Keeping old music live. Keeping old musicians employed.

In anticipation of the 100 Years of Jazz in 99 Minutes concert at the Cadogan Hall on June 7th I thought I'd look at a few interesting aspects of the music included in the programme. So starting at the start:

Livery Stable Blues by The Original Dixieland Jazz Band.

This recording from 1917 is now universally considered the first ever jazz recording.  It's odd that white musicians should have pipped African Americans to the post for this accolade but it came about because the black New Orleans trumpet player FreddieKeppard  turned down the offer to record in that year. His reason for refusing was that he didn't want other musicians listening and stealing his licks!

The recording is pretty wild and we should be grateful that 78 rpm records could only hold about two and a half minutes of music.  We recreate the rough and ready nature of the music by having four fifths of the band play instruments that they don't really play (they like to think they do but they don't really).  

As we are mindful of our audiences we have actually edited the performance down to under two minutes but we have kept all the barnyard effects in as these are by far the most amusing and interesting part of the original record.

So what do you think of the original and very first jazz recording?