wel l

, I guess LaR occa willwant a commission . So, from what I see there

’

s no chance of

getting a commission .

So please do me the favor and help Stein and the men

over for me I would like Philip Napoleon on cornet and

Johnny Costello on clarinet And Joe, take a tip from me,

from what I understand Old Man Harrington is going to fill

you ful l of bullets if you ever put your foot in England again .

So be careful and watch yourself if you ever intend to come

back to England.

Oh boy, I got the Sphinx we made on the record and Imust say the more I play it the better it sounds !

But the situation was fraught with problems, as

evidenced by LaRocca’

s reply of October 3 , 1920

308 West 58th St. October 3, 1920Dear Emile

I have seen those boys, but what can I do? It takesmoney to start things, and furthermore the com et player

wil l go over providing he has his own hand, or is willing to

use you on trombone How are we to get these boys overwhen they cannot be shown where there is work? You can

hardly expect anyone to put out the money for passports, etc.,

without a contract and the necessary fares advanced or paid

by Mitchel l .

I can see you are stuck for men . What I would doif I were you is to get your band started with men you can

pick up over there,as you know just why I left on the same

account. I sat down many evenings to think of a way of get

ting men over but finally came to the conclusmn that I waslosing time

I understand Stein is going with Bea Palmer’

s act, so

that wil l leave him out Giardina has gone back to Chicago,Sharkey to New Orleans, and now the only boys left are the

London : Sp read ing the Go spe l

Napoleon bunch, and they seem to want to go together as a

band. But from the com et player they expect to get big jack,and you say Mitchel l will not pay the money .

Just received the English records and let Edwards hearthem, and he said they were great They are the best wemade in England. You can hear every instrument plainly, andat that the clarinet is too loud, but they are the best we made in

London.

So the plans for another American jazz band inEngland fel l flat as Emile joined an outfit cal led the

Broadway Sextette, which played around London forabout a year. In 1921 ” he left Britain to play with theAmerican Five at the Frol ics Café in Paris and stil llater at Zel l i

’

s Cabaret in the Montmarte district. Aftera year with Harry Boschart

’

s ten-man dance band inGermany and other parts of central Europe, Emile re

turned to Zel l i’s. Then, from 1926 to 1930 , he held a

trombone job with Lud Gluskin’

s famous fifteen-pieceorchestra , which had a virtual monopoly on the top jobson the Continent. Travel s through India and the MiddleEast occupied his later years and it wasn’

t until 1939

twenty years after he had left for Europe with the

Original Dixieland Jazz Band—that Emile Christian re

turned to his native New Orleans . A t the time of thiswriting he is plunking a terrific bul l fiddle in Roy

Liberto’

s Dixieland outfit at the Famous Door on Bourbon Street.

A t the Threshold of the R oaring Twenties

Significant changes had taken place in American jazz

while the Original Dixieland Band was touring England .

Tin Pan Al ley had monopol ized the field and was turn

ing out jazz tunes in mass production, just as it had

done earl ier with ragtime. Singers like A l Jol son, BillyMurray, Arthur Fields, Frank Crumit, and SophieTucker had become an important part of the scene . Al

most every jazz band had been enlarged to include a

saxophone and sometimes a banjo, or even a tuba. But

jazz was stil l hot,still popular, and stil l played by ear.

Broadway had not forgotten the quintet of New

Orleans boys that had started this musical swampfire

nearly four years earl ier. When the S . 5 . Finland

steamed into New York Harbor on July 17, 1920, carrying the members of the Original Dixieland Band,booking agents were waiting on the docks .

.I . Russel Robinson, who had been playing societydances and some of the better hotel jobs with the or

chestras of Mike Markel , Meyer Davis, and HaroldStern since his return to the States, now was prevailedupon to rejoin the old combination. Back in the trombone chair was Eddie Edwards, who had been dis

charged from mil itary service in March, 1919, just a

month after the band departed for England . At that time

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Chicago, had put in a stretch with Bert Kel ly, and now

was contributing his reedy tril l s to the Whiteman effort.

But the crowds stil l flocked to the Fol ies to bedriven 1nto madness by the tantal izing syncopation of the

Original Dixieland Jazz Band . Featured with the bandon opening night and widely advertised in the New Yorkpress was a vivacious blonde whose provocative bodygyrations had begun to attract the attention of Broadwayimpresarios . Her name was Maryanna Michal ski, butshe was bil led as Gilda Gray,

“The Sweetheart of

Shimmy .

” Although Hale and Patterson had introducedthe shimmy to New Yorkers four years earl ier, it wasundoubtedly the electro-dynamic personal ity of GildaGray that made the nation shimmy-conscious, began a

wave of moral protests, and thereby carved her name

permanently in the annal s of show business . (Gilda’s

husband, Gil Boag, was co-owner of the Fol ies Bergere,a coincidence which in no way obstructed her future . )

On opening night Gilda tripped out to the center ofthe dance floor in a bright red dress gl ittering withspangles and, while the Dixieland Band whipped up a

chorus of“Indianola,

”she generated a chassis move

ment that singed every tablecloth within six paces . Asl ightly inebriated customer at a nearby table shouted,“Hey, what do you cal l that?”

“I’

m shaking my shimmy, that’s what I’m doing,

chirped Gilda .

Her stay at the Fol ies Bergere was quite brief. Ina letter to Emile Christian (now back in London) onlynine days after opening night, LaRocca wrote as follows

A t the Thresho ld of the R oar ing Twen ties

Wel l , boy, we’

re cleaning them up around here . Our come

back is great and shows Mitchell was wrong when he said theywould not stand for our music on Broadway any more . Well ,

the girl who was working with us was let go, as the people justwent wild over our return and didn

’

t need any other attrae

tion When we get working together in about three more

months we will have a band that wi l l run anything off Broadway . A s we stand, we clean them out.

The golden-haired singer went on to shake hershimmy in the Ziegfeld Fol l ies and was shortly the rageof the nation. As her fame began to spread she sought tofan the fire by buying double-page spreads in Variety,the very publ ication that had only a year earl ier de

rided shimmy as“a vu lgar cooch dance at best.”

But the Dixieland Band suffered no shortage of

shimmy within its own ranks . Nick LaRocca, whosedancing talents rival ed his musical genius, often steppeddown from the bandstand to dance with the customersor

“shake a wicked shoulder” in his own version of the

shimmy. Variety, in describing the Dixieland Band invaudeville , remarked with restrained surprise that “

one

of the players shimmies while playing.

” Regular patronsat the Fol ies frequently requested this dance routine,the movements of which were improvised in a manner

parallel ing the music to which it was danced . Anotherleft-handed cornetist, Sharkey Bonano, who is no slouchhimsel f at the impromptu shimmy, stil l remarks withenthusiasm,

“Man, could that boy dance !”

The popul arization of the . shimmy brought abouta wave of shimmy songs, such as

“Shim-Me-Sha-Wab

ble,” “Shake It and Break It,

”and I Wish I Could

Shimmy Like My Sister Kate .

”But oddly enough, these

tunes were not in a suitable rhythm for shimmy and

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

were usually sung rather than danced . The OriginalDixieland Jazz Band was responsible for the popularityof “Sister Kate in the North long before the song waspubl ished as sheet music in 1919 ; and its New Orleanscomposer, A . J. Piron, entered into correspondence withNick LaRocca relative to its recording . In a letter datedAugust 13, 1922 , he commented as fol lows :

My Dear Mr. LaR occa

In reference to paragraph 5 of your letter, will say thatI am unable to make a complete statement concerning turningit over to a large publ ishing concern, as I have already severalcontracts from different concerns to be considered, but in the

meantime I will appreciate anything that you might do to

record“Sister Kate” or any other number of mine, and you

can rest assured that you will be greatly recompensated for

same

For some time I have felt that the title I Wish I CouldShimmy Like My Sister Kate

”was a little out of date, and for

that reason I have changed it to“Sister Kate” with a rearrange

ment of lyrics, and in a few days you will receive the new out

fit which I hope you can use to a great advantage .

Now, trusting that you will be able to use the numbersI am sending under separate cover, I am

Yours very truly,A . J. Piron

It is unfortunate that Sister Kate was never recorded by the Dixieland Band

, and it is logical to as

sume that the financial arrangements were not madeattractive enough to LaRocca.

But the most popular new hit of the twenties camefrom the poetic imagination of the man who sat at the

keyboard of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band . One

afternoon at the Folies Bergere, J. Russel Robinson ar

rived at rehearsal with the lead sheet of his latest brain

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

dition of another wind instrument destroys the cl assicpattern of five-piece dixieland jazz . The tenor sax con

flicts with the trumpet, having nearly the same range,and is only effective in special ly arranged passages . Forthe most part the trumpet (often muted ) plays in unisonwith the saxophone ; the saxophone, probably closer tothe pickup horn, dominates the melody . There are sec

tions of these records where the saxophone is used withinteresting results, but they do not make up for the

deadening effect on other parts of the ensemble . If toomany cooks can spoil the broth, this is one indigestiveexample . Even as played by the accompl ished BennyKrueger—undoubtedly the greatest sax technician of

that period—the instrument fail s to find a niche for itsel f among the complex interlacing strains of the music.

LaRocca, too, had gone“modern” by substituting

a trumpet for his faithful cornet, the latter having beenpatched and welded in two places where the bandleader’sfingers had worn completely through the brass ! If anymusical instrument were ever a monument to the ardorof its master, the original cornet of Nick LaRocca holdsthat distinction.

The relunctance of old-time musicians to switchinstruments or buy new ones is best explained by EddieEdwards “Musical instruments are l ike automobiles ,

”

he says . Nowadays almost any car you buy is a good’

one, but in the old days if you found a good one you

considered yourself lucky. It was the same way withmusical instruments

, especial ly horns. When you finallylocated a good one, nobody could make you part withit.

”

The commercial influences of the early twenties are

A t the Thresho ld of the R oaring Twenties

readily apparent in the six Victor records released bythe Dixieland Band during 1920 and 1921 (see Table

Conspicuously absent is the uninh ibited , freelycreative spirit of the old Dixieland five . Gone is thatclose, sensitive co-operation which made the first six

records an historic work of genius . LaRocca stil l carriesthe melody as he alone can, but this time it is someoneelse’s

, for the Original Dixieland compositions havegiven way to the catchy but ephemeral songs of Tin PanAl ley. The fox trot has now replaced the one-step en

tirely , as wel l as nearly al l other forms . Shields stil l“noodles” on his clarinet, but only when he feel s he can

get away with it.Nevertheless, the experienced judgement of King

and MacDonald proved correct. After al l , the VictorCompany was a profit

-making organization interestedprimarily in sales . In this respect, the end product wasmore than gratifying.

“Margie flooded the market whenit was first released in 1920, ringing up sal es far intothe hundreds of thousands of copies . Today it is the mostcommon recorded example of the Original Dixieland

Jazz Band to be found anywhere in the world, even ifartistical ly by far the worst.

It was original ly decided to back up Margie withthe Dixieland Band’s distinctive arrangement of “

In the

Dusk.

”But although two master records of this number

were cut—one on November 24 and the other on De

cember l—apparently the Victor peopl e felt that toomuch of the old hot jazz was stil l show ing through.

“In

the Dusk was accordingly junked and a more melodicsubstitute cal led for. Here LaRocca stepped in and once

The S tory of theDixie land Jazz B and

T A B L E 7

R ecordings of the Origina l Dixieland Jazz Band

(1920—1923 Series )RECORDINGDATE

1 1920 Victor

4 1920 Victor

Victor

Victor

May 3 Victor

Victor

Victor

1 1921 Victor

2 1923 Okeh

2 1923 Okeh

18717

18722

18729

18772

18850

4841

ca. Jan. 1921

ca. Feb. 1921

Not Released

ca. June 1921

Not Released

ca. July 1921

ca. Dec. 1921

March 1, 1923

March 1, 1923

TITLEMargie

In the Dusk

In the DuskSatanic Blues’Lasses CandyMargie

Pal esteena

BroadwayRose

Sweet Mamma

Home AgainBlues

Crazy BluesSt . LouisBlues

Jazz Me BluesSt. LouisBlues

Satanic Blues

Royal GardenBlues

Dangerous

Blues

Bow Wow

Blues

Toddl in’

BluesSome ofThese Days

Tiger R agBarnyardBlues

RELEA SE DATENot ReleasedNot Released

Not ReleasedNot ReleasedNot Released

ca. Dec. 1920

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

ate, the Gramophone Company, Ltd.,and it nearly in

volved the Dixieland Band in another lawsuit. TheColumbia Graphophone Company claimed that the re

lease violated its contract with the D ixieland Band,which provided that the New Orleans musicians were notto

“make any records whatever for reproduction by any

sound recording or sound reproducing machine or de

vice for any talking machine or record manufacturer inthe United Kingdom save for Columbia.

” As a conse

quence thereof, Columbia advised they were discontinuing payment of royalties to the band . LaRocca, now

acting as his own attorney, pointed out that the secondVictor series was made after the band had left the territorial l imits of the United Kingdom and that an artist,

by the very nature of his work, is unable to control thesales of his product. Through an involved correspondence he final ly succeeded in recovering the royalties,which evidently were not considered worth fighting overby the company, the HMV records of the Dixieland Bandhaving by this time reduced sales of the Columbia rec

ords to a negl igible amount. Thus the band had sufferedthe strange fate of competing with itsel f !

“Broadway Rose” was recorded thirty days later,as the band attempted to dupl icate the smashing successof

“Margie .

” A daring experiment is tried in the titlesong, with trumpet, trombone, and saxophone playingmelody in unison. After the medley tune the tromboneagain returns to the foreground to take a straight soloon the second chorus, with Benny Krueger showing off

his well -developed technique and the other muted instruments forming a background . The

“home stretch” is

more conventional dixieland, and J . Russel Robinson

improvises about the saxophone melody and takes a

wel l -executed break . The musicians do somethingvaguely resembl ing singing m certain sections of thisrecord ; at the end Nick LaRocca, from his positiontwenty feet from the pickup horn, drops his trumpet toshout,

“Yessuh ! Sweet Mama ! Papa’s gettin’

mad !” This

is the only Dixieland Band recording in which the voiceof a member 1s heard . (This ending phrase was oftenused by LaRocca at dances to whip up audience reaction.

After “Tiger Rag, for example, he would be heard toyel l Yes-sub ! That’s the

Home Again Blues” is easily the best of the series .The first part undoubtedly contains the most powerful,confident, sharply cut trombone breaks ever recorded.

If they sound a bit“corny” to the modern musician, he

may wel l note the date of the record , for the originatorsof a “

hot lick” must never be blamed for the number oftimes it is repeated . The second chorus il lustrates LaRocca’s newly acquired practice of playing counterpointand contains an outstanding break by Larry Shields .“Crazy Blues,

”on the other side,

“travel s” in a steady,

unbroken course . After an interesting rendition of“It

’

s

Right Here For You,

”the trombone steps to the spotl ight

in a solo of deep, rich tones,as Krueger improvises

about the melody.

Although most of these renditions lack the sin

cerity of the first enthusiastic efforts of the band in1917, occasional snatches of real ly beautiful jazz are

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

stil l to be heard, isolated areas where the fervid spiritof the old five breaks through the hard, glossy finish of

the first commercial jazz. Shields and Krueger workvery wel l together. Their duet in the second hal f of“Jazz Me B lues,

”a device wherein the clarinet rides

over the saxophone melody, is executed with great feeling.

After recording Jazz Me Blues, three weekselapsed before a decision was reached on a companionpiece . During this interval LaRocca was approached byW. C . Handy and his brother, partners in a music publ ishing firm known as Pace and Handy . Their businesswas tottering and they were hoping for one more songhit to put them back on their feet. LaRocca, with manyof his own compositions yet unrecorded, was not lookingfor new material He final ly agreed to plug Handy’s“St. Louis Blues, a song original ly publ ished in 1914,in return for a 10 per cent commission on music sales .The recording of

“St. Louis Blues” sold more than

copies , sheet music sales soared , and the Handybrothers were back in business . LaRocca, however, waspaid off with a rubber check which now occupies a spacein his scrapbook .

The Original Dixieland version of St. LouisBlues” is distinguished by its famous clarinet solo,orginated by Larry Shields and imitated so many timesin the succeeding decade that it became a jazz class1c.

J. S . MacDonald, not yet content with his streamlining of the Dixieland Band, now decided that the bandneeded a vocal ist. In New Orleans he discovered AlBernard, a blackface comedian and minstrel showsinger, and brought him north for the job. Bernard

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Chicago, sold very few copies and is undoubtedly the

rarest item of both series. The Original Dixieland JazzBand, once the world

’s greatest recording combination,

bowed out with the “Bow Wow Blues” and didn’

t return

to Victor for fifteen years .But the reactionary antl jazz forces that had begun

to make themselves felt in the recording industry hadnot yet reached Broadway . The old five-piece combination, minus saxophone and vocal ist, continued to bringdown the house at the Fol ies Bergere Café without anysupporting act. On January 24, 1921, an enthusiasticmanagement renewed their contract for another twentyweeks.

Then, just as the band had begun to pick up steam,

more personnel problems—more of those squabbles thatoften plagued the Dixieland Band and were ultimately

responsible for its col lapse— resul ted in new changes .An unfortunate misunderstanding had taken place withregard to Robinson’s smash hit “Margie, an argumentensued between the composer and other members of theband, there was the inevitable flare-up of temperaments,and LaRocca gave Robinson his two weeks’ notice . La

Rocca claims that Robinson had defaul ted on a promiseto pay the band a bonus in the event “Margie” wentover.

