Today’s track: Dixieland One-Step by Original Dixieland Jass Band (1917)



This is where it all begins. Though a ‘hot’ style of ragtime became popular in the northeastern states around this time, many scholars agree that the streets of New Orleans deserve the bulk of the credit as the nursery for early jazz.

And here’s why:

The infamous Jim Crow laws were enacted in some states following the Civil War, designed to rigidly segregate African Americans in a way described as ‘separate but equal’ – but who were they kidding, it was heinous. These laws reached Louisiana in 1894 and had a particularly harsh effect on a group called the Creoles. The Creoles were mixed-race (usually African/French/Spanish) who lived and worked throughout Louisiana, considered les gens de couleur libres (or, ‘free people of colour’). Jim Crow laws stripped the Creoles of their previously-enjoyed liberties and most came to the city settling in the (now famous) French Quarter. Across Canal St. were the grim neighbourhoods of uptown (Storyville, for one), and there lived ‘Uptown Negroes’.

The meeting of the two cultures, though under the worst of circumstances, was a pivotal moment. The Creoles came from a pseudo-aristocratic past and brought with them formal musical education. The ‘Uptown Negroes’ were well-known for their loud, raucous horn style filling the sketchy bars and brothels of the uptown neighbourhoods. It’s worth mentioning that the traditional New Orleans funeral march also began with this group. The soulful (yet disorganized), often-improvised sound of the ‘Uptown Negroes’ combining with the training and structure of the Creoles was realized almost immediately, and poof! Just twenty years until jazz.

In the meantime, a band leader named Buddy Bolden became known in the neighbourhoods of New Orleans for playing a brash, upbeat style of march with several bands between 1890 and 1905. His emphasis upon the second and fourth beats of a measure and eagerness to stray toward syncopation defined what became the New Orleans sound. There are no surviving recordings of his music but many of his band’s pieces became early jazz standards. Also importantly, his style inspired particular fervor among horn players that resonated for years.

I want to introduce today’s track by admitting that I’m not a fan. I find it sloppy and a little grating, but that’s my opinion. I chose today’s track because of the Original Dixieland Jass Band’s importance in the history of early jazz. This was the first jazz recording. The ODJB’s early tracks were responsible for propelling jazz from shady streets and into the mainstream – the first jazz most Americans had ever heard. Its massive popularity inspired live performances in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and of course their hometown New Orleans. The ODJB was a white group that marketed themselves as inventing jazz, but they got a lot more credit then they deserved. In my eyes the ODJB can be thanked for two things: bringing jazz from the slums and into the American mainstream, and two, introducing the word ‘jass’ to the broad public. Legend has it that the word ‘jass’ was short for ‘Jasmine’ perfume, the chosen scent of prostitutes in uptown’s red light district called Storyville. It was changed from ‘jass’ to ‘jazz’ to discourage hooligans from crossing out the ‘j’ on billboards.

Tomorrow New Orleans matures, Kings and Jelly Rolls included.