The Original Dixieland Jazz Band: Livery Stable Blues

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band was originally an off-shoot of Stein’s Dixie Jass Band and started out under the leadership of cornetist, Nick LaRocca. By 1917, the band had moved from Chicago to New York, where in February of that year, they would make the first-ever jazz recording, “Livery Stable Blues/Dixie Jass Band One Step” for Victor.

The recording was a huge commercial success, and it introduced jazz to a nationwide audience. The huge sales of that first recording motivated other record labels to record jazz and thus sparked the spread of the music.

The initial incarnation of the band recorded several other excellent sides including, “Darktown Strutter’s Ball,” “Ostrich Walk,” and “Tiger Rag.” Their music was typical early Dixieland jazz, but the ODJB had some of the finest musicians in jazz music at the time including Larocca on cornet, “Daddy” Edwards on trombone, Henry Ragas on piano, and Larry Shields on clarinet.

The ODJB was a white band, and Larocca was a proud member of the white race who always maintained that it was not African-Americans who had created jazz, but white musicians. Larocca’a overt racism has probably hurt the reputation of the ODJB and encouraged many observers to write them off as simply a bunch of second-rate white musicians who only had the opportunity to make the first jazz recording due to the institutionalized racism of the time. However, this is clearly not the case. Freddie Keppard, an African-American cornetist, turned down the opportunity to make the first jazz recording, in 1916.

The ODJB reunited several times in the Thirties and toured Europe. Drummer Tony Sbarbaro was the only original member to appear on all the band’s recordings between 1917 and 1938.

Several compilations of the band’s early sides can be found including, “The Complete Original Dixieland Jazz Band (1917-1938)” (1995). The band also appears on several compilations of early recorded jazz.