He was replaced on April 11 by twenty-

year-old

Frank Signorel l i, a pianist who was al ready fil ling up

the keyboard with more fingers than anyone el se in the

business. Born in New York City on May 24, 1901, he

had taken piano lessons only two years before beingovercome by a strong compul sion to earn a l iving at the

ivories . At the age of seventeen he was playing his first

A t the Thresho ld of the R oaring Twenties

professional job at an East Side cafe cal led the CentralOpera House, accompanying a popular blues singernamed Tess Giardel la who appeared nightly in blackface, bil led as

“Aunt Jemima.

”It was here during

1918 that Nick LaRocca and Tony Sbarbaro frequentlydropped by on their off-hours from Reisenweber

’

s to

hear Frankie attack the keyboard with an avalanche of

real ragtime . LaRocca and Signorell i later became closefriends and often went to parties together, Frankie playing the piano, and Nick, with seemingly inexhaustibleenergy, putting on his own song and dance act.

With Signorel l i 4 m piano the Original DixielandJazz Band finished out another successful two months atthe Fol ies, unaware of the long chain of misfortuneswhich was about to overtake them.

Polar B ears and R ed Hot Mammas

Man from both sides of the great dividing ocean had

now expressed his views, more often than not in pitifulconfusion, on the new jazz music. But what of the othermammal ian species? What was the unspoken opinion of

the savage beast himsel f? Was he real ly soothed by thecharms of music? A certain Dr. Norman Spier, who introduced himself to the scientific world as

“a psychol

ogist at large” (but neglecting to say from what) ,decided to have th is problem settled once and for al l .

From behind the wrought iron gates of New York’ sCentral Park Zoo there came, on the afternoon of April20, 1921 , sounds totally foreign to the animal world .

Strol lers through the park that day may have beenstartled to hear, high above the hysterical screams of thehyena, the frenzied wail of a jazz clarinet, while the

brassy blare of a com et mixed with the chattering of

orangutans . Further wafts of the spring breeze may

have brought forth a strange and undignified conversation between the mighty l ion and the snarl ing mascul inevoice of a tailgate trombone .

The more musical of these varied sounds emanatedfrom the horns of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band ,which was that day giving a command performance of“Barnyard Blues” for the benefit of scientists and savage

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The S tory oi the Dixie land Jazz B and

the tank, taking the boy along, and she wouldn’

t comeup until the musicians moved along.

”

“Ostrich Walk” was played for the first time before the l ion family . Ready to express a frank opinionwere Helen the l ioness, and her three offspring

,Edmes,

Cleo, and the giant male Ackbar. Edmes , as observed bythe New York Morning Te legraph,

“pleased the musicians by coming in with one note on the first break of

the tune . But Ackbar gave every evidence of disl ike,rearing furiously and lashing his tail .”

The jazzmen moved on to the cage of Bagheeta, the

black leopard, and struck up a chorus of“Satanic

Blues, fol lowed by several more l ively jazz numbers .As described by the New York World,

“he had lain like

a black coal in a dark corner, two burning points wherehis eyes were, and a red, hissing mouth, when the jazzwas played . But at

‘Lead , Kindly Light,’

he flew at the

bars, tearing toward freedom and the musicians, a picture of rage .

”

“It was fifty

-fifty with Bagheeta, adds the NewYork Daily News .

“He couldn’

t fal l for jazz, but heassumed a front row nonchalance just to show he was a

good fel low, until they tried ‘Lead, Kindly Light’

on

him , and then he jumped for the players . Bagheetawould stand the jazz, but no hymns went in his youngl ife .

Wil l is Hol ly, secretary of the Park Department andobviously no jazz fan, made the cynical remark

,

“Idon’

t see how this experiment wil l determine anythingof scientific value until the band begins to play somereal music. So far I haven’

t heard any

Commissioner Gal latin repl ied , Probably the ef

feet would be different if we should put the musiciansinside the cage .

”

A l ithe and graceful puma exhibited the nearestapproach to appreciation shown by any animal in the

building. When Eddie Edwards picked up his violin toplay

“Maid of the Mountains, a dreamy waltz, she

stepped across the floor and made hal f a dozen circles

of her cage in time with the music.

In the interests of science and a photographer,Ml le . Evelyn Valee, a beautiful Parisian dancer, washolding Billy Buck, a six-months-ol d k id, in her armswhen the five-piece combination of the Original Dixieland Band suddenly cut loose . Bil ly Buck did l ikewise,with spectacular results “

He wriggl ed end for end in

the arms of Ml le . Valee, reports the Tribune,“and the

beautiful Parisian danseuse, presenting a violently protesting tail to the Dixieland Jazz Band, was butted rightin her beautiful Parisian frock. Ml le . Val ee said‘

umph’ in beautiful Parisian and slung B il ly Buck withbeautiful precision right at the saxophone player, fromwhom he rebounded and scuttled away.

”

Betsy and Jewel l , the elephants,seemed to enjoy

the mus1c 1mmensely, but Dr . Pike was unimpressed .

“These elephants have at some time been on the roadwith a circus,

”he declared .

“They have a sort of circusinstinct and welcome any

‘ form of entertainment.Ringtailed monkeys shook their cage doors and

screamed, chattered, and raved, some with obvious del ight and some with wrath . B ig blue-nosed apes didjungle war dances ; Joe the chimp wept bitterly. Othersswung by their hands from a trapeze and banged theirfeeL rapidly against the wire netting of the cage . The

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

wilder the music, the better they liked it. OstrichWalkthrew most of the monkeys into shimmy dancing, whichcaused bandleader LaRocca to recall that music sometimes made human beings dance likemonkeys .

But the star oi the afternoon was Jim the polarbear. Although driven back to his cave under the rockswhen the ful l band played, he came out and shimmiedgraceful ly when, at the suggestion of Dr. Pike, Shieldsand Edwards harmonized soothingly on clarinet andtrombone . The New York Evening Journa l states that“of al l animals , Jim seemed the most appreciative . He

actually did a shimmy, starting the movement at his

nose as he cavorted at the top of his cliff cave and winding up with a genuine demonstration of the terpsichor

ean art al l over his body .

” While the learned Dr. Pikeoffered an involved scientific explanation of the strangeshiver, Head Keeper James Coyle merely remarked :“My Boy , I never seen that bear act that-a-way before !

”

On June 11 the Original D ixieland Jazz Bandclosed at the Fol ies Bergere and opened four days laterat Café LaMam e, on the boardwalk at Atlantic City.

For the twelve-week run they were paid eight hundreddollars per week, plus 50 per cent of the cover chargesover three hundred dol lars . Alternating on the sameprogram was Sophie Tucker,

“The last of the R ed Hot

Mammas,”who appeared with her own orchestra, bil led

as the Five Kings of Syncopation. Sophie had started as

a blackface comedienne in vaudevil le in 1906 . Afterhearing a small -time theatrical manager remark thatshe was

“too big and ugly

”to appear on the stage with

out a disguise, she had gone on to fame in the ZiegfeldFoll ies and had recently scored further successes in her

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

T E S T F O R O R I G I N A L I T YTwo or more of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band record

ings will be rendered on the Victrola sometime during the

Dance. Immediately following, the orchestra in person will

pl ay the same selections, proving that you are getting the

Original Band.

The highest paid band ever engaged to play for dance in

this city.

The committee guarantees this to be the original Dixieland Jazz Band or will refund money.

In many places special tickets were offered at re

duced rates for those who just came to stand and l isten.

But regardless of the publ icity value of the world’s firstjazz band, which could now be advertised as

“The Sen

sation of Two Continents,”not al l booking agents took

these prices lying down . Phil Harris, manager of the

Dance Guild of Scranton,Pennsylvania (

“Bookers of

High Class Dance wrote LaRocca

A lso wish to let you know that we have had Ted Lewis’

and Paul Whiteman’

s bands but at a much lower figure, and

think it will be very hard for you to book at a price solid to

any dance promoter in this state.

If you could consider a proposition of a week,I might be able to use the band. We have a hall in th is townthat holds 3000 people and woul d run your band at

guarantee on a basis .

Kindly do not book up your band for this town until

you hear from me in the next three or four days

The manager of Charlton Hal l, in Pottsvil le, Penn

sylvania,“The Most Beautiful Bal lroom in the Anthra

cite,” penned a similar response :

I can readily see that you never played dance work,when you make me a price that is impossible

Po lar B ears and R ed Ho t Mammas

I book for twenty-seven promoters throughout this sec

tion of the state . If I were to ask them for for one

night, they would think I were crazy . I have handled everyband in the country but your band I am playing Whiteman

himself and nine men, and they are getting just half what

you ask .

But for every booking agent that turned themdown, two would accept, and the Dixieland Band con

tinued to earn more money with five men than Whiteman did with ten.

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band m ight havecarried its successfuLtour into every state in the un ion,

had it not been for the replacement problems that con

tinued to haunt it. The temperamental Larry Shields,who had threatened to quit so many times that his warning was no longer taken seriously, submitted his twoweek notice to LaRocca on November 29, just seven daysbefore the band was to begin its two-week run at JackFiegle

’

s Dance Palace in Philadelphia. Larry alwayshated New York, which he cal led a

“cheese town,

”and

now the endless town-hopping and living out of a suitcase had worn him down. Homesick for his wife , whoran a beauty parlor in Hollywood, he was now determined to settle down in California . He remained withthe band for the duration of the Jack Fiegle job, and on

December 20 , 1921 , unscrewed his clarinet and packedit neatly into its long, narrow box.

Thus ended the career of the col orful LarryShields, considered by some to be the greatest jazzclarinetist of al l time . Some historians have

, m fact,mentioned Shields to the exclusion of any other musieian in the Dixieland Band . This is an unfair exaggera

The S tory of the Dix ie land Jazz B and

tion and is undoubtedly the result of desultory and

superficial analysis of the band’s famous Victor records,on which the clarinet of Shields cuts through the en

semble with extreme bril l iance, owing to the sensitivehigh-frequency response of the ol d mechanical recording equipment. It was almost as if the recording devicehad been designed especial ly for Larry

’s clarinet.Nevertheless, Larry Shields wil l go down in history as

the father of the“noodl ing” style and possessor of one

of the most powerful clarinet tones on record . Heard inperson, his volume was nothing short of astonishing. He

used a very hard reed, and Edwards recal l s that Larrywould pick up and use reeds that other clarinetists haddiscarded as useless . Some of his runs have never beenexactly dupl icated , al though many have tried , and someexperts have attributed this to the fact that Larry—a

sel f-taught musician—fingered his instrument incorrectly.

Finding a job in Cal ifornia was, at the offset,no

great problem for Shields . Among the vast army of fanshe had won at Reisenweber

’

s before the war were GeorgeJessel , Lou Holtz, Fannie Brice, Lou Clayton,

SammyWhite, and a hundred others now successful in Hol lywood . They had tempted him with jobs in the magicWestern city and were quick to make good their promises . Through his many friends Larry landed job after

job in the film capital and el sewhere in Cal ifornia .

Six years later, with the advent of“talking pic

tures,”he was frequently hired for bit parts in the mov

ies, appearing as clarinetist in café scenes . But as his

friends disappeared from the limel ight and lost their

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

turned to his hotel room with an advanced case of pneumonia, and the Balconades soon found itself with a ballroom ful l of dancers and no jazz band . Quick to fil l thevacancy, Frank Signorel l i l eft LaRocca to form the

Original Memphis Five, taking along clarinetist JimmyLytel . This new band, which was to become second onlyto the Original Dixieland in historical significance, al soincluded Phil Napoleon on trumpet

,Miff Mole on trom

bone, and Jack Roth on drums . Phil and Miff had beenfrequent visitors to the Balconades.

However, the relationship of these two great organizations neither began nor ended at this point in history.

The first band to cal l itself the Memphis Five—PhilNapoleon (cornet) , Johnny Costel lo (clarinet) ,

”

Moe

Gappel l (trombone ) , Frank Signorel l i (piano) , and“Sticks Kronengold (drums )— had been formed at

Coney Island while the Dixieland Band was in England,although Signorel l i is quick to point out that this band“real ly didn’

t amount to much and seems reluctant togive it mention. Its members were stil l adol escents during the Coney Island phase and it is reasonable to as

sume that they were stil l suffering the musical growingpains so characteristic of the traditional , sel f-taughtjazzman. For if there is one distinguishing element in

the makeup of an old~time jazz musician, it is that helearned the hard way and often fought an up

-hil l battleto master hi s instrument. It was frequently from thisstruggle that an original style was born.

Phil Napoleon had been the advance guard of thatgrowing group of young musicians that had hauntedR eisenweber

’

s almost every night before the war whenjazz was beginning to take its grip on New York . One of

Po lar B ears and R ed Ho t Mammas

the most rabid fans of the new music, the young Napoleo-n called frequently at LaRocca

’

s hotel room to find

out how certain“licks” were executed, or to gain other

musical pointers from the popular bandleader.

When the Dixieland Band returned from Englanda few years later, Napoleon was surrounded by a wholecult of up

-and-coming jazz musicians . These enthusiastic

youngsters, who were much in demand in jazz-hungryNew York, often gathered with members of the Dixieland Band “

after hours” for jam sessions and the in

evitable rounds of nocturnal revelry, in which girlfriends played no l ittle part. This colorful weld of New

York and New Orleans jazzmen painted the town a

gaudy vermil ion on more than one occasion, witness thefol l owing whimsical item in the New York Daily Newsof May 15, 1921 , while the Dixieland Band was stil lemployed at the Fol ies Bergere

25 SEIZED IN RA ID BY COPS , WHO POSEAS PARTY

’

S GUESTS

Ten Girls and Fifteen Men T0 0 NoisyCelebrants of Jazz Band

’

s Return

SPILL ALLEGED HOOCH

Dry Sleuths Go Through R eisenweber’

s

Wall and Raid C ircle Hotel

Ten young women and fifteen men, al l actresses, actors or

musicians, were locked up in West 30th Street Station earlyto-day on charges of disorderly conduct, after DetectivesLevine and Sheehan of Inspector Boettler

’

s staff had broken upwhat the prisoners indignantly declared was a respectableprivate party .

The detectives said they were passing No. 111 West 49th

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Street at 3 AM . when they heard a j azz band and other dis

tressing sounds from a l ighted room on the top floor . They

thought it was too much noise for that time of night and wentup. The man who opened the door was not cordial until the

detectives said they were from Greenwich Village and wouldlike to join the party .

They were admitted to a small room in which men and

women were sitting on beds, boxes and the floor . The bandwas playing. When all raised their gl asses to drink a toast,

the detectives showed their shields, whereupon every glass

crashed to the floor and the contents spilled.

A fter telling the men and women they were under arrest,

the detectives snooped around until they found a suitcase con

taining several bottles of supposed hooch, but they could find

no one who claimed ownership, so they charged their prisoners

with disorderly conduct and took them to West 47th Street

Station in two patrol wagons .

The prisoners declared there was nothing improper aboutthe party . They said it was in honor of the first anniversary of

the jazz band’

s return from Europe—it is a band well knownon Broadway—and that it was given late because they were all

professional people and many did not finish work until aftermidnight. Their resentment at having the party spoiled and

being carted to the station in the patrol was nothing to what itwas when they learned they would have to be locked up for therest of the night.

The accompanying photograph showed a l ine of

mus1c1ans and actors, coats over their arms, prominentlyincluding Napoleon, Signorel l i, Sbarbaro, and Shields .That wise old team of LaRocca and Edwards had evadedthe press photographer by ducking behind a desk beforethe flash went off. Al though the prisoners were finedonly a dol lar each, LaRocca complains that the judgeconfiscated his phonograph records and never returnedthem. A l l of which goes to show that there’s a jazz fanin every precinct.

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

intricate arrangements but, according to Signorell i,never played their introductions from written scoresas has been claimed by certain writers . They expl oitedthe principle of the solo “break” to its ful lest, just asthe Dixieland had done, and those contributed by Na

poleon, Mole, and Lytel are works of art. They recordedIWish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate six times

on six different label s, but Nick LaRocca contends thattheir arrangement is the one used by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band when Frank Signorel l i was playing withthem at the Balconades.

The l ife-span of the Memphis Five, under its ori

ginal leadership, was no more than a brief ten years, butduring that time it fostered some of the greatest namesin American dance music. Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Red Nichol s, Frankie Trumbauer, and Eddie Langal l had apprenticeship in this organization.

The merits of Signorel li’s ol d hand in the field ofwhat is now cal led dixieland jazz have been debatedfor decades, but of one thing we can be sure . For a

bunch of boys that had never been any farther souththan Coney Island , the Original Memphis Five did al l

right for themselves !

The March of the Moral ists

The antijazz movement that had started during the earlypostwar years now gathered momentum as indignantparents, educators, clergymen, and opportunist pol iticians sought to crush the music that had become the

symbol of a wild new era. These horrified members ofolder generation had tolerated jazz with disgust or

mild amusement while it remained behind cabaret doors,but now that the phonograph had brought it into mil l ionsof American homes and the dance hal l s of every l argecity resounded with wail ing saxophones and clatteringtrap drums, they were moved to action.

It was not the music itself, of course, so much as

the manners and customs associated with it that alarmedcivic leaders . Shimmy dancing, bootleg hooch, female

smoking, and premarital sex appeared as a shatteringdistortion of contemporary ethics . No tradition seemedtoo sacred . Even the heretofore stable Engl ish languageseemed doomed, as the word “

neck” rapidly changedfrom a noun to a verb . The elders saw it as the end of

the world . This revolt of the younger generation was induced by deep-seated psychol ogical il l s, and while jazzmay have been only the outward manifestation, it was

everywhere recognized as the cause .

