Original Dixieland Jass Band

Original Dixieland Jass Band -- New Orleans band, first ever to make a jazz recording in 1917 and the first jazz band to achieve prominence.

The band was all white, but rose from the same reservoir of musical excitement in New Orleans in the period 1890 to 1920 that saw the rise of the first black jazz bands. They were billed as the "creators of jazz" (both spellings of the word were used), but they were neither the first jazz band, the first white jazz band, or even the first band, black or white, to play outside of New Orleans. Nonetheless, they were a highly visible part of the New-Orleans-to-Chicago connection that was the beginning of the spread of jazz.

Today, their music sounds decidedly corny, with instruments doing barnyard imitations and a fully loaded trap set, wood blocks, cowbells, gongs, and Chinese gourds, but at the time their music was liberating. Those barnyard sounds were also experiments in altering the tonal qualities of the instruments, and those clattering wood blocks were experiments in breaking up the rhythm. And it had attitude to spare compared to the vapid pop music of the time.

The band improvised little, playing mostly arranged, ensemble tunes. In this they resembled the pioneer black band led by Joe "King" Oliver, a more sophisticated tonal experimenter. But the arrangements were wild and impolite and definitely had a jazz feel. And people still call that kind of music Dixieland.