The Original New Orleans Jazz Band was one of the first

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

bands to make recordings. Composed of mostly

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

musicians, the band was popular in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in the late 1910s. The group included some of the first New Orleans style players to follow the

Original Dixieland Jass Band The Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) was a Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their "Livery Stable Blues" became the first jazz record ever issued. The group composed and recorded many jazz standards, the m ...

's success playing in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. Like the "ODJB", most were veterans of

Papa Jack Laine George Vital "Papa Jack" Laine (September 21, 1873 – June 1, 1966) was an American musician and a pioneering band leader in New Orleans in the years from the Spanish–American War to World War I. He was often credited for training many musici ...

's groups in New Orleans. Recordings of the group were issued by

Gennett Records Gennett (pronounced "jennett") was an American record company and label in Richmond, Indiana, United States, which flourished in the 1920s. Gennett produced some of the earliest recordings by Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke, and H ...

and

Okeh Records Okeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Ott ...

. The group also reportedly recorded one or more sides for

Emerson Records Emerson Records was an American record company and label created by Victor Emerson in 1915. Victor Hugo Emerson was the chief recording engineer at Columbia Records. In 1914 he left the company, created the Emerson Phonograph Company, and then ...

, which seem to have never been issued.

Jimmy Durante James Francis Durante ( , ; February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American comedian, actor, singer, vaudevillian, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced song ...

, the only New Yorker in the group, became well known for his showmanship and took over leadership from Frank Christian in 1920 and the group was renamed "Jimmy Durante's Jazz Band".

Collective personnel

The band was usually a five piece group, but some musicians came and went. The precise personnel on some of the recordings is uncertain. Members of the band included: * Frank Christian, cornet * Alfred Laine, cornet * Harry Gluck, cornet * Frank Lhotak, trombone * Jeff Loyacano, trombone *

Achille Baquet Achille Joseph Baquet (November 15, 1885 – November 20, 1955/1956) was an American jazz clarinetist and saxophonist. He was an early musician on the Dixieland, New Orleans jazz scene. Baquet was raised in a musical family. His father, Théog� ...

, clarinet *

, piano *

Johnny Stein John Philip Hountha "Johnny" Stein (1891 or 1895 in New Orleans – September 30, 1962 in New Orleans) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Stein's surnames are the subject of much confusion; his mother's name was Stein from a previous ...

, drums * Deacon Loyacano, drums

References

External links

Original New Orleans Jazz Band
at the Red Hot Jazz Archive Jazz musicians from New Orleans Dixieland ensembles American jazz ensembles from New Orleans Musical groups from New Orleans Gennett Records artists {{US-jazz-band-stub