Dr. Henry Van Dyke, speaking before the National

The S tory of the D ixie land Jazz B and

Educational Association in Atlantic City on February27, 1921 , declared that “jazz music was invented by_

demons for the torture of imbeciles . The State has thesame right to protect its citizens from deadly art as it

has to prohibit the carrying of deadly weapons, but Ido not think the law can reach the matter. It is spiritual .As teachers, let us not rely whol ly on the law to makepeopl e virtuous

That same year Mrs . Anne Faulkner Oberndorfer,the national chairman of the Federation of Women

’sClubs, advocated an al l -out war on jazz.

“We must famil iarize ourselves with the music that is being usedin our school s, clubs and homes,

”she declared .

“We

shal l be surprised, even horrified, with what we shal lfind, but it is time we knew. Jazz in its original formwas used as the accompaniment to voodoo ceremonies .Is it any wonder that the largest industries whichstarted community singing during war times have beenforced to forbid the singing of jazz in any of their factories?”

The New York Hera ld applauded this movementto substitute music for the j ingl ing clatter cal led jazz”

and commented as fol lows

It is an interesting plan of campaign . That it would at

once exorcise the demons of jazz discord now rampant is probably too much to hope . Their name is legion . They have established a tenacious grip on the territory they have invaded. But

with the Federation of Women’

s Clubs warring in earnest on

jazz ultimate victory may be safely predicted. Jazz cannot

stand the l ight of widespread education in real music,and the

Women’

s Federated Clubs, under the leadership ofMrs. Oberndorfer, intends to turn a submerging flood of that light upon

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

demned lascivious dances in order to raise an effec

tive dike against the rising flood of neo-paganism”and

asserted that they must be combated as moral con

tagion. A decree of the Synod , publ ished at the sametime, named the prohibited dances

We energetically reprove those dances which are lasciv

ious, either in themselves—such as the“fox-trot

,

”the

“tango,

”

the“shimmy, the

“cheek-to-cheek,

”the

“turkey-trot,

”the

camel -trot,”the one-step,

” “two-step, and others of the same

kind, by whatever name they may be cal led—or in the manner

in which they may be executed—as in the case with the waltz,the polka, and other dances which are commonly danced todayin a lascivious manner

The Literary Digest ofMarch 22 , 1924, echoed thepublic cry in a series of articles blasting the populardances . In an article titled “Trotting to Perdition” it

stated

Medical men are not noted as ethical extremists, and it

is, therefore, all the more significant when they join the chorus

of religious leaders and pol ice matrons in condemning certain

types of modern dances as relics of jungle days, saying, we are

told, that these degenerate dances are as morally harmfulamong civil ized peoples, and that they are to be regarded as

traps set to ensnare innocent feet . In New York an amazingcondition of immorality has been found to exist in twenty percent of the public dance-hal ls

Immoral excesses of the worst sort exist in some of the

dance-hal ls of New York, according to the report of a four

month’

s survey The extremely indelicate and immodest

practices of these places constantly call for the most rigorous

regulation by city authorities

It was inevitable, then, that the indignation of the

straight-laced element would worm itsel f into legisla

Dancing in all of Broadway’

s jazz palaces, as well as inthe dingiest hal l in the old Bowery district, is to be broughtunder municipal control The Commissioner of Licenses in

New York is to be dictator of dancing . He can decide whetherthe shimmy is immodest ; just what kind of fox trot or turtle

slide young girls may dance in publ ic without endangeringtheir morals and how late the youth and graybeard of the

metropolis may dance at night without risking their healthThese regulations are all contained in the Cotillo bil l , whichamends the city charter in relation to the regulation of dance

hal ls.

The Commissioner, exercising his newly vested

powers, thereupon outl awed al l jazz and dancing on

Broadway after midnight. This spelled the beginning of

the end for jazz in New York City, as dance hal l managers were now forced to lower musicians’ wages to a

level where such work was no longer profitable.

These were the conditions facing the OriginalDixieland Jazz Band on April 10 , 1922 , when LaRocca,now recovered from pneumonia, reorganized his groupfor a two-week run at the Flatbush Theater in Brooklyn.

Replacing Signorel l i and Lytel , who were at the Balconades with the Original Memphis Five , were Artie Seaberg ou clarinet and Henry Vanicel l i on piano. The

original nucleus of LaRocca, Edwards, and Sbarbarostil l

nremained intact.

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Fol lowing the Brooklyn job, Sixti Busoni sent themto his Rosebud Bal lroom at Coney Island for the sum

mer. They opened there on May 13 and moved over toBusoni

’

s Coney Island Danceland two days after the

Fourth of July.

While the band was engaged at Coney Island,LaRocca and Edwards l ived within commuting dis

tance at Sheepshead Bay, Long Island . Here they wentinto partnership on an eighteen-foot motorboat, whichthey used for fishing and short excursions up the Hudsonto Poughkeepsie and the Pal l isades. Fishing was almosta regular afternoon ritual for the two musicians, whoworked al l night and slept al l morning. LaRocca recall sthat they sometimes fished for drowned bodies to helpthe authorities and were even loaned a grappl ing ironby the pol ice department. On stormy nights LaRocca

(who could not swim ) could be seen wading out into

the Sound in water up to his neck to moor the boat, aswaves broke over his head . Around his waist was a rope,the other end held on the shore by the laughing Edwards,ready to pul l him in when the chore was completed .

LaRocca, who bel ieves he was the first man to catchlobsters in Sheepshead Bay, constructed his own trapsand baited them with fish heads left over from the

previous day’s catch . He concedes that Edwards wasthe superior fisherman and would usually haul in twicethe number of fish for an afternoon, but when it cameto shel l fish the cornetist had the edge . He trapped as

many as a dozen lobsters in a single night. The care

taker who picked up the garbage from the ir cabinsnoticed the lobster shel l s and began wondering howanyone could buy so many lobsters . The secret was out

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

of this record wil l be surprised to learn that these effectswere produced not with a conventional trombone mute,but with a special kazoo Edwards had modified for insertion into the hel l of the horn ! )

“Toddl in

’ Blues,”the

onl y recorded example of this LaRocca tune, appearson the reverse side . Edward’s army experience must stillhave lurked in his mind, for his trombone quite unex

pectedly does a jazzed -up version of the mess cal l as itssolo contribution, minus accompaniment. “BarnyardBlues” is nearly identical with the earl ier recordings,except for being rendered in a much faster tempo . Sea

berg, obviously coached by LaRocca, plays the Shieldsclarinet part faithful ly . Perhaps the most enjoyable feature of this newer version is the strong ensemble pianowork of Henry Vanicel l i

, who plays a solid four-fourmuch in the style of his predecessor, Frank Signorel l i .“Tiger Rag

”moves along at its usual pace, with

Don Parker volunteering saxophone breaks where oncenoodled the clarinet of Larry Shields .

The records were released on March 1 , but theOKeh series came to an abrupt halt when LaRocca discovered that they were being advertised by the companyas

“race

”records. Although the white Original Memphis

Five had recorded under the names of Ladd ’s BlackAces and

“The Cotton Pickers” in order to capture a

large share of the colored market, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band would have no part in this kind of

masquerade .

After a season on Broadway, the band was readyfor a tour of the New England states under the auspicesof the Victor Company, beginning on April 14, 1923,with a Society Tea Dance at the Copley Plaza Hotel in

The March of the Moral ists

Boston. That afternoon radio station WNAC made thefirst broadcast of a jazz band The Boston Herald of

April 8 announced the event :

New England radio fans, and especially those who lovethe jazz, have a big treat coming through the ether between4 and 5 o

’

clock on Saturday afternoon, April 14, when the

Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the favorites of two continents,

will play their own incomparable melodies at a society concert

and tea dance at the Copley-Plaza Hotel in Boston . One of the

features that wil l be broadcast from Boston on,that date wil l

be the latest dance sensation of Broadway, and the first time

played outside of New York,“The King Tut Strut, recently

composed by D . J . LaR6cca, the leader of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. R adio operators, fans and j azzers should be

at/their properly attuned receivers at 4 o’

clock on above date,as the first radio “Jazz Jubilee” wil l be wel l worth listening to,and if amplifiers are used it will be possible to foxtrot to the

latest Broadway favorites .

The New England tour met an untimely and tragicend on April 17 with what the musicians now refer to as

the“Bangor Incident.” The band, advertised in the

Bangor, Maine, News as“al l white and gentlemen,

”had

been engaged for a dance at the auditorium that Tuesday night on a $750 guarantee plus 50 per cent of thecoatroom and concessionaire privileges . The dance wasa huge success and was terminated by the feature of the

evening, a fox-trot contest for the handsome D ixielandTrophy. LaRocca , trusting dance managers about as faras he could throw a Steinway , always had an assistant onthe payrol l whose sole duty was to stand at the entrance

with a mechanical counter in his hand and keep track of

total attendance . After the dance , when the musicianswent to the manager’s office to col lect their fee, they were

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

handed a flat $750 in cash with no cut on concessions .The story from here on has two versions : according toLaRocca, when he demanded his 50 per cent cut the

manager brandished a revolver in his face and told himto hit the road . The other four musicians scattered likescared rabbits, he says, l eaving him alone to hitchhikeback to New York with $750 cash in his pocket. Edwardsscoffs at the idea that he and the boys left Nick stranded.

He explains that when they asked for more money themanaged laid two Colt .45

’

s on the table and remarked,“This is al l we’ve got left. The musicians took this as asubtle hint, he says, and lost no time finding the nearestexit.

But whatever their mode of transportation, whatever their momentary disposition, the retreating troopsof the Original Dixieland Jazz Band eventually foundtheir way back to the big city and, probably after ex

changing a few cutting innuendoes, settled down to the

less lucrative but far more rel iable pursuit of furnishingjazz to the Broadway dance palaces . Yet even this standwas to prove untenable as commercial forces in the everchanging entertainment world closed in to deal theirfinal, fatal blow.

For LaRocca, the end was near.

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The Story of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Original Dixieland Jazz Band had been instrumental inintroducing jazz music to that section of the metropolis .The pages of Variety tel l the story. Long before the ap

pearance of Duke El l ington and Fletcher Henderson,long before King Ol iver came north, the Dixieland Bandwas playing vaudevil le bil l s in Harlem . These appearances continued after the band’

s return from England,and as late as 1922 they were stil l creating a sensation inthe colored colonies of uptown Manhattan. The theatricalsection of the New York American for Sunday, January15, 1922 , publ ished photographs of celebrated artists ofthe day then performing at Harlem theaters . Amongthose shown were V ie Quinn,

Eva Le Gal l ienne, and

Nick LaRocca .

And so now,in 1923, with no jazz to be heard on

the stage, in the bal lroom, or on phonograph records, itappeared to the crusaders that the dreadful musicalscourge they had worked so hard to stamp out had

final ly been wiped from the face of the earth. The deathof jazz was boldly announced

Jazz is dead ! Peace to its soul , though it gave little peace toothers !

The decl ine and fall of jazz, they say, has been going on

apace during the present theatrical season, as attested by the

success of the non-jazz musical offering in the New Yorktheater and the comparatively short runs of the attractions

featuring jazz music. But for once it seems probable that NewYork did not start a vogue, this particular one being the return

to sane music, and especially to sane dance music.

Musicians generally, and particularly leaders of dance

orchestras, are of the opinion that the march back to normalcyas regards dance music started in Boston, and with the Leo F.

R eisman dance orchestra, which has been engaged to come to

New York for the first time in“Good Morning, Dearie .

”

Fin de S iecle

Two years ago in Boston, Reisman, the leader of the

orchestra, was cal led upon to put together a dance organization

for the Brunswick Hotel . Jazz was then at its height, and, aside

from clarinets and trombones, the alleged musical instruments

of a dance orchestra included such melody makers as cowbells,whistles, sleighbel ls, cocoanut shells and even tin pans and

wooden rattles .

Reisman eliminated both clarinets and trombones and he

informed his trap drummer that he was to play only the drums,

while to the orchestra in general he issued the instruction that

it was to play only the notes indicated by the score and no

interpolated effects would be permitted The new tempo was

somewhat more deliberate than that usual ly set by a dance

orchestra and the rhythm was rather suggestive of a glide

than a hop .

“We do not depend upon our rhythm to create interest,

says its leader“We have found that the el imination of the

clarinet and trombone have been the greatest aids in gettingaway from the jazz suggestion . Both instruments have their

proper field, but we have been most fortunate with an instru

mentation consisting of two viol ins, a muted trumpet, a tenor

saxophone, a string bass, piano, and drums .

” 1

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band , with a steady

job and a fair fol lowing, were perhaps stil l unmindfulof the calamity steadily overtaking them. They continuedto play as only they knew how,

stil l producing good jazzbut for the most part riding along on their famous name

and past reputation . With the top-paying jobs gone and

the trend of dance music changing, there was certainlyl ittle incentive for new jazz compositions . A 1923 crea

tion of Eddie Edwards,“R itarding Cheese,

”never

played and never publ ished, remains as a grim reminderof those declining years .

The Dixieland Band swapped places with the Mem

1 From an unidentified cl ipping in the LaR occa Col lection.

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

phis Five during the winter of 1923—24, LaRocca’

s bandreturning to the Balconades and the Signorel l i combination opening at Busoni’s dance hal l in Brooklyn for theseason.

Then, on February 12,1924 , there occurred the

most momentous musical event of the decade . It was on

that afternoon of Lincoln’s birthday that Paul Wh iteman, weighing over three hundred pounds and dressedin faultless evening attire, mounted the podium at

Aeol ian Hal l in New York City and raised his baton on a

new era in popular music. It was the much publ icized“Jazz Concert, paradoxical ly enough

,that sounded the

death knell for jazz.

PaulWhiteman had come a long way over a strangeroute . Born in Denver on March 28, 1891 , he had beenraised in the environment of classical music. His father,who was supervisor of music for the Denver publ icschools , made certain that his son fol lowed academictradition in this field . While stil l in his teens Paul playedfirst viola in the Denver Symphony Orchestra, in the SanFrancisco People’s Symphony, and finally in the MinettiString Quartet. During the World War he directed a

navy band of fifty-seven men on Bear Island, California .

Subsequently he formed his own orchestra at the PotterHotel in Santa Barbara, and, after hiring pianist FerdeGrofe as arranger, introduced

“symphonic” jazz at the

Los Angeles Alexandria Hotel in November of 1919; In1920 he brought his nine-piece combination cast for a

job at New York’s Palais Royal Café . His new ideas for“dressing up

” jazz were everywhere warmly received ,and after returning from a tour of England in 1923 hebegan earnestly rehearsing his orchestra for the real iza

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

the bulky bandleader. The audience l istened attentivelyto everything and applauded whole heartedly from the

first moment,”he continues in his book .

“When theylaughed and seemed pleased with ‘Livery Stable Blues,

’

the crude jazz of the past, I had for a moment the pan

icky feeling that they hadn’

t real ized the attempt at

burlesque—that they were ignorantly applauding the

thing on its merits .”

Then, as the five men disappeared into the sea of

tuxedos that engulfed the stage, the entire Whiteman

ensemble gave forth with the new sound in Americanmusic—“Symphonic Jazz.

” Simpl e hack tunes such as

“Yes, We Have No Bananas” and

“Alexander’s Ragtime Band” were embel l ished with impressive crescendos and sudden changes of tempo, as hashy brasssections alternated with sluggish viol ins amid the mounting rumble of kettle drums . Flutes, oboes, bass clarinets,four sizes of saxophone, octavions, celestas, flugelhorns,euphoniums, basset horns, French horns, and a basstuba augmented the traditional jazz instrumentation to

usher in the era of“sweet” dance music that was to

dominate the entertainment world for nearly two decades. Among the twenty-three men who “doubled on

thirty-six instruments were such famous names as pianistZez Confrey , composer of

“Kitten on the Keys,”and the

versatile ex-bandleader Ross Gorman, who kept busywith ten different reed instruments .

It is no wonder that New Orleans clarinetist GusMuel ler became seasick and had to head for the wings .Whiteman, in his book, relates his experiences withGussie

Fin de S iécle

Gus Mueller was wonderful on the clarinet and saxo

phone, but he coul dn’

t read a line of music. I tried to teach

him, but he wouldn’

t try to learn, so I had to play everythingover for him and let him get it by ear . I couldn’

t understandwhy he was so lazy or stubborn or both . He said he was neither .

“It

’

s l ike this,”he confided one day .

“I knew a boy once

down in N ’

Awleens that was a hot player, but he learned toread music and then he couldn

’

t play jazz any more . I don’

t

want to be like that.”

A l ittle later, Gus came to say he was quitting. I wassorry and asked him what was the matter . He stalled around

awhile and then burst out :“Nuh, suh, I es

’

can’

t play that‘

pretty music’

that you

all play. And you fel lers can’t never play blues worth a damn !

”

The extreme in symphonic jazz was reached later inthe concert when guest artist George Gershw in sat downat the piano for the first publ ic rendition of his new con

certo, Rhapsody in B lue, accompanied by the orchestrain an arrangement by Ferde Grofe. To many, the themesounded suspiciously similar to

“Limehouse Blues,”

played earl ier on the same program.

The Whiteman concert marked the end of smal ljazz combinations, as music became sweeter and dancemanagers, booking agents, and theatrical producers demanded large symphonic” type orchestras . The orchestras of Paul Whiteman, Nat Shilkret, Horace Heidt, andGeorge Olson set the pattern on Victor records, whileLeo Reisman and Harry R eeser fol lowed suit on radio .

