Word: jazzing
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...during the War. For a time stringed instruments yielded to brass and reed, chiefly the saxophone. Then touring Hawaiians brought in the cheap, easily played ukulele, the steel guitar with its throbbing, swooping tone which home musicians thought glamorous. By 1928 radio had cut into the field, but, with jazz music at a noisy, amorphous stage, the banjo had a vogue of a sort. Currently the trade claims that home instruments are enjoying an upswing from which the guitar is getting the most benefit. The most respectable member of its family, this soft-toned fretted instrument was admired by many...
...stepped into the spotlight, played with such authentic abandon, such valid virtuosity that the customers sat owl-eyed, raised a din with their applause when the pair had finished. Well they might. The trumpeter was Nick La Rocca. The clarinetist was Larry Shields. As members of the Original Dixieland Jazz...
...whose members rehearsed so often together that each player could almost mind-read the others' musical intentions. In 1916 they were offered $125 a week to play in a Chicago cafe. In the history of the nation's native music, this engagement marks the date when real jazz went North...
...baton that waved automatically. Popular tunes when the Dixieland first went North were Pretty Baby, They're Wearing 'em Higher in Hawaii, Oh How She Could Yacki Hacki Wicki Wacki Woo. Soon the metropolis was cavorting to the Dixieland's own tunes, which have since become jazz classics: Tiger Rag by La Rocca, Clarinet Marmalade by Shields and Ragas, Sensation Rag by Edwards, At the Jazz Band Ball by La Rocca and Shields...
...Dixieland disbanded. It was no longer a novelty. "Sweet" jazz, heavily orchestrated, was in vogue. And La Rocca, particularly, wanted to retire, go back to New Orleans. Hot jazz cultists who have learned to treasure the Dixieland's out of print phonograph records as classics and museum pieces never believed they might actually hear them together again. With the exception of Ragas who died when the troupe was in its heyday, the personnel of the historic little combination will be the same, although a few extra players may be added. Russell Robinson, Ragas' successor, who composed Margie...