Kickin' It Old School To Start Your Monday Right...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
The band: The Original Dixieland Jazz Band. The date: February 26th, 1917. The place: Recording Room B at the Victor Talking Machine Studios. The event: the very first time a jazz band put it on wax. The album was released on March 7th (how’s that for fast turn-around?), and it was an immediate hit, although a bit of a novelty song with the animal noises. Livery Stable Blues (the track above) was b/w The Original Dixieland Jazz Band One-Step.
It was the best-selling record ever of its time, at a quarter million copies. This is at a time when there were probably only a half a million record players in the world. Imagine releasing an album today that ends up on one out of every two MP3 players. The monument of this achievement is something that is completely without peer in the modern age.
For what it’s worth, the band (all white guys, a couple of whom were complete racist fucks) got a bit pompous, touring Europe as “the inventors of jazz,” regularly denying in print that black people had anything whatsoever to do with the creation of the music they played. This is obviously not even remotely the case, as jazz was a reasonably well-known form of music by the time they came around, and that band had only been in existence for a year. However, the world they lived in isn’t the one we live in. I don’t give ’em a pass for it, but they’re dead and gone, so I can’t yell at ’em.
7 comments
Jesus, I love this blog. Thanks for your work.
I would like to find a reliable critic/site/blog/magazine to follow on jazz and classical music and "out" or "new" music. Anyone have any recommendations?
People who try not to be stuffy would be appreciated.
I'm aware of The Wire and it's cool, but often overwhelming.
- c
My favorite story from that era is of James Reese Europe. It was generally understood in New York society that black people were natural musicians who couldn't read music. His band played "popular" music of the time, sort of a proto-jazz, and had a broad repertoire. They were the first jazz band to headline Carnegie Hall, and were well known in America as the backing band for Vernon and Irene Castle, a couple of dancers who were incredibly famous.
Anyhow, in order to either perpetuate the myth or live down to expectations, the band, who could all sight-read like motherfuckers, would learn new songs by rote so there wouldn't be any sheet music on the bandstand.
As far as blogs about deep music? Dunno. Most of this sort of thing I pick up from documentaries. I love me some historical documentary.
-CR
@beautypill...
20jazzfunkgreats- Vangelis and John Carpenter influenced electronic music with some "punk" thrown in for good measure. Interesting writing style and great pics.
http://www.20jazzfunkgreats.co.uk/wordpress/
AORdisco- Disco re-edits of 70's rock. Little broader and better than that sounds. Some of it can get pretty woozy and psychedelic. Mixes on it are a good start, as is Leo Zero's stuff. Good for a laugh at the very least.
http://aordisco.blogspot.com/
Beat Electric- Focused on 80's "Boogie". The guys have got good taste and dig up some gems, even outside the boogie framework. http://beatelectric.blogspot.com/
YMMV, just the one's I look to for pleasant surprises.
Great post indeed.
Tangentially related, I have a collection of bootleg CDs I bought at Bleeker Street Records back at the end of the 90s called 'Chicken Shack Boogie'--there's 7 of 'em, at least that I have; there may be more. The 'label' says made in Jamaica. And they're just deep, deep cuts of American Rhythm & Blues from the early 40s through the mid-50s; sides from regional labels across the US. No liner notes, no credits other than the artist printed on the disc. And in them you can truly hear the genesis of not only American rock 'n' roll but ska and reggae. I did a bunch of research and reading on them, because most were artists I'd never heard of. The bands were often the remnants of the touring big bands that scaled down after the 2nd World War, now touring juke joints throughout the U.S. Especially on the early cuts you can hear the influence of the big bands: lots of honking horns and saxes. Of course, this was all the stuff that was ripped off for white audiences. And that most of it is only available through expensive German or British imports or gray label releases is to me a little sad.
Quite a find, thanks! It's something else, how listenable that recording is.
But ... how big is that kick drum? At load out did they all just climb inside it and roll away...?
@beautypill --
I enjoy reading Alex Ross' blog http://www.therestisnoise.com/ for addressing some of the ignorance I have about classical/other music, and Destination Out http://destination-out.com/ for the tougher/spacier side of jazz (introduced me to Marion Brown and Annette Peacock, just f'r instance).
I also spend a bunch of time with the podcasts from BBC Radio 3, which is the 'classical/other/miscellaneous' strand of BBC radio programming over here, and generally fuzzes with enthusiasm. More of their stuff is available via the live stream, including lots & lots of concert broadcasts. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
Over here the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings is held to be a pretty dependable and joyful tome, although at 1600 pages I guess it'd have to be. Edited by Brian Morton and the late Richard Cook, former editor of The Wire and all-round bona omi.
(And it's anything but stuffy.)
I thought the Ken Burns Jazz series was really good, as was the companion book, which is more than a coffee table book. Some good American history in there, not just music.
It wasn't until my 30's that I realized that "Jazz" didn't mean "crappy 70's prog fusion wanking". I got into the early stuff (like in this post) first and then made my way up to the 50's and 60's.
bb
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