But the Dixieland Band played on,stil l pushing out

jazz in its pure form, stil l fighting the trend . The Charleston craze had started, and for awhile things lookedbetter. Dancers who never coul d shimmy had no troublemastering the new step—providing they could stand thepace . The furious, continuous round of parties—hooch,

The S to ry of the Dixie land Jazz B and

women, and song—continued for the Dix ieland Bandand their loyal fol lowing . LaRocca wore two-hundreddol lar suits fashioned by Manhattan’s smart est tailorand diamond rings that sparkled in the glaring l ights Ofnocturnal Broadway. In the afternoon he could be seenheading for Long Island in his fire-engine-red StutzBearcat. On the Long Island Speedway you could pay a

dol lar for the privilege of driving as fast as you l iked,and LaRocca, garbed in goggles and duster, with his capfitted backwards, tried to make his Bearcat fly. Whateverhis critics may have said of him, Nick LaRocca was partof the American scene, a participant in the Jazz Age hehad helped name .

Yet the fast life was not a happy one for the Dixieland bandleader. Music and women threatened to drivehim to madness, while friction within the band madeevery performance a trial . Edwards was clowning, heclaims , and every direction or suggestion he made wasmet with a juicy

“razzberry” from the mischievous trom

bonist. Life had become an unbearable nightmare forLaRocca .

Then, one night in January, 1925 came the col

lapse .

2 Nick LaRocca, suffering a complete nervousbreakdown, could carry on no longer and was advisedby his physician to give up music forever.

Leaving the Stutz Bearcat in a garage on 145th

2 The approximate date is establ ished through the corre

spondence of LaR occa (in New Orleans ) and Edwards (in NewYork ) between the dates of February 27 and March 26, 1925,

relative to the col lection of back salary from Sixti Busoni, ownerand manager of the Balconades. Edwards and LaR occa refusedto accept a settlement of secured by Local 802, and Busonidied in May , 1927, stil l owing the Original Dixieland Jazz Band

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The Lean Years

Crippled by the loss of its great cornetist and leader, theOriginal Dixieland Jazz Band quickly vanished intoobscurity. Eddie Edwards left almost immediately,forming his own hand for a job at Busoni

’

s RosemontBallroom in Brooklyn. Only one original member wasleft now—Tony Sbarbaro—and he was determined thatthe Dixieland carry on. Under his leadership the bandopened in New York at the Cinderel la Ballroom,

Broadway and 48th Street, with a new l ine-up . Tall , youthfulArtie Seaberg was stil l on clarinet, butWilder Chase hadreplaced Henry Vanicel l i at the piano, Harry Gluck tookover the trumpet spot formerly occupied by Nick LaRocca, and a trombonist by the name ofKaplan came al l

the way from China to replace Eddie Edwards. It wasWilder Chase, a close friend of LaRocca, who had beeninstrumental in getting Seaberg into the band back in1922 .

An embarrassing situation existed for a few weekswhen the bands of Eddie Edwards and Tony Sbarbarowere both bil led as “

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band .

”

The conflict was settled by a letter from LaRocca to

Sbarbaro, dated March 30 , 1925, in which the ex

bandleader assigned ful l rights to his former drummerfor use of the band’s name :

The Lean Years

If you think it advisable to hire a lawyer and you

would want to pay the expenses, I will give you all the support

you want in this matter, as I am sole owner of the name as it

stands and gave only to you the privilege to use same under cer

tain conditions . Of course, for me to stop him [Edwards] and

spend my money would not mean anything for me If youcare to seek legal protection, I am here to back you up, and

Toney I do not ask one penny from you and am only glad to

see you get along. When you do see the lawyer, explain the

matter that I am the owner of this name and give only you the

permission to use same

Eddie Edwards changed the name of his band toThe Southerners” and for a while Tony’s problemswere over. However, it appears that Harry Gluck had a

previous engagement and was able to remain with theDixieland Band only a few months while Tony searcheddesperately for a qual ified replacement. It was aboutthis time that Artie Seaberg heard rumors of a highschool boy who had been starting fires with his cornetover in Brooklyn, so Artie made haste to investigate . The

inspired youth was Henry “Hot Lips” Levine, a name to

achieve coast-to-coast fame over the radio networks inmuch later years but, because of an unusual set of circumstances, probably one of the most underrated jazzmen in history. It is not so much Henry Levine

’s workwith the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, which was cer

tainly far past its zenith when he joined,as it was his

outstanding accompl ishment of keeping dixieland jazzalive during its darkest years that entitles him to a prominent place in any book purporting to a complete ao

count of jazz history. Nevertheless, there is no doubt thatLevine’s memorable experience of playing with suchgreats as Seaberg and Sbarbaro during the most impres

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

sionable years of his life was of prime significance inthe moul ding of his musical personal ity.

Born in London, England, on November 26, 1912,Henry arrived in the United States at the age of six

months . Like the jazzmen of old, his talent for music wasmanifest at an early age . Before he had reached hiseighth birthday he had started cornet lessons and wasreceiving a thorough groundwork in theory and harmonyunder the able supervision of Max Schlossberg. But it

was doubtless a certain evening in 1922 that left its indel ible mark on his young musical mind . The precociouse ight-year-old had been taken by his father to a cafécalled Stauch’s on Coney Island , where he l istened, wideeyed, to the most thril ling music he had ever heard . The

great moment is best described in Henry’s own words :

Two bands were playing there, one large brass band on the

balcony called Eppy’

s and a five piece jazz band called the Dr

iginal Dixieland Jazz Band on the ground floor . When I heardthis outfit, I was enthralled and decided that this was the music

for me . I had been playing cornet and studying legitimate

music, but until that night I had not been excited about tryingto play dance music. After that evening in Stauch

’

s, I had no

more doubts, it was going to be dixieland or nothing . NickLaRocca was playing the com et left-handed, holding the hornin his right hand and fingering the valves with his left . Shieldsseemed to hold the entire clarinet mouthpiece in his mouth and

got a peculiar kind of flat tone. But the band had the sound, a

happy sound with the fine two-beat, and this was it 1

Henry never forgot his first contact with pure jazz.

The“happy sound” echoed in his young head for years

afterward and gave him no peace until he could dupl icate it on his own horn. School work occupied most of

1 From a letter to the author dated March 21, 1958.

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

through with Sbarbaro beating out the time. By the time the

third chorus rol led around, the whole band would play these

new tunes as if they had been playing them for years. These

were musicians with such good cars that they learned new

tunes almost at once . A t the same time, I learned their songs,

such as“Barnyard Blues,

” “Fidgety Feet,

” “B luin

’

the Blues,”

and dozens of others 2

The Cinderel la engagement l asted about seven

weeks, after which the band moved to the Paradise Bal lroom in Newark for a somewhat shorter stay. But timeswere tough for smal l combinations and the DixielandBand soon found itsel f hopelessly fighting a lost cause .

When it col lapsed early in 1927, Henry returned to NewYork to join the orchestra of Vincent Lopez at the CasaLopez onWest 54th Street. Many years of big band workfol lowed, during which he played with the orchestras ofGeorge Ol son and Rudy Val lee, and in the pits at suchhistoric Broadway musical s as George White

’

s Scandals,

Roberta, Life Begins at and Hold Your Horses

besides finding time to attend the City Col lege of New

York .

Meanwhile, Tony Sbarbaro reorganized the Original D ixieland Jazz Band at the Rose Danceland on

125th Street, increasing its size to ten men and employing written arrangements . But competition was keenamong the bigger outfits, so at the end of the winter season Tony, who had stuck it out to the bitter end, final lydecided to disband the ponderous aggregation which wasby now dixieland in name only, and earn his l ivingjobbing around with other bands at various Manhattannight clubs .

2 Ibid.

The Lean Years

Yet,despite publ ic disinterest in hot jazz, a few

smal l outfits continued to gather for recording sessions .These were the days when pickup bands were l iteral lypickup bands . The advent of sound movies had thrownhundreds of pit musicians out of work al l over the city ,

and an enterprising jazzman could form a smal l com

bination by standing at the corner of Broadway and

47th Street and taking his pick of the tuxedoed union

men who wandered by, instrument cases in hand, seeking jobs and ready to play at a moment

’s notice .

One of these transient jazzmen was a popular cor

netist named Leon B ismarck Beiderbecke, known simplyas

“B ix

”to his many friends in the jazz underground .

B ix and Artie Seaberg pal led around together, beingabout the same age, and many were the times Artie paidB ix

’

s train fare back home to Davenport, Iowa, when thecornetist was flat broke from lack of work .

Like most of the promising young musicians of hisgeneration, B ix had first heard jazz on the famous Victorrecords of the Original D ixieland Jazz Band . His motherrecal l s how he would wait until the family had gone out

for an evening, then sneak downstairs in his pajamas toplay his com et to the accompaniment of the D ixieland’srecords, usual ly

“Tiger Rag.

” Young Bix’

s reverence forLaRocca began at an early age and was a definite influence on his great cornet style . He had first come to

New York in 1918, when he was a mere lad of fifteen,

for the sole purpose of hearing his idol s in person and

watching their leader. LaRocca remembers being cal ledto the front door of Reisenweber’s one night to authorize

the admittance of the youngster, who had tried to gainentry by posing as the bandleader’s son ! B ix hung

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

around for a week, staying at LaRocca’

s hotel suite during the day and sitting quietly at a café table at night,hypnotized by the music he loved . Then LaRocca hecame worried over the possible consequences of harboring a minor and shipped the boy back to Davenport.This vivid boyhood experience must have carried itseffect throughout al l of the musician’s l ife.

It was not until five years later, while the OriginalDixieland Jazz Band was playing at the Balconades, thatthis same young man, now fully mature and rather pleasantly inebriated, walked up to the bandstand to renewhis acquaintance with LaRocca. He and George Brunieshad been playing around Chicago with the Wolverines,occasional ly dropping in at the Gennett studios in Richmond, Indiana , to record such LaRocca tunes as “Sensation Rag

”and

“Lazy Daddy.

Now, in 1927, the combination known as BixBeiderbecke and his Gang” assembled at the OKeh re

cording studios in New York to produce what most experts consider the most outstanding jazz of the latetwenties . With Frank Signorell i (the last great pianistof the Original Dixieland Jazz Band ) on piano, theBeiderbecke Gang inaugurated the historic series with a

rousing number that seemed to recal l the ghosts of itsretired composers, Nick LaRocca and Larry Shields“A t the Jazz Band Bal l . Even Adrian Rol l ini’s rol licking bass sax went in for a chorus . But Frank and B ix,

who liked to eat as well as anyone, could no longer resist the hundred-dol lar bil l s being waved in their facesby Paul Whiteman ; they subsequently joined the vastWhiteman empire . It was in 1928 , at Carnegie Hal l, thatthe Whiteman orchestra introduced Frank’s first song,

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

of one another in age, who were to spearhead a new

movement in hot music in another decade .

If anyone stopped to remember, the Original D1x1eland Jazz Band seemed far in the past. Johnny Mercerwrote a popular ditty cal led “

The Story of the DixielandBand” during the early thirties, its last stanza pro

claiming that the musicians were now up in heaven“and

a-

playin’

away,”so it was clear that the famous band of

that name had by now passed into the realm of popularmythology. But its members were far from heaven and,

because music could no longer keep them al ive, werenot

“a-

playin’

away.

” Tony Sbarbaro claims to be theonly member who kept musical ly active during al l of

the treacherous early years of the depression, and thereis evidence that even he was compel led to fil l in withother l ines of endeavor.

Larry Shields’ movie career was short-l ived, but hemanaged to keep going for a few more years aroundHol lywood at such places as the Tent Café, Sunset Café,400 Club , and the Vernon Country Club . As times worsened, Larry

’s lapses of unemployment become longerand more frequent. In desperation he returned to the

city of his birth in hopes that friends could help .

In New York Eddie Edwards survived for awhilewith his Silver Sl ipper Orchestra . In the year of the historic stock market crash be entertained a lively crowd at

Roseland and played for a dance marathon at MadisonSquare Garden, broadcast local ly overWMCA andWJZ.

But the job at Krueger’s Auditorium in Newark on New

Year’s Eve of 1929 was one of the last. The great ta ilgate artist of the Dixieland Band then gave up musicfor a more steady line of business, opening a magazine

The Lean Years

stand on Seventh Avenue across from Carnegie Hall .Eddie claims that he had a nice l ittle business goingthere and takes issue with Walter Winchel l and othergossip columnists who painted pathetic pictures of the

forgotten trombonist “sel l ing newspapers on ColumbusCircle.

”

Then, in the fal l of 1933,Eddie had an unusual

cal ler . Brad Gowans, a hustl ing Yankee with a dixielandcomplex, had come down from Boston full of youthfulenthusiasm and new ideas for starting a revival of dixieland jazz. Although Brad is today noted as a jazz trombonist, he was l ong a n admirer of Larry Shields and

schooled himself along these l ines on the clarinet, developmg a tone very much l ike that of his master. He had

in mind a reorganization of the Original Dixieland JazzBand . Although Edwards and Sbarbaro were dubious,they were wil l ing to experiment. Repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment was about to take effect, endingfifteen dry years of Prohibition, and Brad wanted a five

piece band to play on the Park and Til ford boatload ofl iquor coming into New York Harbor on December 6 .

The publ icity value of the stunt could hardly be over

estimated, especial ly considering nationwide newspapercoverage, Movietone newsreel shots, and a coast-to-coastradio hook-up . But the plan suffered a sudden deathwhen the two largest networks decl ined to broadcastl iquor commercials.

Brad then tried in vain to talk Eddie and Tony intoa series of one-nighters throughout the New Englandstates . But the two veterans of the Dixieland Band haddone their share of travel l ing and found l ittl e appetitefor the rigors of roadwork. A hotel job or radio show

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

were more to Edwards’ liking, but he feared that mostpeople would no longer listen to five men pl aying in one

style for a whole evenmg. With this in mind he wrote toNick LaRocca on December 2 , proposing a ten-man bandin which LaRocca was to play second trumpet—a sortof

“band-within-a-band type of thing in which LaRoccawould be used as the lead on jazz numbers . Meanwhile,Brad had l ined up a job at the old Hammerstein Theaterat 53rd and Broadway, which was then being convertedinto a beer garden.

But no music stirred within the heart of DominicJames LaRocca. His adjustment to private l ife had beeneffected, he found family l ife reassuring, the contractingbusiness earned him a good living and he intended tostay with it.

SO it was that Brad Gowans’ efforts to revive jazzfailed . On theater marquees from Maine to Californiathere blazed the title of the year’s biggest and most spectacular motion picture musical

T H E K I N G O F J A Z Zstarring Paul Whiteman

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

weighed in his mind, he real ized every young musician’sambition by forming his own orchestra

, a modestthirteen-man group considered neither large nor smal lat that time . Organized expressly as a pit band for theBroadway musical comedy Free For A l l, the new outfitgained little public attention at the beginning. However,a thirty-six-week contract for a weekly Saturday eveningnetwork broadcast kept the band eating regularly, whilea series of exhausting one-night stands brought the am

bitious young musicians to every level between hope andutter despair. At New York’s Roosevelt Hotel , for ex

ample, Guy Lombardo was hastened back to replace thefailing Goodman band ’

after the management had com

pla ined bitterly of the“loud” brasses . To certain old

timers in the music game, it may have recal led the 1917trials of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band at Reisenweber’s in that same city.

Their fortunes were not a bit improved at a place inDenver, where a horrified proprietor fired them insidetwo days . Glum and nearly heartboken, the curly-headedbandleader concluded the tour at the Palomar Bal lroomin Los Angeles, hal f-expecting the worst. To the amaze

ment of everyone in the band, to say nothing of critics atlarge, they were an overnight sensation w ith the Palomardancers who, wildly cheering every “

hot”

number,clamored for the special Goodman arrangements theyhad been hearing on the Saturday night radio program .

Apparently the difference in time zones had brought themusic to the right people at the right time .

Thus radio had made Goodman a nationwide suc

cess, just as the phonograph had popularized the Original Dixieland Band two decades earlier. But the phono

The Conteback

graph, which had gradual ly reached the status of a

museum piece in the wake of radio’s meteoric rise,began to stage a spectacular comeback about this time .

The invention of the electrical pickup, making possiblethe electronic ampl ification of recorded music, led natu

rally to the radio-phonograph combination and with it arenewed interest in phonograph records. Advertisingagain created a new desire in the publ ic to hear its favorite radio stars on wax, where they could be recal led any

time at wil l , and the Goodman orchestra grooved a seriesofVictor platters that sold phenomenal ly among the highschool set. No “gate” who was worth his weight wouldeven dream of going on a week-end trip with the crowdwithout packing a portable phonograph and a stack ofGoodman records into the rumble seat of the old beat-upModel A.

The Swing Era had begun . Compared with the

Goodman band’s hectic westward excursion, the return

trip was a triumphal procession. After six spectacularweeks at the Hotel Congress in Benny

’s native Chicago,the band continued east to New York . By the time he

reached the big city, Benny Goodman was everywhererecognized as the King of Swing.

As with any great revolution in dance music, theswing” movement was supported by the dancers it hadfostered—in this case, the

“j itterbugs —those energeticteenagers who expressed their love for rhythm by throwing one another into the air. Special dance steps wereinvented for the new musical style, and forgetful parentswho were “bal l in’

the jack” in their youth wonderedwhat music was coming to when they saw their own children “

truckin’

on down.

