When the ragtime era started to fade it was replaced by the steady rise of early jazz. Early jazz bands played ragtime but also blues. A historic boost for jazz was the first jazz recordings in 1917 by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB). Allthough ODJB had a very different instrument setting than the traditional local orchestras, arrangements for the tunes presented by ODJB were still made for these tradional orchestra settings.
A remarkable fact was that ODJB members could not read or write musical notation so the arrangers of ODJB compositions could do no more than listen to the records and try to reproduce the music in writing. It's understandable that the resulting arrangements do not quite catch the actual recorded sound but they are never the less interesting. Many of the tunes below became jazz standards for decades to come and none more so than The Original Dixieland One-Step. For several reasons no contemporary arrangement of this tune was published. I have therefore contributed my own arrangement, to no small part based on a transcription of the clarinet, cornet and trombone parts made by Robert Veen. To make comparisons possible the actual recorded music is included below.
Thanks goes to Andrew Homzy for suggesting this addition to my ragtime site and to him and David Kerr for providing me with the original orchestra arrangements.
Note: The Year column states the year when the piece was recorded by ODJB, not when it was composed. The ODJB column plays the original ODJB recording.
