[Dixielandjazz] Muskrat Ramble name? (Bob Romans)

[Dick Baker]

>I ran into this recently on the liner notes of Good Time Jazz 
>L-12004, "Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band 1954."  One part of the liner 
>notes was headed

"How I Wrote Muskrat Ramble"
By Kid Ory

Although I taught myself how to play the valve trombone at the age of 
10 (1896) and the slide trombone at the age of 14 (1900), it wasn't 
until 1919 that I took my first formal music lesson. My teacher 
insisted that I should learn how to write music so that I could 
better understand how to read it and interpret it.

After I finished with my first teacher, I decided I wanted to learn 
the saxophone, too. It was while learning this instrument that I was 
sitting there one day, running the scales and doing arpeggios and 
just sort of noodling around, when all of a sudden it seemed to me 
that I had hold of a melody. I started putting it down on paper and 
adding here and there to fill in the gaps until I finally had the 
meter worked out. It sounded all right to me but I wasn't too 
enthusiastic about it, so much so that, although this took place in 
1921, I didn't start playing it with my band until 1923. I was 
playing a taxi dance hall in Los Angeles and it became one of our 
best numbers with the fans, but it was still nameless.

When I joined King Oliver in Chicago in 1925, I also started 
recording with another ex-employee of mine, Louis Armstrong, and the 
now-famous Hot Five. It was during one of our 1926 recording sessions 
for Okeh Records that we were short of a number to finish the session 
and I happened to have my music with me and we recorded my number. 
Just as we were leaving the studio, Mr. Fern, the Director of A & R 
for Okeh, asked what was the title of the last number we recorded. We 
all looked at each other after I stood there not answering, and Lil 
Armstrong helped me out. She turned to Mr. Fern and said, "Its title 
is Muskrat Ramble" and added, turning to me, "Isn't that right, Red?" 
I told her, "I'll go for that title;' and we all laughed and left the 
studio. Now it had a name. And it stayed that way until Melrose Music 
published it and old Mr. Melrose didn't like the sound of the 'rat' 
part, so, on the sheet music, he changed it to Muskat Ramble. But the 
copyright still reads "Muskrat Ramble by Edward Ory.



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      Dick Baker
  djml at dickbaker.org