”

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

It was the era of the Name Band . The originalmembers of the Goodman aggregation deserted one byone to form their own bands—Harry James, Bunny Beri

gan, Ziggy Elman, Teddy Wil son, and final ly GeneKrupa . Name bands reproduced like rabbits

,scattering

their breed throughout bal lrooms, radio dance parties,and a thousand Hol lywood movie shorts . On and on theymarched across the American scene—Charl ie Barnet,Tony Pastor, Charl ie Spivak, Claude Thomhil l , ad infinitum—and despite obvious attempts at styl ization,they al l sounded basical ly al ike : hashy brass sectionsrising and sitting in unison l ike so many mechanicalmen, alternating with rows of cheek-puffing sax men whodid the same . The credit bel onged to the arranger and

the publ icity agent.But this mad rush to conformity was not without its

blessmgs. With the advent of swing, and thanks to the

daring of Benny Goodman, solo improvisation was againpubl icly acceptable . Jam sessions came out from behindlocked doors, and the Goodman type of trio or quartetthe single wind instrument (preferably reed ) leading a

battery of rhythm instruments covering the alphabetfrom aeol ians to xl phones

—again offered Opportuni

ties for creative jazzmen to make themselves heard .

In the Goodman group it was Benny himself whoawed his fervid clan with flexibil ity and classic techn iquepreviously unheard of in such large doses . The swingstyle of drumming was al so spectacular, if total lyartistic. Its pioneer, Gene Krupa, who highl ighted the

trio specialties with furious sixteen-bar drum breaks,wandered so far from the basic beat that he sounded

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

gate the whereabouts of the band that had been the forerunner of swing. He immediately asked New York agentWil l iam Morris to locate his friend, J . Russel Robinson,then engaged in radio work for NBC . Robinson, excitedover the idea of reorganizing the Original Dixiel andJazz Band for a top Hollywood musical , quickly securedthe address of D . J . LaRocca .

A t the time, LaRocca was a one-man contractingcompany in New Orl eans, building houses and doing al lthe carpentry work himsel f. When Wil l iam Morris approached him with a contract for The B ig Broadcast of1937, he had two houses under construction and was un

able to leave the city. Consequently, he turned down theoffer.

Nevertheless, the incident proved to Nick LaR occathat in ten years the world had not entirely forgotten theold Dixieland Jazz Band . The more he turned it over inhis mind, the more be sensed a growing awareness of hisunique place in jazz history. The old bitterness for musichad final ly worn off, his Broadway wounds had healed,and although he had not dared l isten to music in more

than a decade, he now tuned in the radio to find out justwhat was going on in the outside world .

As his radio searched the spectrum , he heard forhimself the same “

riffs” and“l icks” that had been

played by the Dixieland Band in those threatening daysimmediately preceding World War I—those famil iarmusical phrases that were considered corny duringthe Whiteman era—but which were now being proudlyexecuted in al l seriousness by sw ing band soloists overthe airwaves . He snapped off the radio with a determined flip of the wrist. His mind was made up .

The Comeback

His first step was to find Larry Shields, for LaRocca

was a shrewd enough observer of the popular scene toreal ize that the whole swing movement revolved aroundthe King of Swing himsel f, Benny Goodman. Therefore,if he wanted to prove to a new generation that this swingstuff was real ly old jazz in new dressing he would firstof al l need a clarinetist who could compete with the Kingon his own ground—and only one man on earth wascapable of this feat—Larry Shields .

Although more than fifteen years had elapsed, finding Larry was no great problem. It was only necessaryto go into the Shields neighborhood, inquire among thevast Shields clan, and somebody was sure to know the

whereabouts of Uncle Larry.

Nick found him working in a Bible house, rightthere in New Orleans. Although he was a mere fortythree, his hair had turned a snowy white . As for music,he hadn’

t touched a clarinet in ten years . “I don’

t knowif I can stil l out it,

” said Larry,“but I

’

l l try.

They practiced together for weeks . Then, on May

19, 1936 , the two of them made an unexpected appearance at the Absinthe House in New Orleans . Mel Washburn, columnist for the New Orleans Item, was in the

audience that night and described his thril l in the issueofMay 23 :

Tuesday night I was sitting in the Ab sinthe House watching the floor show “

And now,

”said Eddie Barber the

master of ceremonies, we’ve got a real treat for you two

boys from the most famous band in the world, Larry Shieldsand Nick LaRocca of the old Dixieland Jazz Band.

” Wh at’sthis, says I to myself what kind of sandy are they puttingover. and then onto the floor comes Nick and Larry in

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

the flesh and they swung into one of their old favorites.

Boys and girls THAT was swing music just a trumpet andclarinet but how those boys went to town. Maybe they havehad a twelve-

year layoff but you’

d never believe it listeningto

’em and you should have heard the storm of applause

they provoked from the pop-eyed audience pop

-eyed be

cause they couldn’

t bel ieve that a white-haired grandpop l ikeLarry could make that clarinet screech, wail and sob as it was

doing . or how that left-handed trumpeter could get such a

seductive swing into the rhythm as Nick was doing . Later Iasked ’

em how come

We’

re not working here, explained Nick, but we come

down here two or three times a week and go into the show, justto get in tune again get our lip up and wear off the rough

edges that the last 12 years have given us .

”

Obviously, they could stil l out it. The wordspread quickly, and before long the retired bandmasterwas receiving offers from London

,Paris

, New York, andHol lywood . The next question was, could the otherformer members be persuaded to reorganize? Withoutthe original s, it just wouldn

’

t be the same old OriginalDixieland Jazz Band .

Weeks of correspondence fol lowed, letters to Edwards and Robinson in New York, laboriously peckedout with one finger by Nick on his old typewriter. Bothwere interested . Edwards had given up music when the

bottom fel l out of jazz years before and was now coaching a boy’s basebal l team at the YMCA on West 63rdStreet, working a few hours each afternoon . On June 8

he wrote as fol lows :

I haven’

t touched the trombone for a little more than a

year, except around last New Year’

s Eve, when I had an en

gagement at a country club . I tried to get into shape in sevendays, but after the second I gave that up, knowing what a New

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

combine for final rehearsal s in New York . But the othertenants in Edwards’ apartment building were night shiftworkers who slept until noon, al lowing Eddie only aboutan hour of practice daily .

As two more months passed, J. Russel Robinson,who had been surveying the band

’s prospects in NewYork and making a few prel iminary contacts, urged immediate action. On June 26 he wrote to LaRocca

Dear Nick,Your letter of the 22nd reached me this morning, and

many thanks for same

I hate to see the whole month of July go by without yourbeing here, because there are many things of a business natureregarding the band’

s future that should be looked into and

decided upon . Then too, we should have the affairs of the bandin some management

’

s hands for at least six weeks before weintend working, so as to give said management time to procure

the proper kind of engagements for us .

A s I said before, the Music Corporation of America is in

terested, and they are the biggest and best bet of all manage

ments . But Billy Goodhart, one of the heads, said he wouldwant to hear the five of us before talking business . I real lythink we

’

d have to have a lot of lucky breaks in order to get

working by September l st, if you wait until August 15th beforecoming. But of course if it is impossible for you to come

sooner, it will have to be that way. I know Tony feels the same

way I do about delay. You understand, of course, that al l bookers work very far in advance, some dates being made even six

months in advance, with the modern way orchestra booking ishandl ed.

I saw Abe Olman, head of Feist’

s, yesterday and he told

me he is anxious to get together with you regarding the re

issuing and bringing out modern arrangements of all the old

Dixieland numbers . He seemed to think it a marvelous idea thatwe were going back into the game and predicted big things

Sincerely,

Russel

The Comeback

Shields and LaRocca, always the perfectionists,now stepped up their practice schedule in earnest. Soonthey were playing together nightly, dropping in on nightclubs, parties, and miscel laneous social events, trying tosee how many jobs they could fil l in the course of a week.

But two incidents nearly spel led doom for the comebackattempt. LaRocca, exhausted from working days as a

carpenter and playing music al l night, fel l asleep at the

wheel of his automobile on the way home one night andcrashed into a tree . Fortunately, a single day

’s hospitalization was al l that was required . Then, according to LaRocca, the New Orleans musicians

’

union charged himwith sitting in with nonunion bands and brought pressureon New York’

s Local 802 in an effort to keep him fromplaying professional ly in that city .

Neither of these obstacles was sufficient to break up

the reorganization, however, and early in July Nick and

Larry shoved off for New York. They quickly locatedthe remaining members and prevailed upon them to quittheir present jobs . Although Robinson and Sbarbarosubscribed to this idea immediately, Edwards, stilldoubtful about the band’s future, remained uncommit

ted . Al so, as in the past,he was reluctant to recognize

LaRocca as leader and exclusive manager for the or

ganization. On the written agreement drawn up by themembers, his signature is conspicuously absent.

J. Russel Robinson, through his connections at

NBC, arranged for afternoon use of a rehearsal studio .

In giving an account of their first reun ion, LaRocca re

lates that everyone was present except Edwards,who had

decided at the last minute that he was unable to taketime Off from work. So after a brief wait the bandleader

The S tory o j the Dixie land Jazz B and

jumped into a taxi, raced over to the YMCA, and did

some persuasive talking to bring the balky trombonistback.

The first sounds of the new Dixieland Band werehardly encouraging . Edwards’ l ip gave out after the

first twenty minutes, the penalty for a year’s inactivity .

Shields seemed despondent and general ly in a trance,

possibly discouraged by the failure of the five pieces towork together. Robinson was tolerant but detached, uninspired . They tried mutes, argued over the advisabil ityof adding a bass player. The first session ended with a

few threats and many d'

oubts .By the end of the third rehearsal

,however

, a big

improvement was evident. When the three w ind instruments achieved balance, the band began to cl ick. Ed

wards’ powerful counterpoint backed up LaRocca’

s

melody, the old wheel started rol l ing, and Shields, feel

ing the push, was soon giving out with smooth, l iquidruns that flowed effortlessly through the ensemble . Threeweeks of steady practice brought the band to its old peakand ready for its first publ ic appearance in more than a

decade.

The Wil l iam Morris agency had arranged a debuton EdWynn’s weekly radio broadcast over the NBC RedNetwork on the evening of July 28 . A few days beforethe program, Robinson accompanied LaRocca upstate toWynn’s home, where the famous comedian perusedNick’s scrapbook with great relish as he col lected ideasfor the script.

On the following Tuesday night, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band faced the largest audience in its history,a hidden audience whose exact size could only be esti

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LaR occa and the Nine Young Men

Successful as the original five-man combination had sofar been, there was no doubt in the minds of the expertsthat the whole future of the Original Dixieland JazzBand depended on its capacity for adjusting to the demands of the Swing Age . The novelty of hearing “TigerRag

” played as only its composers could pl ay it, of seea

“white-haired grand p”l ike Larry Shields swing the

pants off contemporary clarinetists, of seeing the firstjazz band in action was unquestionably a tremendousattraction with great exploitable value . But although thesmal l combo was an unqual ified hit on guest appearances where its routine was l imited to a special numberplus a couple of encores, how wel l would the five men

fare on a hal f-hour radio show or a four-hour dance program?Would dancers stil l dance for a whole eveningto the rhythms of two decades ago?

It was clear to LaRocca that survival in the Swing.

Age necessitated conforming to the standard orchestration then in vogue and augmenting the band by at leastanother eight men . The original five members could thenbe starred as soloists at various times throughout thebig band arrangements, or occasional ly featured intheir original style as a specialty act, in much the samemanner as Goodman used his trio and quartet.

LaR occa and the Nine Young Men

At the next rehearsal LaRocca outl ined his boldnew plan of converting the Dixieland Band into a

fourteen-man swing orchestra . The project was an ex

pensive one, involving the hiring of nine more mus10 1ans

at union scale and obtaining the services of a top ar

ranger. As Nick had already sunk nearly three thousanddol lars into the reorganization of the original five, henow sought financial assistance among his compatriots.But although Robinson and Sbarbaro were quick to see

the possibil ities of another big-name band, Shields, as

always, was flat broke and Edwards turned thumbs downon what he considered a risky speculation . In fact, heflatly refused to have anything to do with such a wildscheme .

So the fourteen-man outfit was formed withoutEdwards and began rehearsal s during August in preparation for autumn bookings . The orchestration was

identical with that of the Goodman and Dorsey bandsthree saxophones (plus Shields ) made up the front row,

four trumpets ( including LaRocca ) and two trombonesfurnished the brass, and the rhythm section consisted ofa piano, guitar, bass viol , and drums . Although Robinson and Sbarbaro played in the ensemble, LaRocca directed the orchestra for the most part with his trumpettucked under his right arm, contributing only an occasional solo or hot l ick as permitted by the written score.

(This accounts for the total of four trumpets, as threewere required for continuous service . )

Although he could not read music, Shields foundmany opportun ities to embel l ish the ensembles withclarinet runs a la Goodman, and his presence in the

combination gave it the swing” flavor so richly desired .

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

It was just as well , however, that Edwards didn’

t go

along, as his powerful tailgate would have been sorely

out of place in the mechanical arrangements ; the Dorseytype high-register trickery so popular among swingtrombonists of the new age undoubtedly would haveconfounded him. Although the “

hot”clarinet style had

changed relatively little during th e last decade , perhapsnowhere was the style evolution more apparent thanamong the sl ip-horn artists, who had now come to relymore on the l ip than upon the wrist.

The new Original Dixieland Jazz Band made itselfpublicly heard for the first time on September 2 , 1936,in a recording session for Victor. The numbers chosenwere “Tiger Rag

”and

“Bluin’

the Blues,”

and hereLaRocca had his chance to prove how l ittle dance musichad real ly changed over the years

,and how modern and

swingy” his old jazz l icks sounded when orchestratedfor fourteen pieces . Actual ly this was LaRocca’

s solepurpose in staging the comeback, to claim his rightfuldue for the distinctive syncopated phrases that had cometo be recognized as a product of the Swing Age .

The first recording session was fol lowed by a sec

ond on September 9, when six more sides were grooved

(see Table To ensure as wide an audience as pos

sible among the teenage swing fans who now dominatedthe market with absolute and unremitting rule, the V ic

tor Company saw to it that at least one of the Dixieland’snumbers was issued back-to-back with the Benny Goodman band .

“Clarinet Marmalade” was paired withGoodman

’s “St. Louis Blues .” Hence the new Dixieland

Band and Benny Goodman’s orchestra walked arm in

arm down the streaml ined boulevards of the swing

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The S to ry of the Dixie land Jazz B and

they were in the early days of mechanical recordingimmediately preceding the first World War. But al

though the changes, both technological and artistic, arevast, the ineffable and mysterious aesthetic element thata lways set the Original Dixieland Jazz Band apart fromany other jazz band in history is stil l present in al l its

original vital ity.

The greatest change, of course, is in the fidel ity of

reproduction . The mechanical brute-force techniquesthat rendered the first jazz record an acoustical nightmare have been replaced by the wonders of the blossoming electronics age—the microphone, vacuum-tube amp

l ifier, and electronical ly-actuated cutting head . Instead

of the funnel -shaped pickup horn each of the five musicians now plays into a separate microphone , the

'

outputs

balanced and m ixed in the control room to assure equalvolume for al l instruments . The result is phonographicreproduction by which, for the first time

, al l membersof the Dixieland Band can be heard at the same timea far cry from the early mechanical recordings thoroughly dominated by Shields and Edwards . The melody

- the bel l -like tone of LaRocca’

s steadily driving horn— is now heard from the downbeat to the diminishingecho of the famous dixieland tag. While admittedlysomewhat below the standards of present-day

“hi-fi,

”the

1936 recordings nevertheless brought the sounds of thefirst jazz hand into the modern era .

From the standpoint of the musicians themselves ,the most outstanding advantage of electronic recordingwas their juxtaposition in the studio. In 1917 they hadbeen forced to play while located several feet apartthe cornetist a ful l twenty feet from the pickup born, the

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The S tory oi the Dixie land Jazz B and

as in the older records . Accordingly these trumpettrombone figures are attenuated for use as a backgroundto the solo . Thus, by comparing both Victor records of“Tiger Rag, we see the gradual evolution of a swingsolo. It was this clarinet part of Shields, original ly onlyintended as a background improvisation, that becamemore and more imitated throughout the ’

twenties and

final ly worked its way into written arrangements as a

standard routine.

Perhaps the most Obvious change over the years isthe slowdown in tempo . The blues numbers as wel l asthe one-steps are rendered at a moderated pace, againmore in keeping with the period . The effect is that of amore “stately” kind of dixieland band , as contrastedwith the more uninhibited playing of five wild and reckl ess youths in 1917 . The personnel is, of course, identical on both series , with the exception of J. RusselRobinson, who had replaced the deceased Henry Ragason piano .

As to whether these men are playing better in theirthoughtful middle age than in their unbridled youthmay never be answered by comparing the two Victorseries , as each has peculiar points in its favor. The con

sistency, spirit, and bril l iant conception that characterized the early records must be weighed against thevariety in arrangement and improved musical techniquerevealed in the new .

The bril l iance of Edwards’ tone seems to have become even more magnificent in the passage of years,and his rapid tonguing in the low register remains nothing short of sensational . Years of working out at the

YMCA may have conditioned him to execute the ex

LaR occa and the Nine Young Men

hausting bass-range solo in Skeleton Jangle withoutso much as a single gasp, although in the ensemblechorus his overzealousness has undoubtedly caused himto substitute a less impressive counterpoint for his old

standard part—an un fortunate change. In the bluesnumbers

,however, his harmonies are stil l extremely

sensitive and beautiful ly conceived .

