The JAZZ Story

in a sliding style, and the clarinet embellished between these two brass

poles. The first real jazz improvisers were the clarinetists, among them

Sidney Bechet (1897-1959). An accomplished musician before he was 10,

Bechet moved from clarinet to playing mainly soprano saxophone. He was

to become one of the most famous early jazzmen abroad, visiting England

and France in 1919 and Moscow in 1927.

Most veteran jazz musicians state that their music had no specific name at

first, other than ragtime or syncopated sounds. The first band to use the

term Jazz was that of trombonist Tom Brown, a white New Orleanian who

introduced it in Chicago in 1915. The origin of the word is cloudy and its

initial meaning has been the subject of much debate.

The band that made the word stick was also white and also from New

Orleans, the Original Dixieland Jass Band. This group had a huge

success in New York in 1917-18 and was the first more or less authentic

Jazz band to make records. Most of its members were graduates of the

bands of Papa Jack Laine (1873-1966), a drummer who organized his

first band in 1888 and is thought to have been the first white Jazz

musician. In any case, there was much musical integration in New Orleans,

and a number of light skinned Afro-Americans "passed" in white bands.

By 1917, many key Jazz players, white and black, had left New Orleans

and other southern cities to come north. The reason was not the notorious

1917 closing of the New Orleans red light district, but simple economics.

The great war in Europe had created an industrial boom, and the musicians

merely followed in the wake of millions of workers moving north to the

promise of better jobs.