Early Years
"Baby" Dodds (pronounced "dots") was the younger brother of clarinetist Johnny Dodds. He is regarded as one of the very best jazz drummers of the pre-big band era, and one of the most important early jazz drummers. His mother, who died when he was nine years old, taught him valuable lessons about persistence and putting one’s whole effort into endeavors, and he carried these with him through his career as a jazz drummer. He was born into a very musical family. His father and uncle played violin and his sister played harmonica. In addition, his father was religious and the family would regularly sing hymns together. Dodds, in his autobiography The Baby Dodds Story, tells the story of making his first drum: “I took a lard can and put holes in the bottom and turned it over and took nails and put holes around the top of it. Then I took some rounds out of my mother’s chairs and made drumsticks out of them” At age 16, Dodds saved up enough money to buy his own drum set. Although Dodds had several paid teachers during his early years as a drummer, various jazz drummers around New Orleans also influenced him. He started playing in street parades around New Orleans with Bunk Johnson and his band and then got a job playing in Willie Hightower’s band, the American Stars. The band played in various venues around New Orleans, and Dodds recalls hearing many musicians along the way, including Buddy Bolden, John Robichaux, and Jelly Roll Morton. He played with several different outfits including those of Frankie Duson and Sonny Celestin, and he was part of the New Orleans tradition of playing jazz during funeral marches. Dodds describes this experience in his autobiography: “The jazz played after New Orleans funerals didn’t show any lack of respect for the person being buried. It rather showed their people that we wanted them to be happy”.
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