The trumpet of Nick LaRocca, so long obscured byantiquated recording methods, now stands out in boldrel ief in a perfectly balanced ensemble . We hear for thefirst time those rapid , fluttering l ip-slurs in the firstchorus of the Original Dixieland One-Step thosehal f-laughing, hal f-sobbing cries in “Barnyard Blues” ;and the almost hysterical tone that drives

“Tiger Rag”

to its wild and clamorous end. The swift, beautiful lyexecuted incidental” runs in the verse of

“ClarinetMarmalade” seem to rol l off as if under their own

power ; while the mel ody of“Bluin’

the Blues is voicedwith just about every consonant in the alphabet—trum

pet tones that seem to begin with “

y”and

“1”as well as

with the traditional “t.” But whatever the emotion,what

ever the effect, the LaRocca horn never once sacrificesits outstanding characteristic—that steady, relentlesspush that keeps the ensemble moving without a moment’shesitation from start to finish.

As always, it was the ensemble work that put theOriginal Dixieland Five in a class undeniably by itsel f.These musicians were designed for one another, depended on one another, and functioned only in theiroriginal combination. With al l its parts well -oiled and

properly adjusted, the Dixieland Five was a machine

The S tory oi the Dixie land Jazz B and

that produced jazz with a precision and perfection un

matched in history.

Nobody appreciated this more than Benny Goodman. During the recording session he sat entranced inthe control room, a wide grin on his youthful face. At

the conclusion of the last number he walked over toLaRocca and remarked,

“Nick, you boys have still gotsomething nobody el se has got.

”

The Original Dixieland Five subsequently ap

peared as guests on Benny Goodman’s weekly radiobroadcast. The applause fol lowing their selection lastednearly two minutes, after which Goodman remarked,jokingly,

“That’s the last time I’ll ever have them on

this program !”

Other radio performances fol lowed in rapid suc

cession—The Magic Key on September 20, Ben Bem ie’

s

Blue Ribbon program, the Ken Murray Show, and on

October 31 the Saturday Night Swing Club . Al l of theseguest spots LaRocca had secured on his own, acting as

his own booking agent and hustling from one advertisingagency to another to maintain steady empl oyment forthe hand.

As the bigger jobs thinned out, however, LarryShields again grew moody. LaRocca had paid Shields’

way from New Orleans in July, including hotel billsand l iving expenses until the band got working, and nowan argument ensued between the two of them concerningfinancial readjustments . Larry considered the wholething part of LaRocca

’

s business investment, and sinceNick was getting twice as much of the profit as anyoneel se, didn

’

t feel obl igated to pay anything back . It was

a philosophical question, with each man sticking oh

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The Last Days of the D ixieland Five

The year 1937 was a tumultuous one for the OriginalDixieland Jazz Band : a year of triumph, glory, conflict,and disaster. Their vaudevil le tour of the country’s leading theaters with the Ken Murray troupe was tremendously successful, beginning at the RKO Boston Theateron January 6 and carrying through the eastern, midwestem , and southern states during the course of two

seasons . The sale of their Victor records al so zoomedduring this period , while the biggest publ icity boost ofal l came through the March of Time film ( Issue No . 7,

Volume III , February 17 ,In this movie, the band acted out its own history.

The original recording equipment was dragged out of

the Victor warehouse in Camden, New Jersey, reassembled, and the technician that original ly recordedthe band with this paraphernal ia in 1917 appeared inthe sequence where the Dixieland Band re-enacted thecutting of the first jazz phonograph record . (To preservethe il lusion of youth, white-haired Larry Shields waskept out of camera range and the other musicians photographed from the rear. )

The film went on to show the deterioration of jazzmusic through the noisy imitators that fol lowed, thenbrought the story up to date with a sl ightly embroidered

The Last Days of the Dixie land F ive

version of the 1936 reorganization . LaRocca was showncombing the metropol is for his former bandsmen

, picking them up one by one as he went from one building toanother. Shields was located in a bookstore, loadeddown with an armful of Bibles ; Edwards appeared at

the door of a gym locker room, wearing a YMCAsweat-shirt ; Sbarbaro, in a suit of greasy overall s,crawled out from under a car ; and the pipe-smokingRobinson broke off a radio rehearsal at NBC to join themarch.

The story thus far was only hal f correct. Shieldshad been found me Bible house, but not in New YorkCity ; and Sbarbaro had never seen the inside of a tire

shop . The director of the film, Louis de Rochemont, hadoriginally planned to

!

show Sbarbaro washing dishes ina restaurant, but Tony protested so vehemently that analternative scene had to be devised . Tony didn’

t l ikethe tire shop idea, either, but it was better than washingdishes .

Fol lowing scenes portrayed the first rehearsal of

the reorganized band, with LaRocca stopping the musicto tel l the boys to throw away their mutes

,and con

cluded with an exciting night club sequence with closeup shots of Shields swinging out with his famous “TigerRag” solo. A l l in al l , even if the story had been stretcheda l ittle here and there, it was a thril ling twenty minutesof dixieland .

One of the writers instrumental in the engineeringof th is unusual documentary work was J. S . Moynahan,

al so a jazz clarinetist, who was a long-time worshipperof the Dixieland Band . The experience was a disil lu

sioning one for Moynahan, who objected to the distortion

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

of historical fact insisted upon by de Rochemont in theinterests of story unity. A particular sore spot was theportrayal of J . Russel Robinson as the band’s originalpianist, to the complete exclusion of the late HenryRagas .

Moynahan fol lowed up this project immediatelywith a feature article in the February 13 , 1937, issue of

The Saturday Evening Post entitled“From Ragtime to

Swing,” which was essentially a eulogy of the Original

Dixieland Jazz Band . Some of his allegations raised a

few eyebrows among the Goodman fans but carried an

inescapable ring of truth

there was only one Original Dixieland Jazz Band. And

despite the floods of mystic adulation—not to say adumbra

tion —it apparently takes more than a layman swing fan to

explain, or even understand why. For that matter, I’

m sure

most musicians don’

t know . If they did, we wouldn’

t have hadthe plague of corny, McGee, ting

-a-l ing, strictly union record

ings that spell“j azz” to the average customer . The most un

speakable butcherings of popular numbers in the name of jazzhave, after al l , been committed by musicians.

What’s the difference between swing and jazz? What isswing?

A number of writers who, apparently, are not even musicians have been breaking into print lately with theses so

esoteric that they become, at the high spots, practical ly unin

telligible . It’

s not so hard as all that. In fact, it’

s simple .

The difference between swing and jazz is, reduced to

common honesty, nothing. And swing, despite the tons of rec

ondite balderdash that have been printed about it, remains sub

stantially what it was when grandpappy was a boy watchingthe band marching away to the Civil War, and remarked :“That music

’

s got a swing to it.Swing is rhythm, that

’

s all .

The trouble with swing dates from the decl ine of the

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

join up for the current engagement, so that one shudders at

the prospect of what would have been lacking had he remained

at home in New Orleans.

In Chicago, at the end of the first Ken Murraytour, the band broke the circuit and headed south on

their own . After a week at the Orpheum Theater inMemphis, where the words DI! IELAND JAZZ BANDwere displayed on the marquee in letters three feet high,they continued south and arrived for a heroes’ receptionin their native New Orleans— the very city that had disowned them in 1918 ! In honor of their triumphant return , the management of the St. Charles Theater sponsored a banquet at Broussard’s Restaurant. Among the

guest speakers were George W. Healy, Jr. ,managing

editor, and other members of the staff of the Times

Picayune, the newspaper that had, twenty years earl ier,excoriated the originators of jazz with its “

Jass and

Jassism”editorial (see Chapter 6 ) Speaking at the din

ner, A . Miles Pratt, president of the St. Charles TheaterCorporation, expressed the hope that New Orleanians

would “forget their past efforts to disclaim the parenthood of jazz and welcome the band back home in properspirit.” This hope was confirmed that week when the

Original Dixieland Jazz Band , playing to overflowingcrowds at the St. Charles, created such a traffic jam thatcars had to be rerouted around the block . Later theywere guests of the New Orleans Association of Commerce at another luncheon at the Roosevelt Hotel .

It would seem odd that with everything going theirway, the members should choose to begin a quarrel thatwould jeopardize their very future . But ifmoney is “

the

The Last Days of the Dixie land F ive

root of al l evil the ground was fertile, a nd the arrangement whereby LaRocca divided the profits into six partsand kept two parts for himself (with Barth on straightsalary) was sure to engender savage resentment in the

end. Although this arrangement was agreed upon by al l

at the outset of the reorganization and obviously seemedjustified in consideration of LaRocca

’

s sizeable initialinvestment, at least one member now paused to reflect asituation in which he played as much music as Nick butonly earned hal f as much money. In this act of rationalization, it was al l too easy to forget LaRocca’

s financialrisk, as wel l as the losses incurred in closing up his NewOrleans business .

It may be said that LaRocca suffered a disadvan

tage common to al l who rise from the ranks .” TheOriginal Dixieland Jazz Band had been a co-operativeorganization in the early days , with the offices of musicalleader (LaRocca ) and business manager (Edwards )considered merely additional chores . Even after the cor

netist took over the responsibil ities of business manager,the outfit functioned as a financial ly co-operative unit.

Signatures appeared in no establ ished order on any of

the contracts prior to 1920 , apparently the member nearest the pen being the one to sign on the top l ine . Likewise , al l royalties, profits, and even composers’ creditswere shared al ike . It was not until after the band’s returnfrom England that LaRocca, as stated manager, signedfor the entire organization. Therefore, one may surmisethat LaRocca’

s rise to the position of sole and exclusiveauthority was a gradual evolution,

resul ting from the

sheer necessity of leadership under increasingly tryingconditions in the music business .

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

If this be true, then Edwards, Sbarbaro , and Shieldswere two decades late in their demand for a vote ofconfidence .

”The band had already been through its

most perilous storms under LaRocca’

s direction, and

there would seem little justification for the anarchy theyproposed as its substitute .

Perhaps the situation was irritated by a growingmistrust of the LaRocca-Robinson relationship . On Octo

ber 8, 1936, the two composers had filed for a l icense

to conduct a business at 308 West 58th Street in NewYork City, a publ ishing concern to be known as OriginalDixieland Music. Under this set-up, LaRocca and Robin

son planned a series of popular compositions to beplugged by the band and published by their own com

pany. The first of these was “Old Joe Blade” (

“Sharpas a a song based on the “Casey Jones vehicleand very similar in structure .

“Old Joe B lade” was in

troduced at col lege dances late in the fal l of 1936 and

achieved a smal l measure of success among those whowere inclined to sing along w ith the band . LaRocca be

l ieves that the other members were suspicious of the

al l iance between himsel f and Robinson and wrongly as

sumed that they were plotting to appropriate more thantheir own share of the profits .

Now,in New Orleans, these grievances came to the

surface . Shields had been morose and uncommunicativefor some time. Between sets,

”recal l s LaRocca,

“he

would sit there with the clarinet on his lap, just staringinto space .

” Larry, fighting his depression, had begunto drink perhaps more heavily than was his custom,

and

although good-natured and easygoing, he was easily in

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

always quibbl ing about something and that he did his

best to stay out of it.

On April 21 the band began a two-week engagement at the Silver Grill in Buffalo . Outwardly therewere no signs of the dissention that tore at the organization from within . While LaRocca and Edwards discussed the placement of the band on the smal l platform,

Tony Sbarbaro sat at a table, laughing and reminiscingwith a couple of old-timers who in 1917 had driven al l

the way from Buffalo to New York, fighting four hundred miles ofmuddy ruts to reach Reisenweber’s to hearthe famous Dixieland “

Jass” Band in person . Now they

asked him about the nodding teddy bear that used to sit

atop his bass drum in the old days, and Tony retal iatedwith questions about this strange town,

where hal f thepopulation seemed jammed into a bar about the size of

a New York cloakroom for the chance to hear the firstreal jazz ever to come their way .

Then LaRocca ripped off a few bars of At the

Jazz Band Bal l” on his trumpet, and the bandsmenemerged from the crowd to begin their first number. The

old-timers l istened as if under a spel l,silently compar

ing the Dixieland Band of 1937 with that of 1917. Theymarvel led again at the apparent ease with which thismusic was produced , and the softness that always surprised people who had never heard them in person. In

real ity the Dixieland Band was a mere whisper as com

pared with the blaring swing bands that typified the

present trend in dance music. But al l is relative . In

1917, audiences that had become accustomed to stringensembles were shocked by the intrusion of parade bandinstruments and were quick to describe the radical new

The Last Days of the Dixie land F ive

music as deafening . More startl ing, in fact, to its newl isteners in the Swing Age was the extreme case and

powerful syncopation of the New Orleans band . The

l ikes of this they had never heard before.

LaRocca, Edwards, and Shields blended together aswell or better than ever. The old-timers at the ringsidetable thought LaRocca sl ightly more tense than usual,Edwards the more relaxed . Robinson played with a cer

tain air of detachment, contributing his usual ful l foundation to the ensemble but maintaining a cold and stonyexpression even during the most thril l ing and inspiringchoruses . As for theaudience, they were too excited to

applaud . They bel lowed their approval .On the surface it may seem paradoxical that men

incapable of a harmonious working relationship wereresponsibl e for some of the greatest ensembl e jazz inhistory, since a high level of understanding would nat

ural ly appear essential . Yet even in an argument thereis both co-operation and understanding. The most viol entcombatants are quick to answer each other’s questions,ready to seize every opportunity for the expression of

their emotions . The musicians of the Original Dixieland

Jazz Band were artists of highly sensitive temperaments,

individual ists of stubborn bent. It was this extreme individual ism, after al l , that had given birth to the formof music cal led jazz in the first place . Each musicianexpressed his own ideas in the form of musical counterpoint. When LaRocca made his pre-emptory statement on cornet, Shields noodled his comment via the

clarinet and Edwards snarled a forceful reply on trom

bone . Here there was no need for love and admiration,

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

only a sensitive feel ing for one another on a strictlymusical plane.

After an appearance with ! av1er Cugat’

s orchestraon the stage of New York’s Paramount Theater in May,

the Dixieland Band again took to the road, arriving inFort Worth on June 26 for the opening of Bil ly Rose’ swidely heralded Frontier Fiesta. It was at the FortWorth exposition that the rebel l ion within the famousjazz band reached its most dangerous proportions .

The band had been engaged for the Pioneer PalaceReview, a musical pageant presented on a circular out

door stage divided into several pie-shaped sets. Manyacts were in progress simultaneously, as the rovingaudience passed from one set to another in its quest forentertainment. LaRocca maintains that Robinson accep

ted a job on one of the other sets in an act called TheGreat Composers, hiring a pianist to take his placetemporarily in the Dixieland Band and thereby drawingtwo salaries . The other band members, suspecting a

“deal” between LaRocca and Robinson, objected vehe

mently and accused the cornetist of col lusion. Undoubtedly LaRocca was caught in the m iddle, as Billy Rosehad personal ly arranged the switch and the band wassol idly under contract for the season.

The crisis mounted when a sound truck, hired byLaRocca, cruised about the fairground advertising“Nick LaRocca’

s Original Dixieland Jazz Band.

”Ed

wards saw red. In his mind the Dixieland Band hadalways been a co-operative organization with no memberbil led above another, and now the trombonist gritted histeeth as LaRocca

’

s name went booming across the coun

tryside. That night, as the mutiny progressed into its

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The S tory of the D ix ie land Jazz B and

With the interest of the band at heart, Nick decl ined thesuggestion.

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band rejomed the

Ken Murray troupe in November, and for awhile the

situation seemed under control . Then, while the bandwas in New York, someone cracked LaRocca ’

s trunk inthe basement of the Wil son Hotel and made off withmany valuable items and records, including the cor

poration seal of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band , Inc. ,

and al l written arrangements for the fourteen-piece or

chestra . Tensions increased throughout December, as

LaRocca overheard threatening conversations, eitherreal or imaginary, in adjoining rooms of his hotel suite .

On-stage co-operation again reached a low ebb.

The cornetist warned his men that his position inthe band had at last become untenable and that unlessthe situation was immediately rectified he would disbandhis outfit and return to New Orleans . The threat wasmet with “

razzberries and horselaughs from the bandsmen, who thought they knew Nick wel l enough to be

sure that he would never quit a money-making proposition.

It was Monday night, January 17, 1938 . Wild

crowds at Chicago’s Palace Theater were stil l applauding, yel l ing, and whistl ing as the curtain rol led downon the D ixieland Band . Larry Shields, who had justbrought down the house with his famous “Tiger Rag

”

solo, was fitting the warm segments of his clarinet into

their oblong box, while Edwards blew the juice out of

his trombone and Sbarbaro, on the top step of the bandstand, loosened the screws on his bass drum . Ken Mur

ray stood smil ing in the w ings, but LaRocca’

s face was

The Last Days of the Dixie land Five

grim . Reaching into the pockets of his jacket, be produced five pieces of paper and handed them to the

members of his band . The papers bore the fol lowingwords

Palace Theater

Chicago, 111.

Jan . 17, 1938

A . Sbarbaro, L . Shields, E .B . Edwards, et al .Palace Theater

Chicago, Ill .

Gentlemen

After the c ompletion of the present engagements withKen Murray, I hereby

/

give notice that the Original DixielandJazz Band will be disbanded.

