[Dixielandjazz] where does Dixieland end?

Gary Lawrence Murphy garym at teledyn.com
Sun Jan 26 10:57:40 PST 2014


Ok, that's maybe a misleading question ;) I don't mean to imply that
Dixieland jazz is done and finished, just that it had this period of time
where there was nothing but dixieland ensemble-improv and then, at some
point, the historians all say "larger ensembles required more arrangment"
but I'm curious, just everyone knows Livery Stable Blues as the first
'Jazz' recording, and certainly it sparks a revolution in ragtime and blues
bands such that simply *everyone* is playing that jazz music by 1919,is
there a first new-thing *post* dixieland recording?  Is there a single
record that turned heads the same way to introduce the more orchestrated
big-band-jazz sound that still dominates 'jazz' consciousness today?

It's probably not an easy question to answer since there's not a great deal
of distinction between, say, Jelly Roll Morton ensembles just before and
just after 1917 although I think there is a certain quality that
distinguishes the Memphis sound of W.C.Handy from his later, jazz-infused
NYC sound. Jimmy Durante says he was overwhelmed by this new New Orleans
sound, and so merged it with his own, but is that all there is to it?
Looking at Joe Oliver, although it lacks the frenetic pace, 1923 Riverside
Blues sounds much more raw improvised dixieland to me than 1928's West End
Blues, which seems at best an 'orderly' dixieland, although dixieland
nonetheless.

I've been hunting back through my Fletcher Henderson recordings looking for
a tipping point; as early as 1923 with Coleman Hawkins it doesn't really
stand up as a 'dixieland jazz' genre, he's got a far more orchestrated,
structured thing, but perhaps too structured to really be called jazz?

Fletcher Henderson - Shake Your Feet - New York, November 27, 1923 - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvvbeJCmqZU

So is there any consensus on a definitive post-dixieland recording?


More information about the Dixielandjazz mailing list