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THE INSTRUMENTS, THE SOUNDS, THE PERFORMERS |
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drummer named Tony Sbarbaro opened at Reisenweber's Cafe on West 58th Street in New York City as the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (Sbarbaro, under the name of Tony Spargo, was still active in New York Dixieland jazz in 1957).
The Dixieland Band made its first records February 24, 1917 for Victor. Dixie Joss Band One-Step and Livery Stable Blues reveal remarkably little difference between the basic approach, the material and the interpretation in that era and the performances by groups of this type today. Certain phrases, inevitably, became cliches and have been discarded; the level of musicianship has benefited from the broader opportunities offered to musicians, but basically the pattern is strikingly familiar.
Some critics tend to discount the contributions of the Original Dixieland Band and of all early white jazz groups. Others point to the Friars* Society Orchestra, later known as the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. This group, they claim, evidenced a warmer and more inspired approach, not so much from the work of the leader, trumpeter Paul Mares, as from the contributions of two of the sidemen, Leon Rappolo, clarinetist, and George Brunis, the trombonist.
While the white groups gained a foothold in recorded small-band jazz, the Negro orchestra, though largely ignored by the record companies until 1923, had been developing in several major centers. King Oliver opened at the Lincoln Gardens in Chicago in 1917, with Jimmy Noone on clarinet; Louis Armstrong, who took Oliver's place in the Kid Ory band in New Orleans, later joined Oliver as second cornetist while Ory moved to California. As far as can be determined, the first recordings ever made by Negro jazz combos were Ory's Creole Trombone and Society Blues by Ory's Sunshine Orchestra recorded in 1921 in Los Angeles, and MabeVs Dream, Southern Stomp and Riverside Blues recorded by King Oliver's Jazz Band in Chicago in March 1923 (around the same time Fletcher Henderson began recording in New York; he will be discussed in the CHAPTER on big bands).
Despite the overall similarities in the nature of the music, the records of the Original Dixieland Band and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings both show one important structural difference |
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