First Jazz Records

Vibrant musical styles gradually change over time and in 1917 Ragtime was becoming Jazz. It was in this year that the first records labeled as Jazz began making their way into stores in the United States. The general record buying public was probably unaware that this style of music was not that new in 1917. The music that would become known as Jazz had been played in New Orleans and other other parts of the South for many years by bands lead by musicians such as Buddy Bolden, Frankie Dusen, Jack Laine and others. 

The Creole Band is generally considered to be the first band from New Orleans that was playing this style of music to tour outside of the South. They performed on the vaudeville circuit in the United States from 1914 to 1918. San Francisco bandleader Bert Kelly would later claim to have been playing Jazz as early as 1914 in San Francisco and then in Chicago in 1915. Both Brown's Dixieland Jass Band and Stein's Dixieland Jass Band were performing and billing themselves as "Jass" bands in Chicago in 1916. But none of these bands had recorded until 1917 and some of them never would make records. 

The standard history of Jazz generally considers the first Jazz record to have been the Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band's "Dixie Jass Band One Step" and "Livery Stable Blues." This record was made for the Victor label in New York on February 26, 1917. The record was released in May of 1917. It was an immediate success and this record is considered the spark that ignited the Jazz fad that seized the world in the years during and after World War I. The Original Dixieland Jass Band was a group of White musicians from New Orleans.

All of the band's members had played in Papa Jack Laine's Reliance Brass Band at one time or another before leaving New Orleans in 1916. The band went north to play in Chicago under the name of Stein's Dixieland Jass Band at Schiller's Cafe on 31st Street.


After a heated disagreement with Stein the rest of the band quit and took the job at the Del' Abe Cafe at the Hotel Normandy at Clark and Randolph Street calling themselves the Original Dixieland Jass Band. The band moved on to the Casino Gardens on North Clark and Kinzie Street. The Casino Gardens was a popular hangout for people involved in show business. 

It was here that the famous vaudeville singer Al Jolson first heard the band and recommended them to a theatrical agent. The agent set the band up with an engagement in New York City at Reisenweber's Restaurant on Columbus Circle at Broadway which began on January 15th, 1917. The group was a great success in New York and continued to be quite popular until the band left for England in March of 1919. 

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