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78 RPM Record

Artist: Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band Label:   Victor Country: USA Catalogue: 18255 Date: 15 Apr 1917 Format: 10" Genre: Jazz Collection:   I Own It     I Want It  Community:  9 Own, 3 Want Price Guide: $134 » Search eBay #AD  » Search Amazon #AD This site contains affiliate links for which we may be compensated.

PRICE GUIDE $134

Track	Artist	Title	Composer	Rating
A	Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band	Dixieland Jass Band One-Step	Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band	10.0  Rate
B	Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band	Livery Stable Blues	Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band	10.0  Rate

Notes

A: title later shortened to "Dixie Jass Band One-Step" and added:
Introducing "That Teasin' Rag"

B: Fox-Trot

Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band aka Original Dixieland Jazz Band:
Nick LaRocca (cornet), Eddie Edwards (trombone), Larry Shields (clarinet), Henry Ragas (piano), Tony Sbarbaro (drums).

A side (mx: B-19332-3) recorded New York, NY, February 26, 1917.
B side (mx. B-19331-1) recorded New York, NY, February 26, 1917.
(DAHR)
Release date per Mark Berresford.

Listed in The Talking Machine World, April 15, 1917, page 124: Record Bulletins for May, 1917 (actually released on April 15, 1917).

Victor ledgers note "Composed by the Band" for both sides and original B-side title "Barn Yard Blues", crossed out and replaced with "Livery Stable Blues".

Images

Number: 1463015  THUMBNAIL Uploaded By: Bob1951 Description: Victor 18255 A Side Label	Number: 1463016  Uploaded By: Bob1951 Edited By: xiphophilos Description: Victor 18255 B Side Label	Number: 3455496  Uploaded By: xiphophilos Description: Victor 18255 A side label (Fall 1917 to mid-1918 repress)	Number: 3455510  Uploaded By: han enderman Edited By: xiphophilos Description: Victor 18255 B side label (fall 1917 to mid-1918 repress)
Number: 1006467  Uploaded By: fixbutte Description: Victor 18255 A Side Label (Spring 1918 to Fall 1923 repress)	Number: 1006469  Uploaded By: fixbutte Description: Victor 18255 B Side Label (Spring 1918 to Fall 1923 repress)	Number: 1004809  Uploaded By: fixbutte Description: Ad in Chicago Tribune, April 15, 1917	Number: 3454200  Uploaded By: xiphophilos Description: St. Louis Post-Dispatch [St. Louis, Missouri] Monday, April 16, 1917, page 6
Number: 1004808  Uploaded By: fixbutte Description: Ad in the Hartford Courant, April 21, 1917	Number: 1004811  Uploaded By: fixbutte Description: Ad in Meriden Morning Record, May 1, 1917	Number: 3457132  Uploaded By: xiphophilos Description: Barnyard Blues (Feist)	Number: 3457138  Uploaded By: xiphophilos Description: Livery Stable Blues (Roger Graham) (from Duke U Library)
Number: 3456212  HIDDEN Uploaded By: han enderman Description: Vic 18255-A #1