I am very sorry to have to come to this conclusion, but

owing to the internal friction, which makes it impossible to

carry on, I am mail ing a Oopy of this notice to Local #802.

Very truly yours,

D . l as . LaRocca, Leader and R e-organizer

Original Dixieland Jazz Band

Upon threat of legal action from the agents, thegroup was compel led to finish out its present commit

ments . But on February 1 , as the last notes of its famousmusic diminished to an absolute silence, the OriginalDixieland Jazz Band was dead .

The consequences were not immediately realized ,especial ly by the band members themselves . LaRoccabel ieved he had done his job, proved his point, stampedhis mark indel ibly in musical history. The others thoughtthey could carry on without him. Both were wrong.

Just as in 1925, when LaRocca left the band itimmediately dropped to the level of a rather freakishcuriosity—a band with only novelty value . Under the“co-operative leadership of Shields

,Edwards

,and

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

Sbarbaro, the combination faltered in attempts at compromising dixieland jazz with commercial swing. Namesnever meant anything in the Dixieland Band as far as

the average jazz fan was concerned . A cornetist whoplayed half as wel l as LaRocca could have enabled theband to carry on—few would have missed that magicalname—the name that had echoed across the Fort Worth

fairgrounds in July. But no such cornetist was in existence , and unless the remaining members of the Dixieland Band were total ly blinded by their own importancethey must have known it as well as anyone else. Thismay have been why they immediately deserted the irnatural style for swing .

Yes, here was one substitution that could not be

made. Although he himself had successful ly substituteda new drummer in 1916, a trombonist in 1918, a pianistin 1919, and a clarinetist in 1922, LaRocca proved forthe second time in a dozen years that his own substi

tution was impractical.As for LaRocca’

s great mission, it was not so thoroughly accompl ished as he had thought. He was correctin his bel ief that he had reached the people, and thosewho came to l isten never forgot. But these cheeringthousands were but an infinitesimal portion of the

population. LaRocca had misjudged ; the job had only

Edwards, Shields, and Sbarbaro subsequently reor

ganized the Dixieland Band as a swing outfit, withSharkey Bonano on trumpet and Frank Signorel li onpiano. Sharkey by now had absorbed some of the HarryJames flamboyance that permeated the swing world,and Signorell i had long since undergone a complete

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The S to ry of the Dixie land Jazz B and

T A B L E 9

R ecordings of the Origina l Dixieland Jazz Band

(1938 Series )COMPANY NUM BER TITLEBluebird B -7442 ooooO-OH Boom !

Please Be Kind

Bluebird B -7444 Good-night, Sweet Dreams, Good-night

In My Littl e R ed Book

Bluebird B -7454 Drop a Nickel in the Slot

Jezebel

Personnel : Sharkey Bonano (trumpet ) , Eddie Edwards (trombone ) Larry Shields (clarinet ) , Frank S ignorel l i

(piano) , Tony Sbarbaro (drums )

A s late as 1940 the Shields-Edwards-Sbarbaro teamwas stil l active around New York . On January 16, withJ. Russel Robinson on piano, they made a guest appearance on the CBS radio show We the People . Consideringthe assortment that ordinarily found expression on thisprogram, however, there was l ittl e to be said for thislatest achievement of the

“Original Dixieland JazzBand .

”LaRocca w isely refused the use of his name in

this petty come-down,especial ly since the facts were so

flagrantly distorted in the radio script.Larry Shields returned to Cal ifornia to take a de

fense job in a shipyard , but in 1943 another OriginalDixieland Jazz Band sprouted up on Broadway in Katherine Dunham’s Tropical Revue, fol lowed by a road tourwith the same company . Edwards and Sbarbaro werethe main features of the reorganization, with BobbyHackett on trumpet and Brad Gowans on clarinet. AV -disc of

“Tiger Rag”

and“Sensation Rag,

”recorded

for the armed forces, exists as a monument to this effort .

Last Days of the Dixie land Five

Of al l the subsequent attempts, particular com

bination comes closest of al l to the spirit of the originalfive.

But now, once again, hot music and smal l combinations were on the way out. By the end of the war al l big

bands attempted conformance to the Glenn Mil ler pattern

,Tommy Dorsey had given up the Clambake Seven,

Bob Crosby had forgotten about his famous Bobcats,and real jazz retreated to the Bohemian caves of Chicagoand Greenw ich Vil lage .

Syncopated Echoes

One of the questions most l ikely to be asked by futurejazz historians is why, during 1949 and 1950, whendixieland was enjoying its greatest popularity in morethan thirty years, did the Original Dixieland Jazz Bandnot return to the scene to re-establ ish its rightful claim?

With every old-time musician who had ever sounded a

note of jazz making a profitable comeback, certainly theband that had started it al l would again become a surefire publ ic attraction . The original members—with theexception of pianist Henry Ragas—were stil l very muchal ive and just as capable of staging a spectacular reap

pearance as they were in 1936 .

That the Original Dixieland Band did not return inthe favorable environment of the dixieland renaissanceis surely one of the most tragic misfortunes of the period. These men could have placed their stamp on a

whole new generation of jazz fans, and with actionsrather than words . Even more important, they could haverecorded their music with the technical ly improved facilities of the high-fidel ity age , leaving for posterity a

series of recordings faithful ly covering the entire tonal

range of their artistic product.The reasons for this unhappy silence are as simple

as they are hard to justify . The members of the Dixie

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Th e S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

the original members or their heirs, he transferred al l

rights to the publ ishers, Leo Feist and Company . The

case is too involved for coverage in a single volume of

jazz history, but the matter seems not to have been set

tled to everyone’s satisfaction.

Il l feel ing among the musicians was furtheredby the ASCAP affair. Shields had come back to New

Orleans a few years after the band’s final breakup to

apologize to LaRocca for the part he had played in theFort Worth conspiracy , and to seek the bandleader’shelp in becoming a member of the American Society of

Composers, Authors, and Publ ishers . LaRocca had

joined the society in 1937 and was happy to secure a

membership for his former col laborator, based on

Larry’

s contributions to such Original Dixieland tunesas

“Clarinet Marmalade,” “Ostrich Walk,

”and

“Lookat

’

em Doin’

It .

”But when Edwards and Sbarbaro wrote

to LaRocca for the same purpose, hoping to gain hisconsent to come into the organization as co-authors of“Tiger Rag,

” “Sensation Rag,”and

“Mournin

’ Blues,”

their pleas quite natural ly met with a stony silence .

Hence, friction among the band members reached a new

peak .

In 1947 Milt Gabl er of Commodore Records decided that conditions in the music world were right foranother revival of the historic combination. LaRocca de

cl ined and Shields, in Cal ifornia, was too far removed ;but a few local telephone cal l s found Edwards at his

old haunt, the West Side YMCA on 63rd Street. Ed

wards had been sporadical ly active in‘

music aroundtown since the revival of hot jazz. Now be borrowedTony Sbarbaro from the Memphis Five long enough to

Syncop ated Echoes

record a ten-inch LP entitled Eddie Edwards and his

Origina l Dixieland Jazz Band (Commodore FL 20 ,

0003 ) Although the net result is extremely disappointing when compared with the Original Dixieland recordsof yore, these sessions produced the last recorded soundsof Edwards’ great trombone and deserve careful notationfor that, if for no other reason.

As to be expected, the most outstanding feature of

these performances is Edwards h imsel f, who, even as he

approaches the age of sixty, demonstrates once again a

tailgate power surpassed by few others on the contem

porary scene . But the trumpet of Wild B il l Davison ismore suited to solo jazz and in most of these old dixieland numbers it is just too wild for control led ensemblework. Edwards, apparently confused by the explosiveoutbursts of Davison and crippled by the lack of a de

pendable lead l ike LaRocca’

s, is unable to knit hisphrases together, unable to achieve the cohesion and

unity of counterpoint that helped ensure the fame of the

old Dixieland Band .

Brad Gowans offers a pleasing imitation of Shields’

famous clarinet breaks in “Tiger Rag”

and“Ostrich

Walk,”

and his tone and technique are at times startl ingly close to that of his idol ; yet in the ensembles hisclarinet does not cry out in the old Shields tradition. The

combination of Tony Sbarbaro (drums ),Teddy Roy

(piano ) , Jack Lesberg (bass ) , and Eddie Condon

(guitar) generates a good heat, but after the Openingchorus, nearly every opus deteriorates into a typicalCondon-type jam session—replete with al l those l ifelesspiano choruses and uninspired “

one-two-three” solo

routines .

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

The Commodore idea of mixing sol o jazz stars witha couple of genuine ensemble men was not the answer.

This would never be the Original Dixieland Jazz Bandas it had existed under LaRocca . But the chances of reorganizing the original five were sl ight. LaRocca wasbusily engaged in the contracting business in New Orleans, building houses and supporting a family of eight.N0 amount of pleading could get him back on the road .

Nor was there any chance of patching up the differencesthat stil l existed between LaRocca and his former bandsmen.

Then, in Hol lywood, even the remotest possibilityof such a reorganization was extinguished for al l time .

On November 23 , 1953, the great Larry Shields passedaway, the victim of a severe heart attack. Across thecountry, in a Forest Hil l s, New York, apartment, TonySbarbaro sat stunned at his radio loudspeaker as the

voice ofWalterWinchel l conveyed the news.The world may never know whether it was the

clarinet, or his having to give it up, that kil led LarryShields . Shortly after Larry returned to California afterthe demise of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1938 ,a critical heart condition became apparent and his doctor advised him against ever playing the clarinet again.

But this was l ike tel l ing a fish to stay out of the water.

For a man whose musical instrument was his very life,such advice was far more easily given than heeded . The

white-haired clarinetist continued to play occasionaljobs . But his face would become as red as a lobsterwhenever he took a hot chorus on his clarinet, and his

near-frantic wife final ly succeeded in convincing himthat total retirement from music was his only salvation.

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The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

elaboration on the myth that Morton had al ready per

petrated on a series of records made for the Library of

Congress more than a decade earl ier.

Edwards was” jolted into action. The aging trombonist immediately engaged the services of a New Yorklegal firm to bring suit against the Columbia Broadcasting System andWalter Kronk ite for unauthorized use ofhis name and those of his fel low band members. Theright of the program to impersonate historical personal ities was fairly wel l establ ished through precedent ; butEdwards’ complaint that none of the l iving members ofthe Dixieland Band had been contacted for permission,

even though their names were stil l l isted on the roster ofLocal 802 , seemed val id . Bobby Hackett and Lou Mc

Garrity, both friends of Edwards, fel t that a gross injustice had been inflicted upon the Dixieland Band and

agreed to testify in their behal f. Likew ise, Tony Sbarbaro was quick to join battle . The suit waseventual ly settled out of court.

Meanwhile, far from the l imel ight of the entertain

ment world , a famil iar, dissatisfied rumbl ing was beginning to be heard . As with every

“hot

” jazz revival , the

voice of the grand old man of dixieland could not re

main silent. Nick LaRocca, his cornet tucked away in itsbattered case for ten peaceful years, re-entered the scenein a new role : that of anti-critic. Having effectivelystifled the skeptics in 1936 with a successful reorganization of his old hand, he now returned as an extremelyvitriol ic critic. Armed with a typewriter, a garage ful lof weathered documents, and a newly purchased photostating machine, the ex-bandleader launched his warwith courage and conviction. Newspaper columnists,

Syncop ated Echoes

authors , jazz club official s, radio networks—none who

confused the provable facts of jazz history were safe .

The letters, although shocking in their unrestrained ver

nacular, in many cases hit their mark . Whatever el se

may be said of the LaRocca crusade, it must be admittedthat he gave no quarter, made not the smallest com

promise with truth, even when it might have advancedhis cause .

One of Nick’s letters to the New Orleans TimesPicayune, complaining about a feature article on jazzhistory that had neglectful ly overlooked the OriginalDixieland Band , brought a newspaper reporter and

photographer to the LaRocca residence . LaRocca’

s sideof the story fol lowed in the Sunday issue of August 3 ,1958 , together with a three-column photograph of the

irate musician. The article started an avalanche of mail

from old friends and acquaintances,some of them um

heard from in thirty or forty years . Among these wasPhil Napoleon, whose letter of August 21 read in part

Dear Nick,Some folks who l ive on the street next to us here in

North Miami have sent me the story out of the Times

Picayune . Well , needless to say, I was ever so happy to get this,but more than just reading it over and over must admit that Igot such a satisfaction from its contents that I just had to getthis off to you. Now, Nick, only I and a few others who are

stil l al ive can and wil l swear and confirm and help prove thatevery word of what you gave that reporter is the truth , so helpme God . Again might I add that we of the Original Memphis

Five Frank Signorelli, piano ; Miff Mole , trombone ; Bil lLambert, drums ; Angelo Schiro, clarinet are so mad

over this entire thing and want you to know that . Now may Imake this clear, that in those lean days we the Memphis Fivehad only the Dixieland Band to copy from and try to play the

The S tory of the Dixie land Jazz B and

many things you al l gave the world, for without your band howcould we have been able to make the little success we did?

There were no records of any worth to go by in those times

that is, in the way of true Dixieland music as we know it to

day . So I am here to go to any extent to help you in this

cause, to prove to the world that your band was the first, and

all the rest of us cl imbed on to something that still is rightfullyyours

It was your band who took this music (that they oftentry to place in a bad house or spot of those days ) , who playedin the finest night clubs the world over—and, by the way,

didn’

t drag it down with drinking whiskey on the stand and

those funny kinds of things they smoke—no, none of that, but

I do know that the band on so many occasions was wearingwhite tie and tails in order to uphold their feel ing for the goodmusic they conveyed, and in the best and smartest of places

It was the Dixieland Band who ventured up many times,

heartsick in their attempts to sell something that was new and

different

Nick, I could go on and on, but please trust me when Isay that I feel deeply for what you must sustain and the hurt

th ings like this can bring to someone such as you who has

given so much to musicians all over the world

Phil Napoleon had left the music world in 1956 tospend his wel l -earned retirement on the shores ofMiamiBeach. B il ly Maxted , Phil

’s former pianist-arranger, andhis Manhattan Jazz Band took over at Nick’

s Restaurantin the Vil lage for two very successful years, carrying onin the old Memphis Five tradition.

Napoleon is sincerely working for a reconcil iation

of the surviving members of the Original Dixieland JazzBand, and his admonition of

“Boys, this is no way to go

out !” best expresses the thoughts of others who have

tried . But the task he has cut out for himsel f is one of

monumental proportions . Stubbornly opposed to any

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The S tory of th e Dixie land Jazz B and

heavy touch and humming or whistl ing the melody. The

chord symbol s, which he has come to recognize throughlong experience, are scribbled on the backs of old en

velopes or any scrap of paper at hand ; but the melodyis carried in his head until son Jimmy comes around tocapture it on staff paper. The melody comes out sl ightlydifferent each time it is hummed or whistled, so the

number often passes through many stages of evolutionbetween its conception and the moment of transcription.

The rhythmic ideas, phrases, and tonal effects developed by Nick LaRocca nearly a hal f century ago are

l ikely to remain fundamental to jazz for many years tocome, regardless of its modern directions . But his impact upon American music may not be ful ly appreciateduntil jazz is more ful ly understood by more people . It

is a music that took its orchestration and basic time fromthe parade bands ofNew Orleans, its harmonic structureand patterns of composition from the European tradition, and its melodic improvisation from the particularbrand of ragtime that flourished in every seaport townfrom the Crescent City to the Barbary Coast. But something new was added : a most revolutionary style of hit

ting before or after the beat—a distinctive syncopation

that is the essence of jazz . The whole jazz ensemble re

volved around this characteristic approach to the melody—the trombone answering the com et in a voice stronglyreminiscent of mil itary bands , and the clarinet developing an entirely new

“noodl ing” style to fil l in the gaps

left for this purpose in the melodic phrasing.

As jazz goes into the fifth decade of its history, thefashions in that contagious form of syncopation continue

to change . On through the pages of history march its

Syncop ated Echoes

heroes—Whiteman, Goodman, Armstrong, Gil lespieeach hailed in his own day . But l ingering l ike ghosts inthe background—+first ridiculed, then widely acclaimed,later attacked, and final ly al l but forgotten—are NickLaRocca and his musicians of another age, the five

pioneers who brought into existence the most phenomenal revolution in the annals of American music.

