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Speaker 1: Welcome back to this Day in History class, where we

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Speaker 1: reveal a new piece of history every day. The day

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Speaker 1: was February nineteen. A five man ensemble called the Original

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Speaker 1: Dixie Land Jazz Band That's Jazz with Two s Is

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Speaker 1: recorded two songs in the New York City recording studios

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Speaker 1: of the Victor Talking Machine Company. The band members in

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Speaker 1: the Original Dixie Land Jazz Band were coordinatist Nick Larocca,

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Speaker 1: clarinetist Larry Shields, trombonis Eddie Edwards, drummer Tony Sparbaro, and

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Speaker 1: pianist Henry Ragis. And the two songs were Livery Stable

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Speaker 1: Blues and Dixie Jazz one Step, the first commercial jazz

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Speaker 1: recordings ever. See jazz us had been evolving for years

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Speaker 1: before these songs were recorded. Jazz chases its origins to

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Speaker 1: African American communities in the American South and New Orleans

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Speaker 1: in the early twentieth century, and it has roots in

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Speaker 1: ragtime and blues. New Orleans especially was a soupy mix

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Speaker 1: of people of many different ethnicities, and jazz was influenced

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Speaker 1: by African rhythms, African American musical traditions, and European music improvisation.

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Speaker 1: Call in response and syncopated rhythms are important features of jazz,

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Speaker 1: but they're just some of many. The thing about jazz

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Speaker 1: is that it's hard to pin down the kinds of

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Speaker 1: music that fall under the umbrella. Jazz are vast, and

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Speaker 1: jazz is nearly impossible to define as a musical genre,

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Speaker 1: so as you could imagine, the task of awarding the

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Speaker 1: honor of first Jazz recording to any one is dangerous territory.

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Speaker 1: Here's how the Original Dixieland Jazz Band or O d

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Speaker 1: j B won the title. After some member switch ups,

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Speaker 1: band name changes, a move from Chicago to New York,

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Speaker 1: and a considerable rise and attention. O d j B

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Speaker 1: got a residence at Rise in Weber's Cafe in New York,

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Speaker 1: and they had been drawing sizeable crowds, so the Victor

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Speaker 1: Talking Machine Company offered to record them, and they recorded

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Speaker 1: Livery Stable Blues and Dixie Jazz One Step. The songs

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Speaker 1: were marketed as novelty Livery Stable Blues even had animal

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Speaker 1: like sound effects, but the songs were energetic, rash, and new,

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Speaker 1: and they caught on while O d j B gained

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Speaker 1: even more popularity. The recordings release was announced in the

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Speaker 1: May nineteen seventeen issue of the Victor Supplement, which listed

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Speaker 1: newly released recordings. There's a picture of the band in

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Speaker 1: the announcement, accompanied by the following copy. The Jazz band

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Speaker 1: is the very latest thing in the development in music.

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Speaker 1: It has sufficient power and penetration to inject life into

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Speaker 1: a mummy and will keep ordinary human dancers on their

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Speaker 1: feet till breakfast time. Livery stable blues in particular we

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Speaker 1: recommend because on the principle that like cures, like this

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Speaker 1: particular variety will be a positive cure for the common

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Speaker 1: or garden type of blues. The recordings sold well, even

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Speaker 1: though both songs faced legal issues later, and some people

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Speaker 1: look back on the songs as tacky, lacking and technical skill,

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Speaker 1: and too closely associated with minstrelsy. Others note the band's

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Speaker 1: merits either way. The original Dixieland Jazz Band success helps

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Speaker 1: spur a jazz craze and led to jazz spreading widely

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Speaker 1: and developing quickly. The band was reportedly the first to

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Speaker 1: use the word jazz in its name, and they helped

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Speaker 1: bring jazz to an international audience. The members of the

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Speaker 1: original Dixieland Jazz Band were all white, unlike so many

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Speaker 1: other early jazz musicians and many of the musicians that

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Speaker 1: inspired O d j B. Considering the racially mixed roots

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Speaker 1: of jazz, it's not that off the wall for the

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Speaker 1: first commercial jazz recordings to be attributed to an all

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Speaker 1: white band. That said, record companies didn't pay too much

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Speaker 1: attention to black musicians at the time, despite the notable

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Speaker 1: integration in New Orleans, so when record companies began taking

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Speaker 1: serious notice of jazz in the nineteen tens, it makes

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Speaker 1: sense that they would turn to a white band. Some

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Speaker 1: critics don't feel the need to label O d j

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Speaker 1: B songs the first jazz recordings, as jazz doesn't have

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Speaker 1: a definitive starting point. There had been recordings before that

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Speaker 1: that were well on their way to jazz, like The

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Speaker 1: Versatile Four's recording of composer and band leader Wilbur Sweatman's

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Speaker 1: down Home Rag and the O d j B wasn't

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Speaker 1: really improvising in the recording, but the recording still marked

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Speaker 1: a turning point in jazz history as it incited a

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Speaker 1: surgeon commercial jazz recordings and introduced the world of jazz

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Speaker 1: to many more people. I'm Eve, Stephcote and hopefully you

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Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday,

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Speaker 1: and I wanted to know a few things here. According

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Speaker 1: to legend, the Victor Talking Machine Company offered a musician,

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Speaker 1: Freddie Kepperd a recording before it offered one to the

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Speaker 1: original Dixie Land Jazz Band, but kept re turned it down,

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Speaker 1: maybe because he didn't want to be copied or because

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Speaker 1: he wouldn't be paid. Also in the nineteen fifties, band

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Speaker 1: member Nick LaRocco went on to make self aggrandizing claims

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Speaker 1: that he invented jazz solely, and he made statements about

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Speaker 1: how white people were making jazz before black people were.

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Speaker 1: And another thing is the band later replaced the two

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Speaker 1: s s in the word jazz in their name with

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Speaker 1: two z's. In the early days of jazz, the word

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Speaker 1: jazz had all kinds of variations in spelling, like one S,

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Speaker 1: two s S S, two z s. I have a lot

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Speaker 1: more notes about jazz, but we'll save that for a

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Speaker 1: later date. If you have any burning questions or comments

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Speaker 1: to tell us, you can find us on Twitter, Instagram,

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Speaker 1: and Facebook at T d i h C Podcast. We'll

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Speaker 1: see you here in the same place tomorrow