Original Dixieland Jass Band - Music of ODJB

Music of ODJB

Their first release "Livery Stable Blues" featured instruments doing barnyard imitations and the fully loaded trap set, wood blocks, cowbells, gongs, and Chinese gourds. This musical innovation represented one of the first experimental exercises in jazz. At the time, their music was liberating; the barnyard sounds were experiments in altering the tonal qualities of the instruments, and clattering wood blocks broke up the rhythm. The music was very lively when compared to the pop music of the time.

It can be argued that they ranked among the most talented composers of popular music of their day. Many of the tunes first composed and recorded by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, such as "Tiger Rag" and "Margie", were recorded by all the major jazz bands and orchestras of the twentieth century, black and white. "Tiger Rag" was recorded by everyone from Louis Armstrong to Duke Ellington to Glenn Miller to Benny Goodman. "Tiger Rag", in particular, became popular with many colleges and universities having a tiger as a mascot. In the biography John Coltrane: His Life and Music, published in 1999, Lewis Porter noted that ODJB's classic, "Margie", was a "specialty" of John Coltrane, a song he performed regularly in his early career. "Tiger Rag", "Margie", "Clarinet Marmalade", "At The Jazz Band Ball", "Sensation Rag", and "Fidgety Feet" remain much played classics in the repertory of contemporary Dixieland and traditional jazz bands. Their tunes were published as collaborations by some or all of the entire ensemble, including band leader Nick La Rocca.

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band recording of "Tiger Rag" was no. 1 for two weeks on the U.S. Hit Parade charts beginning on December 11, 1918. The Mills Brothers recorded "Tiger Rag" in 1931 with lyrics and spent four weeks at no. 1 on the charts in 1931–1932 with their version of the ODJB song.

The Eddie Edwards composition "Sensation Rag" or "Sensation" was performed at the 1938 landmark Benny Goodman jazz concert at Carnegie Hall released on the album The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert.

Compared to later jazz, the ODJB recordings have only modest improvisation in mostly ensemble tunes. Clarinetist Larry Shields is perhaps the most interesting player, showing a good fluid tone, and if his melodic variations and breaks now seem overly familiar, this is because they were imitated widely by musicians who followed in the band's footsteps.

Their concept of arrangement was somewhat limited, and their recordings can seem rather repetitive. The lack of a bass player is scarcely compensated for by the piano on their earlier, acoustically recorded sessions. Nonetheless, ODJB arrangements were wild, impolite, and definitely had a jazz feel, and that style still is referred to as the style of music known as Dixieland.

Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra, one of the most popular and influential jazz bands of the 1920s, recorded several ODJB compositions:

1. "Beale Street Mama", composed by ODJB pianist J. Russel Robinson, was recorded by the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra in 1923 as an instrumental and was released on Paramount
2. "Clarinet Marmalade" was recorded in 1926 by the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and released on Vocalion and on Brunswick. In 1931, Henderson recorded a new version of "Clarinet Marmalade", which was released on Columbia
3. "Livery Stable Blues" was recorded in 1927 and released on Columbia;
4. "Fidgety Feet", composed by Nick LaRocca, was recorded in 1927 and was released on the Vocalion label
5. "Sensation" was recorded in 1927 and released on Vocalion
6. "Tiger Rag" was recorded in 1931 and was released on Crown
7. "Aggravatin' Papa", a collaboration with ODJB pianist J. Russel Robinson, was recorded by the Fletcher Henderson Dance Orchestra in 1923 with Alberta Hunter on vocals
8. "Singin' the Blues (Till My Daddy Comes Home)" was recorded in 1931 with Rex Stewart on cornet

Jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke recorded nine compositions by ODJB in various bands and orchestras from 1924 to 1930: "Fidgety Feet", his first recording in 1924, "Tiger Rag", "Sensation", "Lazy Daddy", "Ostrich Walk", "Clarinet Marmalade", "Singin' the Blues" with Frankie Trumbauer and Eddie Lang, "Margie", and "At The Jazz Band Ball". Beiderbecke was influenced by ODJB to become a jazz musician and was heavily influenced by Nick LaRocca's trumpet style with the band.

Louis Armstrong acknowledged the importance of ODJB in the evolution and development of jazz and the influence they had on him:

“Only four years before I learned to play the trumpet in the Waif's Home, or in 1909, the first great jazz orchestra was formed in New Orleans by a cornet player named Dominick James LaRocca. They called him 'Nick' LaRocca. His orchestra had only five pieces but they were the hottest five pieces that had ever been known before. LaRocca named this band 'The Old Dixieland Jass Band'. He had an instrumentation different from anything before, an instrumentation that made the old songs sound new. Besides himself at the cornet, LaRocca had Larry Shields, clarinet, Eddie Edwards, trombone, Ragas, piano, and Sbarbaro, drums. They all came to be famous players and the Dixieland Band has gone down now in musical history.” – Louis Armstrong, Swing That Music, 1936

ODJB was the first band to record jazz successfully, establishing and creating jazz as a new musical idiom and genre of music.