Word: rocca
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...oldtime jazzists, one with a trumpet, the other with a clarinet, 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...
Band, it is generally agreed that 20 years ago they originated the syncopated style of music now known as "swing." La Rocca has been running a grocery store, Shields painting houses. Last week the secret was out. At the Old Absinthe House. La Rocca and Shields were just getting "lipped up." With "swing" more popular than ever before, the old Dixieland Band was about to reorganize, set out on the road again...
...write a note of music. They were New Orleans boys who improvised their own tunes, played at picnics and prizefights for what purses they could get. The bigger the purse, the more eccentric their variations. Shields would take a phrase, play all around it on his clarinet. La Rocca would pick it up for a few "licks," pass it on to Eddie Edwards' trombone. Henry Ragas' piano set the tempo. Tony Sbarbaro's drums rattled a furious counterpoint. Other New Orleans bands had similar technique but none developed it so highly as the Dixieland, whose members rehearsed...
...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...
...alms, food, drink. One gay interlude came when a ragged peasant orchestra evoked a reedy little tune from the big band in the pit. Thereafter the tension grew grimmer. The beggars danced madly while Leah swept in to whirl despairingly with a groveling hunchback, a hideous, pawing old crone. Rocca's orchestra reached a frenzied climax as Leah faced her bridegroom, suddenly screamed like one gone mad. Just as abrupt was the hush when the verdict was passed. "A dybbuk has her ... a dybbuk, a dybbuk. . . ." Curtain went down with every instrument in the orchestra simulating the horror...