Nick LaRocca - Later Life and Controversy

Later Life and Controversy

In the 1950s he wrote numerous vehement letters to newspapers, radio, and television shows, stating that he was the true and sole inventor of jazz music, damaging his credibility and provoking a backlash against him and his reputation and career. He made obviously exaggerated claims that he was "The Creator of Jazz", "The Christopher Columbus of Music", and "The most lied about person in history since Jesus Christ".

When Tulane University established their Archive of New Orleans Jazz in 1958, LaRocca donated his large collection of papers related to the O.D.J.B. to Tulane, after adding numerous glosses in the margins.

At the same time, he worked with writer H.O. Brunn on the book The Story of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. In the book LaRocca claimed that he founded the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1908. The book is dismissive of the other members of the O.D.J.B. It is perhaps kindest to clarinetist Larry Shields.

Those musicologists and historians who seek to accurately assess LaRocca's contributions to jazz are as much hindered as helped by LaRocca's own exaggerated statements. A small few, mostly in England, have taken LaRocca on his word, while a much larger segment of jazz historians have dismissed his biased and self-serving statements. LaRocca may have inadvertently done much damage to his own reputation. Nevertheless, musicologists and jazz historians can rely on the historical record and the evidence and do not have to go on self-serving statements.

A balanced assessment would have to acknowledge that Nick LaRocca was an important figure in taking jazz from a regional style to international popularity, the leader of the most influential jazz band of the period from 1917 to 1921, and a good player in a very early jazz style on records such as "Clarinet Marmalade". LaRocca's playing and recordings were an important early influence on such later jazz trumpeters as Red Nichols, Bix Beiderbecke and Phil Napoleon. Nick LaRocca's 1917 composition "Tiger Rag" was covered by Louis Armstrong in several different versions throughout his career, while Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, and The Mills Brothers also recorded important and influential cover versions of the jazz standard. Additional information about Nick LaRocca and his biographer can be found in Salvatore Mugno's novel: "Il biografo di Nick LaRocca. Come entrare nelle storie del jazz", Besa Editrice, Nardò (Lecce), Italia, 2005.