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Index

194, 217, 219, 223. See also

Livery Stable Blues”

Barrocca, Dominic, 9, 10, 15

Barrocca, Joe, 9, 10, 14, I5Barth, Harry, 229, 257Behrenson ,

“Doc,

”15, 40

Behrenson, Sigmund, 15, 45

Beiderbecke , Leon“Bix,

195-97, 201“Belgian Dol l ,

”95, 96

Bernard, AI, 152, 153

Bernie, Ben,radio program

of, 224

B ig Broadcast o] 1937, The,205, 206

B illboard, The, on Dixiel andBand, 44

B luebird recordings, 242“Bluin’

the Blues,”88, 97,

103, 194, 223, 216-19

Blum’

s Café, New Orleans, 18Bobcats, Bob Crosby

’

s, xviii,243

Bonano, Sharkey, 138, 141143 , 240, 242

Booster’

s Club, Chicago, 22,29

Boschart, Harry, 139

Boston, Mass., 178-79, 199,226

Boston Herald,

on radiobroadcast of DixielandBand, 179

Index

Bow Wow Blues, 149, 153,154

Braun’

s Naval and MilitaryBand, 13, 14

Braun’

s Park Concert Band,

“Breakdown, in ragtime, 7

Broadway R ose,”148, 150,

151

Broadway Sextette, the, 139Brooklyn, N. Y., 175, 184

Brooks, Sheldon, 61

Brown, Steve, 15, 27Brown, Tom

“Red,

”vu , 14,

15, 24, 26, 27, 77, 124

Brown’

s Band from Dixie

Land, 27, 28, 124. See also

Kings of Ragtime and

Ragtime RubesBrunies, Abbie, 9, 10, 14, 41Brunies, George, 10, 196

Brunies, Henry, 9, 10, 15, 41

Brunies, Merrit, 9, 10, 41

Brunies, R ichard, 15

Buffalo, N. Y., 234

Burkan, Nathan, 77, 79, 85

Busoni, Sixti, 165, 175, 188

Carpenter, George A ., federal

judge , 79, 83-85

Carter, Earl , 41Caruso, Enrico, 61, 63, 64,70

Casino Gardens, Chicago, 43,47-49, 76

Casino Theater, New York,51

Cassard, Jules, 8, 9, 15, 40Central Opera House, New

York, 155Central Park Zoo, New York,156, 160

Century Theater, New York,28, 61

Chaplin, Charl ie, 61

Chase, Wilder, 190

Chicago Breeze, on DixielandBand, 43

Chicago Daily News, on“Liv

ery Stab le Blues,”78, 81,

82

Chicago Herald, on Stein’

s

Dixie Jass Band, 36, 37Chicago Journal , on La

R occa, 82, 83“Chinatown,

”112

Chinese orchestra, at Colonial

Theater, 111, 112

Chinese Toddle, dance, 109Christian

, Charles, 14

Christian,Emi le, 13, 15, 41,

45, 97, 103, 116, 117, 125,130, 131, 137-39, 142, 143 ,256, 257

Christian, Frank, 14, 15, 60Christian

,Fred, 9

Christian Science Monitor,

article by Benny Goodman

in, 205Cincinnati, Ohio, 233, 241Cinderel la Bal lroom, New

York, 190, 194Clambake Seven, TommyDorsey

’s, xviii, 243

“Clarinet Marmalade, 88,90, 97, 103, 105, 106, 218,219, 221, 223

Col iseum, New Orleans, 21Col lege Inn, Coney Island,60, 141

Colonial Theater, New York,111, 114

Columbia Gramophone Co.

(American ) , 63-66, 71, 72,98, 169

Columbia Graphophone Co.

(Engl ish ) , xvi, 71, 117,129, 131, 132, 150

'

Columbia Theater, NewYork,28

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Index

lawsuit against CBS, 249,250

Edwards, Gus, R ound the

Circle” review, 52

Ellerbusch, Joe, 10, 15Englart, Fred, 9

Eppy’

s band,192

Erdman,Ernie , 40, 75, 83

Exchange Place, 18 , 19

Feist, Leo, and Co. , 77, 80,97

,101, 246

Fell , Timothy J 39, 40

Ferguson,Clara Bel le, 124.

See also Shields, C l ara“Fidgety Feet,

”88 , 90, 94,

96,97, 103, 104, 106, 153,

194,219

Fiegle’

s Dance Palace, Phila

delphia, 163, 165

Film, silent, of Dixieland

Band,60, 61

Finland, S S ,136, 140

Fischer, John, 14, 15

Fitchenberg Enterprises, 122Fitzgerald, Harry, 28Five Pennies, the, 197Flatbush Theater, Brooklyn,

175, 176“Fogarty

’

s Dance R evue and

Jass Band,” 43 , 44Fol ies Bergere Café, New

York, 141, 142, 154, 160Fort Worth, Tex. , 236, 238

Fowler, Don,viii, 32

Fox-trot,dance, 109, 111

Frazier, George, 229, 230

Frisco, Joe (Louis Josephs ) ,26, 27

Fugues, 6, 34, 70

Ful ler, Earl , 58, 59

Gabler, Mil t, 246, 247Gal lity, Bil l , 9, 10, 14, 15Gappel l , Moe, 166

Gensler, Lew, 205

George, King, 129, 134“Georgia Camp Town Meet

ing,”94

Gerosa, Joe, 13, 15Gessner, Tom, 11

Giardel la, Tess Aunt Je155

Giardina,Ernest, 13, 41

Giardina, Tony, 138, 141

Giblin, Eddie, 13Glasgow, Scotland, 128

Gluck, Harry, 190, 191, 193

Gluskin, Lud, 139

Good For Nothing, The,silent film, 60, 61

Goodman, Benny, 46, 197,201-205, 216, 218, 221

224, 255

Gorman, Ross, 58, 186

Gowans, Brad, 199, 200, 242,247

Graham, Roger, 77, 80

Gray, Gilda, 142, 143

Grofe, Ferde, 184, 187Guiffre, Joe, 7, 9, 15Guiffre

,John, 9

Guitar, Wil l ie, 7, 9, 15, 20

Hackett, Bobby, 242, 249,250

Hale and Patterson, 110, 111 ,117, 130, 132, 142

Handy , W. C .,107, 122, 152

Hare, Sammy, 39

Harlem,New York, 181, 182

Harrington,Lord, 136, 138

Hart, Max, 50, 61, 76, 98,

245

Harvey, Buzz, 7, 9, 15Haymarket Café

,New Or

leans, 10, 21, 22

Healy’

s Golden Glades, NewYork, 58

“Hello Pal , dance, 109

Kahn, Walter, 58

Keith vaudevil le circuit, 117,123, 141

Kelly, Bert, 27, 76, 77, 142King, E. T.

,145, 147, 149

King of Jazz, The, film, 200“King Tut Strut,

”96, 179

Kings of Ragtime, the, 28.

See also Brown’

s Band

from Dixie Land and Ragtime Rubes

Kings of Syncopation, the

Five, 160Kronengold, Sticks, 166

Krueger, Benny, 146, 148 ,

150-52

Krupa, Gene, 197, 204

Ladd’

s Black Aces, 169, 178Laine

,Jack Papa, 10, 14

16, 18-22, 33

Lal la, Joe, 14, 15LaMam e, the, A tlantic City,N . J., 160, 161

Lambert, Bil l , 15, 27, 251Lamb ’

s Café, Chicago, 27, 28,124

Lancefield, Sidney,

LaRocca, Dominic James“Nick,

” birth of,1 ; early

musical influences, 1 -6 ; as

are l ight attendant, 6 ; in

early ragtime orchestras, 6

7 ; first band of, 8 ; as

print shop maintenance

man, 11 ; with Stein’

s band,20, 29-31 ; cornet styl e of,31-34

,151 ; as composer,

34-36, 69, 70, 89-96, 97

(table ) , 100, 253, 254 ;forms Dixieland Band, 41,92 ; at R eisenweber

’

s, 57 ;in lawsuits, 77, 86 ; as

manager of band , 93 ; at

draft board, 114 ; in Eng

Index

land, 124-37 ; in New York137-60 ; business with A J.Piron, 144 ; business W l tllW. C . Handy, 152 ; at Cen

tral Park Zoo,160 ; gets

pneumonia, 165 ; account

of Bangor Incident, 179,180 ; in Harlem, 182 ; nervous breakdown of, 188,189 ; and reorganization of

band, 188-206 ; and Beiderbecke, 195, 196 ; publ ishing business with R ob inson, 231 ; at Fort Worth,236-38 ; disbands Dixieland Five, 238-39 ; as

carpenter, 247, 253 ; as

anti-critic, 253, 254

LaR occa, Giarolamo, 1-6

LaRocca Collection, Tulane

University, viLasses Candy, 96, 97,103, 130, 131, 148, 149

Laucher, Whit, 9, 15“Lazy Daddy,

”88, 97, 103,

106, 196

Lesberg, Jack, 247Levine, Henry

“Hot Lips,

x, 191-94

Lewis, Ted, 58, 59,Lillie, Beatrice, 133

Literary Digest,“Trotting to

Perdition,

”174

“Livery Stab le B lues, 11,34, 35, 36, 69-73, 75

-87,88, 90, 93, 97-102, 112,185, 186, 217

Lombardo, Guy, 201 , 202Long Island Speedway, 188“Look A t ’

em Doin’It,

”97,

102, 103, 131

Lopez, R ay, 15, 27, 77, 81

Lopez, V incent, 58, 194, 201

Lotak, Frank, 60Louisiana Five, the, 45

Loyacano, Arnold, 15, 27Lucas, John, 58Lytel , Jimmy, 165, 166, 170,175

MacDonald, J . S ., 76, 96, 145,147, 149, 152

McGarrity, Lou, 249, 250

McVicker’

s, Chicago, 43

Madison Square Garden

Dance Marathon, 198

Mamaroneck, N . Y., 112“Mammy O

’

Mine,”130, 131

Manhattan Jazz Band, the,252

March of Time film,x, 226

229“Margie, 122, 144-49, 154,213

Markel,Mike, 140

Marks, Edward B ., Music

Corp ., 86, 87, 97

Martan Club , London, 132,133

Maxted, Billy, 252

Mello,Leonce

,10, 15, 21-23

Memphis, Tenn 107, 230

Memphis Five . See OriginalMemphis Five

Miller, Glenn, 197, 243Mitchel l and Booker, 134-39,

Mole, Miff, 166, 170, 197,251

Morris, Wil l l am, 121, 206,

212

Morse, Theodore F., 80

Morton,Jelly Roll , 249, 250

“Mournin’

Blues,”86, 97,

103

Moynahan,James H. S.,

ix,

32, 201, 227

Muel ler, Gus, 15, 27, 28, 141,185-87

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Index

Palais R oyal Café, New York,141, 184

“Palesteena, 148, 149

Pal lachais , John, 9, 15

Pal ladium ,London, 128, 132

Paradise Bal lroom, Margaret

Hawkesworth’

s, 52

Paradise Ballroom, Newark,N. J. , 194

Paramount Theater, New

York, 236Parker, Don, 148, 177, 178

Patterson, Signe. See Hale

and Patterson

Pecora, Santo, V II , 32

Peer, Ralph, 107

Philadelphia, Pa., 163“Pickup

” bands, 195, 197Piron , A . J. , 144

Pol lack, Ben, 197, 201

Pontchartrain Hotel , New

York, 122, 124Pottsville, Pa., 163

Price, Fonce, 7, 9

Princess Theater, New Or

leans, 122

Proctor’

s Theater, Schenec

tady, N. Y., 225

Provenzano, John, 24

R aderman, Harry, 58, 59

Radio broadcasts, of Dixieland Band, 179, 212, 213,224

R agas, Henry W. , 10, 22, 24,35, 36, 38, 60, 67, 72, 78,103, 119-21

Ragtime Rubes, the, 28. See

also Brown ’

s Band fromDixie Land and Kings of

R agtime

R amble, dance, 109R amos, Sousou , 7, 9, 15

R apollo, Leon (the elder ) , 9,15

Ray, Phil , 9, 15

Rector’

s, London, 134, 135

Rector’

s,New York, 58

“Reisenweber Rag,

”97, 100,

103. See also Dixie JassBand One-Step

”and

“Or

iginal Dixieland One

Step”

R eisenweber’

s R estaurant,New York, xv , 50-61, 64,88, 89, 111, 112, 114, 117,123

, 166, 195, 205

Reisman, Leo F 182, 183,187

Rel iance Band, Jack Laine’s,10, 14, 19

“R iff, musical phrase, 95,104, 221, 222

R itarding Cheese, 183

R obinson,J . Russel , birth of,

122 ; early career in music,122, 123 ; joins DixielandBand, 123 ; in England,125, 135 ; as composer,131, 133, 144

,145 ; re

cordings of, 123 (pianorol ls ) , 130, 131, 148-51 ,218, 219, 242 (with band )quits band, 135 ; returns

to band, 140 ; helps reor

ganize band, 206-210 ; in

March of Time film, 227,

228 ; publ ishing businesswith LaRocca, 232 at Fort

Worth,236 ; on We the

People, 242

Robbins, J . J bookingagent, 177

R oby, George, 126Rogers, Buddy, 8, 9, 15

Roland, Ed, 10, 15

Rose , B illy, 236

R ose Dancel and, New York,194

Index

Rosebud Bal lroom, ConeyIsland, 176

R oseland Dance Hal l , New

York, 198R osemont Bal lroom, Brooklyn,

190

Roth, Jack, 166Rothschild, Sam, 39, 41

R oy, Teddy, 247“R oyal Garden Blues, 148 ,152, 153

R oyalties, from DixielandBand compositions, 89,

245, 246

Rust, Brian, ix, 132

Ruth, Jim, 7, 9, 15

St. Charles Theater, New

Orleans , 230St. Louis Blues, 152,

216, 218

Sapho R ag, 122

Satanic Blues, 97, 103,130, 131, 148, 149, 158,

218

Saturday Evening Post, The,on Dixiel and Band,

‘

228,

229

Saturday Night Swing C lub ,radio program,

224

Savoy Hotel , London,133

Saxophone, in jazz, 140, 145,

Sbarbaro, Anthony, in

Braun’

s band, 13 ; on

rhythm of Dixiel and Band,32 ; birth of

,41 ; drum

style of, 41, 42, 59 ; re

cordings of, 67, 69, 72,103, 131, 148 , 217-19, 242 ;in lawsuit, 78 ; in England,124-34 ; in

“hooch

”raid,

168 ; as leader of Dixie

land Band, 190-91, 193,194 ; in 1936 reorganiza

tion , 209, 221 ; in March ofTime film, 227 ; on We thePeople, 242 ; in Edwards’

band, 246, 247 ; in lawsuitagainst CBS, 250

Schenectady, N. Y., 225

Schil ler’

s Café, Chicago, 29,30, 34, 36, 40, 42, 75

Seaberg, A rtie, 148, 175, 177,178, 190-95, 225

Sensation R ag,”36

, 97,103, 106, 129, 131, 196,242

Shields, Clara, W I , 124, 136,137, 249

Shiel ds , Eddie, 45, 121Shiel ds, Larry, in LaR occa

’

s

first band, 8, 9 ; in Brown’s

band, 27, 28 ; early musical career of, 45 , 46 ; joinsDixieland Band

,46 ; re

cordings of, 67, 69, 102,103, 131, 148, 151, 152,218-22

, 242 ; vacation in

France, 136 ; on S . S . Ves

tris , 137 ; at Central ParkZoo

, 160 ; with Sophie

Tucker, 161 ; quits band,163-65 ; in

“hooch

”raid,

168 ; career in Hollywood,164, 165, 198 ; in fourteen-

piece band, 215 ; in

March of Time fihn , 226,227 ; on Bluebird records,242 ; returns to Cal ifornia,242 ; death of, 248 , 249

Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble, 143

Shimmy, dance, 110, 111 ,142, 143, 171, 174, 175

Signorel li, Frank, 148, 153,165, 166, 168-70, 175, 196,197, 240, 242, 251

Silver Sl ipper Orchestra,Eddie Edwards’, 198

Index

Singin’

the Blues , 122

Sister Kate .

”See I Wish I

Could Shimmy Like MySister Kate”

Skeleton Jangle, 97, 103,106, 219, 223

Smith, Charles Edward, 33“Some of These Days,

”61 ,

148, 177

Some R ainy Nights, 96

Souey, Charles, 67Sousa, John Phil ip, 6, 61 , 64,70

Southerners , the, 191“Sphinx,

”131, 138

Stauch’

s Café, 192Stein, Johnny, 10, 14, 22, 23,38, 40, 45, 60, 138, 141

Stein’

s band, 14, 22, 23, 29,30, 33 36, 38, 40, 75

“Sudan,

103,130, 131

Sunday Evening Telegram

(London ) , on DixielandBand, 133

SweetMama, 148, 151, 157

Symphonic” j azz

,xvii, 184

187, 196, 201

Tailgate trombone , 11, 31Tango Palace, 41

Tarranto, Joe, 8-10, 15“Tel l Me , 131

“That Loving Baby ofMine,

“That Teasin

’

R ag, 86, 87,100

Theatrical Boosters’ C lub, 49

“There it Goes Again,

”102

“Tiger R ag,

”11, 36, 73, 94,

95, 97, 102, 103, 105, 106,129, 131, 134, 148, 151 ,178 , 193, 195, 213, 216,218, 219, 221-23, 227, 238,242

,247, 249, 250

Toddl in’

B lues, 97, 148 ,

178, 218

Trumbauer, Frankie, 197

201

Tucker, Sophie, 140, 160,161

Tujague, Joe, 7, 8, 9, 15Tujague, Jon, 7, 9, 15

Vanicelli, Henry, 148, 175,177, 178

Variety, on shimmy, 58, 111,112

Vaudeville, on Dixieland

Band, 43

V-disc, Dixieland Band on,

242

Victor catalog, 107

Victor Record Review, 68,69

Victor Talking Machine Co.,

xvi, 63-70,75-78, 86, 96,

98, 122, 141, 145-53, 164,169, 178, 181, 187, 195,197, 203, 216-24, 226

Victory Bal l , London, 133“Walkin’

the Dog, 71, 111

Wang Wang Blues, 141

War Cloud,”95, 96

When You Hear That Dl xieland Jazz Band Play, 61

Whiteman, Paul

,xvii

, 25,141

, 142, 162, 163, 184

186, 196, 197, 200, 206,

255Winter Garden Theater, NewYork, 112, 141

Wolverines, the, 196Wynn, Ed, 112, 212, 213

“!

”l abel reissues, 104

You Are There, televisionprogram, 249, 250

Young, Henry, 6, 9

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Date Due

Library Bureau Cat No 1137

Brunn, Harry 0The story of the Ongmal a neland Jazz