Comments and Reviews

xiphophilos 5th Jan 2024		No, Ray Lopez & Alcide Nunez were not the composers of "Livery Stable Blues". There are also no scare quotes around Nuñez's first name on the Roger Graham sheet music cover because Alcide was Nuñez's legal Christian name. His nickname was "Yellow." The story of the competing copyright claims to "Livery Stable Blues" is ably discussed by E. Douglas Bomberger, "Making Music American: 1917 and the Transformation of Culture", Oxford UP 2018, pages 81-82, 98-99, 132-34, 145-48. "Livery Stable Blues" was originally supposed to be called "Barnyard Blues," which makes sense, given that La Rocca's cornet imitates a neighing horse, Shields' clarinet a crowing rooster, and Edwards' trombone a braying jackass and a mooing cow. "Barnyard Blues" was also the title under which the ODJB's agent, Max Hart, had copyrighted the song on April 9, 1917. But when Victor record 18255 appeared on April 15, 1917, the track was listed as "Livery Stable Blues." Chicago music publisher Roger Graham exploited this discrepancy by registering copyright for the title "Livery Stable Blues" on May 12 and May 24. On June 18, 1917, he also received the copyright for the published sheet music of "Livery Stable Blues" as written by Ray Lopez and Alcide Nuñez. He even had the cheek to explicitly remind the buyer of "Victor Record No. 18255" in the lower left corner of the sheet music cover. Clarinetist Alcide "Yellow" Nuñez held a grudge against Nick La Rocca and the rest of the band because they had kicked him out and replaced him with Larry Shields just before they went to New York and became famous. Apparently, Nick La Rocca was fed up with Nuñez' unreliability; he also wanted a clarinet that played counterpoint to his cornet instead of following the cornet part note for note, the way Nuñez did. In revenge, Nuñez lent his name to the scam, as did cornetist and songwriter ("Stack O' Lee Blues") Ray Lopez, who had no connection to the ODJB at all but at that time played with Bert Kelley’s band. In October 1917, the matter came to trial in Chicago, in front of a judge who knew so little about jazz that he asked repeatedly what a blues is. Not surprisingly, he believed the claims of the Graham side that all blues melodies were basically the same, and that this particular song used the same melody that Ray Lopez had previously published as "More Power Blues," but jazzed it up with animal imitations that both Nuñez and La Rocca had come up with. The judge decided that neither party had an exclusive claim to the authorship of the song, and that both Graham's sheet music and the sheet music of "Barnyard Blues", published by Leo Feist in New York, could continue to be sold.(excerpts from the trial here). Given this outcome, I find it surprising that RCA Victor later, in 1938, credited Bunny Berigan's recording of the song, on Victor 26068, to Alcide Nuñez, Marvin Lee, and Ray Lopez. Similarly, in December 1939, they credited Muggsy Spanier's recording of "Livery Stable Blues (Barnyard Blues)" on Bluebird B-10518 to both Alcide Nuñez and Ray Lopez. The label's lawyers probably told them it would be better to avoid any trouble that way. But it looks as if the former ODJB members didn't then get any royalties from these recordings. "The Syncopated Times" claim that LaRocca later admitted that he based "Barnyard Blues" on Lopez' "More Power Blues." If that's true, it does not appear in the transcript of LaRocca's statement at the trial that Bomberger quotes on page 145.
han enderman 4th Jan 2024		Vic 18255-A - I have added a clear copy of the first edition A-side that I got long ago from collector Ate van Delden. If you want, it can replace the less distinct version now present. - Also added the sheet music of Livery-Stable Blues, mentioning Victor 18255 on the cover and showing as composers Ray Lopez & 'Alcide' Nunez. Apparently correctly, as later editions of the Victor record do not mention this title as an ODJB composition.
xiphophilos 4th Jan 2024		Thanks, Han. Now moved up! BTW, I love this record and hope to find an affordable copy at an estate sale some day. Any other source seems out of the question, given the fantasy prices paid for this record on eBay and elsewhere. I say "fantasy" because this record is not rare by any standard. More than 1.5 million copies of it sold in just the first few months of its release, which is why the original copies with "75c. in U. S. A." are so common. And yet, some people are willing to shell out $200 and up even for simple VG copies, not to mention represses.
han enderman 4th Jan 2024		Vic 18255 - image of B-side, type 2 added. Now all label types are present.
xiphophilos 4th Jan 2024		I've added a third, intermediate label style (with price notice "Price 75¢", used from fall 1917 to mid-1918). Here's also an interesting essay by Bruce Boyd Raeburn about the OJDB and this record: http://jassdancer.blogspot.com/2012/03/jazz-and-italian-connection-during.html
fixbutte 22nd Oct 2019		I hadn't payed attention before, but Bob1951's label variant images differ in several ways from those previously uploaded by me: ● A-side title is "Dixieland Jass Band One-Step", not "Dixie Jass Band One-Step". ● A-side does not include the caption "Introducing 'That Teasin' Rag'". ● Both sides are credited as "Composed and played by Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band". ● Both sides bear the price indication "75c. in U. S. A." on the left side of the label. As the April 1917 newpaper ads cite the "Dixieland Jass Band One-Step" title, and as the price indication was replaced by "Price 75 ₵" later in 1917, we can assume that Bob1951's set of labels belongs to one of the earliest pressings. Also, as the price was dropped completely from the Victor labels in mid-1918, we can date the "Dixie Jass Band One-Step" version labels as 1918 at the earliest.
Bob1951 1st Oct 2017		Label variant images added.
xiphophilos 18th Mar 2016		A Side:
xiphophilos 18th Mar 2016		B Side:
fixbutte 18th Mar 2016		Although Jazz was undoubtedly invented by black people in New Orleans about two decades earlier, these sides played by an all-white band in a New York studio in February 1917 make up the first-ever Jazz record. It contains decidedly wild music, with all five musicians playing their instruments together as loud as possible without any solo space, appropriately described in Victor's promotional text as "organized disorganization", "played with charming ferocity and penetration". The uploaded ads also show that this "New Victor Record for May" was already sent on approval in mid-April. As said in the Mule Walk & Jazz Talk blog, where I have found the ads, "Victor record with number 18255 was released on April 15, 1917, according to Mark Berresford (not in May, as the online Victor Library* lists, and not on March 7, as other sources** state)." * now DAHR ** e.g. Wikipedia

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