We’ll get into the zoot suit phenomenon later. As America entered the 1910s, jazz went geared up. W. C. Handy’s “Memphis Blues” from 1912 was an example of jazz from this early period. The recording is 1917 or later. The ragtime elements are very strong, so much so that many jazz purists feel this is more properly a ragtime band than true jazz and there is some merit to this speculation. It sounds very much like many of the military bands of that time which began incorporating rags (including Sousa and his protégé Arthur Pryor who was actually the first to do it):
W.C. Handy - Memphis Blues - YouTube
The first true jazz band to record was the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917 out of New Orleans (although the recordings were done in New York). They eventually changed the spelling of “jass” to “jazz” because kids kept blacking out the “J” on their handbills. This convention, needless to say, has become the standard. These recordings became so iconic that they set the standard for how Dixieland jazz would sound to this day. There is no evidence that most jazz sounded this way at the time. The few recordings that followed ODJB’s debut gave us a panorama of just how different jazz sounded from band to band which means ODLB had a tremendous impact on the future sound of jazz just by being the first to record. The following is supposedly the very first jazz song every recorded.
Original Dixieland Jass Band - Livery Stable Blues (1917) - YouTube
There has been a charge of racism that the first jazz band to record was white and there may be some merit to the charge but from I can gather, the first jazzman offered a recording contract was a Creole of color named Freddie Keppard whom most people today would instantly identify as a black man. He was offered a contract in 1916 but turned it down. He was afraid other musicians would steal his licks. ODJB became the first jazz band to record simply because they were available and willing.
By the early 20s, most Americans had still not heard real jazz. This changed when Kid Ory’s Sunshine Band played live on the radio in 1922, a piece composed by Ory called “Ory’s Creole Trombone”:
Kid Ory - Ory's Creole Trombone (1922) - YouTube
The broadcast was recorded and so we have it with us today. Notice how different it is from ODJB. The broadcast is credited with the being the first recording of blacks playing in authentic New Orleans style (although if Ory is black then I’m Louis Farrakhan).
Art Blakeney (left), Ory (center) and Louis Armstrong pal it up backstage at the 1948 Dixieland Jubilee. Louis and Ory were old friends and, in fact, Louis got his big break from Ory when he was just a kid following Ory’s band around New Orleans. He worked up the nerve to approach Ory (who, by all accounts, was a very nice man) and asked to audition. Ory listened to him and told him he played great blues but his jazz needed work. Rather than turn Louis away, Ory brought him into the band under the instruction of the primary cornetist, King Oliver. Oliver and Louis immediately hit off, becoming like father and son. King taught Louis everything about jazz and the rest is history.
By the 1920s, ragtime was an all but forgotten musical form despite the face that raggy elements still abounded in the music of the 20s. It was called “The Jazz Age” which F. Scott Fitzgerald immortalized in his writings but the jazz was often diluted. About this time, many society dance bands had to learn some amount of jazz to land gigs and many of these opted for a light jazz tinge to their otherwise Tin Pan Alley sound. This type of jazz is now known as “sweet.” Paul Whiteman’s band was probably the premier sweet band despite having two of the best hot jazz musicians in its ranks—Frankie Trumbauer on C-sax and Bix Beiderbecke on cornet.
Suite Of Serenades--PART-1 by Paul Whiteman Orchestra on 1928 Victor 78 rpm record. - YouTube
Another type of jazz that often typifies the 20s nowadays is “corn jazz.” Corn was popular among the younger white kids primarily the college set. When you see a 1920 college student today they are typified as wearing pork pie or straw hats, long fur coats and carrying pennants as they drove about in Stutz Bearcat automobiles (a popular sports car of that era). Another image is the cheerleaders with the letter sweaters shouting through megaphones.
Corn bands often co-opted both looks. Many colleges, in fact, had their own corn bands. Lou Weimer’s Gold & Black Aces were Perdue University’s corn band and recorded a great corn number called “Merry Widow’s Got a Sweetie Now.” Corn jazz is considered a subset of sweet jazz and often included hillbilly skits and what not. Kay Kyser carried on the corn jazz band legacy into the 40s and had a radio show called “The Kollege of Musical Knowledge” that went off the air for good in 1950 unable to compete with the rise of rocknroll. Below, a nice corn number from 1929:
Paul Tremaine and His Aristocrats - Four/ Four Rhythm, 1929 - YouTube
The third type of jazz in the 20s was “swing jazz.” This should not be confused with the swing era jazz although that type of swing is an outgrowth of the 20s swing jazz. This music was hot and heavy on the jazz. Where sweet and corn restrained themselves from going too far, swing jazz pulled out the stops. It was jazz full force with virtually no society dance elements left. Two things need to be noted, however:
1. Many jazz historians do not feel that there ever really were full tilt swing bands. Hot swing was really an ideal to aspire to but could never be reached. No matter how hot it was, it could always be hotter.
2. This is linked to the fact that even the hottest black swing bands of that era played sweet and corn jazz as well. The reason is simply because they wanted to get hired for as many gigs as they could land. So their hot jazz was strewn with sweet and corny elements and it was impossible to remove them.
Perhaps the best swing band recordings of the 20s would be Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers (both of which featured the incomparable Kid Ory playing tailgate trombone). The first clip is “West End Blues” by the Hot Five from 1928. Louie’s cornet solo in the intro is considered by many jazz musicians to be the start of be-bop which wouldn’t come to fruition over another decade. The second clip is Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers from 1926 doing one of Morton’s many compositions. He is considered to be the first true composer of jazz.
West End Blues - Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five, 1928 - YouTube
Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers:- "Grandpa's Spells" - YouTube
But the twenties had other influences. Starting about 1915, Hawaiian music became a huge rage in the U.S. Hawaiian sheet music sales and recordings were the hottest sellers by far. The guitar started to overtake the banjo in popularity because people wanted to learn to play Hawaiian music which used the guitar instead of the banjo. By the 1920s, American music was thoroughly Hawaiianized. Two of the biggest stars of that era were Roy Smeck and Ukulele Ike (real name Cliff Edwards). Both played the ukulele and were so popular that people began playing ukes more than guitars. If you wonder why so many songs from the 20s are played on ukes, now you know. Roy Smeck was an amazingly talented musician:
Roy Smeck - YouTube
Cliff Edwards from 1929. This song was a gigantic hit for him. You probably thought Gene Kelly did the original version. If Edwards’s voice sounds familiar it’s because he was cast as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in 1940’s Pinocchio.
Ukelele Ike Singing in the Rain 1929 - YouTube
Of course the Hawaiian strain of music would meld with the jazz of that era to produce some interesting hybrids as Mr. Edwards demonstrates in 1926 recording:
Cliff Edwards - Five Foot Two Eyes Of Blue 1926 Has Anybody Seen My Gal - YouTube
So this is how things stood at the end of the twenties. Hawaiian music would continue to be popular into the 40s and even made some inroads into rocknroll but by the 60s, it would all but evaporate leaving behind it, however, the instrument that changed how music was made—the guitar.
Next, we'll cover the swing era.