[Dixielandjazz] 1919 Rag

John Gill smokewagon at yahoo.com
Fri Apr 29 13:31:41 PDT 2011


Over the years I've tried to find out the origins of "1919 Rag" or "1919 March" if you will. It sounds way more like a march than a rag to me, but it does rag well. There was some talk started about 10 years or so ago that it was really a march called "Rifle Rangers March". Karl King wrote this march in 1911 so it seemed to be a likely candidate. However, the "Rifle Rangers March" is still available and so I checked it out and I'm sorry to report that "1919" and "Rifle Rangers" are not the same tunes. I talked to Lu Watters about it and he said that Turk had picked it up from Bunk Johnson and Kid Ory in the early 1940's. Watters and Ory recorded it in the forties. Ory in 1945 and Watters in 1946, so the Ory record may be the first recording. Turk arranged it for the Watters band in F to Bb instead of the more common Eb to Ab. Turk's reason for this was that it orchestrated for 2 trumpets better in F to Bb. So the mystery endures, who wrote 1919 Rag and
 what is it's real name.
You all have heard the old story about the musicians taking the sheet music and tearing off the title so no one could identify the song? This seems to have been the case of a tune we know  as" Bugle Boy" which was really "The American Soldier March" . I can vouch for this one because I did get a copy of the original arrangement and the two are identical.
Anybody have any info on "1919"?
Regards
John Gill


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