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Traditional / New Orleans / Dixieland Jazz

familyStarted c. 1895Peak 1917-1928; 1940-1958; 1977-presentLast big hit still active

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Jazz → Traditional / New Orleans / Dixieland Jazz

The sound is a joyous traffic jam. Three horns argue at once over a chugging beat: a cornet or trumpet carries the tune, a clarinet spirals filigree above it, and a trombone slurs and smears the bottom. Underneath, a banjo or piano chops the chords, a tuba or string bass walks the roots, and a snare-and-woodblock drummer keeps the parade moving. This is collective improvisation, everyone soloing politely at the same time, rather than the one-at-a-time solos of later jazz. Tempos run from a slow-drag blues to a breakneck stomp, and the mood is almost defiantly upbeat, built for dancing, drinking, weddings and funerals alike. Textures are hot and slightly raucous, with growls, glissandos and the odd barnyard effect. It swings before "swing" was a word. Whether played in a Storyville parlor, a French Quarter club or a street parade, the aim is the same: propulsive, communal, unpretentious music with mud on its shoes and a grin on its face.

History

This is where jazz begins. In New Orleans around the turn of the century, brass-band marches, ragtime, blues, church music and Caribbean rhythms fused in the hands of Creole and Black musicians, with cornetist Buddy Bolden cited as the semi-legendary first bandleader in the 1890s. The Storyville red-light district and its parlors gave the music a home, and the city's parade tradition gave it the second-line strut. The first jazz record came from the white Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917 with "Livery Stable Blues," an international sensation that stamped "Dixieland" onto the style. The authentic ensemble was documented when King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band recorded in Chicago in 1923, with a young Louis Armstrong on second cornet. Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven (1925-28) and Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers (1926-27) perfected the small-group "hot" style, even as Armstrong's soloing began pulling jazz toward the individual virtuoso. Swing bands eclipsed the style in the 1930s, but a revival roared back in the 1940s: Lu Watters and Turk Murphy on the West Coast, and the rediscovery of veterans like Bunk Johnson and George Lewis in New Orleans. Preservation Hall (1961) enshrined the tradition, and modern brass bands carried the second line into funk and hip-hop.

The sub-genre landscape

The family's center of gravity is a cluster of near-synonyms that name the same core music from slightly different angles. New Orleans Jazz, Traditional Jazz, Dixieland Jazz, Hot Jazz, Early Jazz and Classic Jazz are the defining lanes, the collectively-improvised front-line music of roughly 1917-1928. "Dixieland" traditionally tags the whiter, Chicago- and revival-leaning strain; "New Orleans" and "hot" lean toward the original Black and Creole ensembles; "early" and "classic" are the historian's labels for the same golden window. Creole Jazz Band and Ragtime Jazz sit right at the taproot, naming the King Oliver lineage and the ragtime syncopation the whole thing grew out of.

Brass Band Jazz, Second Line Jazz and New Orleans Parade Jazz form the family's other pillar, the marching, funeral-and-festival strain that never left the streets and still fuels the Dirty Dozen and Rebirth generations. Storyville Jazz is more a place-and-era tag than a distinct style, and Creole Jazz overlaps heavily with New Orleans Jazz.

The peripheral spin-offs are narrower. Revivalist Traditional Jazz names the 1940s-50s comeback specifically. Traditional Jazz Vocal carves out the singing side, and Hot Club Early Jazz is a slightly awkward outlier, pulling toward the Django Reinhardt gypsy-swing tradition rather than New Orleans proper.

Sub-genres in this family

17 sub-genres

Brass Band JazzBritish Trad JazzChicago JazzClassic JazzCreole JazzDixieland JazzEarly JazzHot Club Early JazzHot JazzNew Orleans JazzNew Orleans Parade JazzRagtime JazzRevivalist Traditional JazzSecond Line JazzStoryville JazzTraditional JazzTraditional Jazz Vocal

Defining artists

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Essential listening

  • West End Blues(1928) — Louis Armstrong and His Hot FiveSpotifyYouTube
  • Livery Stable Blues(1917) — Original Dixieland Jass BandSpotifyYouTube
  • Dipper Mouth Blues(1923) — King Oliver's Creole Jazz BandSpotifyYouTube
  • Black Bottom Stomp(1926) — Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot PeppersSpotifyYouTube
  • When the Saints Go Marching In(1938) — Louis ArmstrongSpotifyYouTube
  • My Feet Can't Fail Me Now(1984) — Dirty Dozen Brass BandSpotifyYouTube
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Sources

  • Wikipedia: Dixieland jazz, Original Dixieland Jass Band, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Red Hot Peppers, Sidney Bechet, Muskrat Ramble, Livery Stable Blues
  • Britannica: Dixieland; New Orleans style
  • Jazz History Tree: New Orleans/Dixieland Jazz 1895 and New Orleans/Dixieland Revival 1947
  • The Syncopated Times: articles on classic Dixieland, Lu Watters, and Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers
  • Preservation Hall and Preservation Hall Jazz Band official sites; Dirty Dozen Brass Band history
  • Riverwalk Jazz (Stanford) features on the Original Dixieland Jass Band and Jelly Roll Morton