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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.

So goes the standard history of Jazz, but the reality is that the Original Dixieland Jass Band's first record was not the first recording released that referred to Jazz in the song title or where the band was labeled as a Jass band on the record label. A rather convincing argument can be made that Collins and Harlan's Edison disc and cylinder "That Funny Jas Band From Dixieland" was in fact the first Jazz recording. This tune was issued on an Edison Blue Amberol wax cylinder in April of 1917 and on an Edison record in July of that year. Collins and Harlan re-recorded another version of the tune in January of 1917 and it was released on the Victor label a month before the Original Dixieland Jass Band's first record. The instrumental breaks on the Edison version of "That Funny Jas Band From Dixieland" are quite exciting and are most certainly in the Jazz style. The Victor version of "That Funny Jas Band From Dixieland" isn't as jazzy as the Edison version, but is still an interesting recording. The song was written in 1916 by Henry L. Marshall, a Chicago based songwriter. It is likely that the lyrics of the song are referring to the Original Dixieland Jass Band, Brown's Dixieland Jass Band or Stein's Dixieland Jass Band because all of these bands were performing in Chicago during that period. Arthur Collins and Byron G. Harlan were one of the most successful of all early recording acts. They were singers of character songs who often sang and talked on record in African-American dialects. Their first record was released in 1902 and they specialized in comedy, coon songs and Ragtime throughout their long and successful recording career. Arthur Collins would record several additional solo records in 1917 that mentioned Jazz or Jass in the title, "Ephraham's Jazzbo Band" in January, "Everybody Loves a 'Jass' Band" and "Keep Jazzin' It, Ras" on the Emerson label and "Everybody Loves a Jazz Band" appeared again on the Columbia label in March and "Ephraham's Jasbo Band" the following month on Emerson and "Get A Jazz Band To Jazz The Yankee Doodle Tune" in October, and "Everybody Loves a Jazz Band" appeared once again in November on the rare Cresent label.

A minstrel performer by the name of George H. O'Connor recorded a song called "Ephraham's Jazbo Band" on February 10th. O'Connor was White and performed in blackface. It is interesting to note that O'Connor was also a successful lawyer but continued to do his minstrel act on the side. He later became known as the "Troubadour to the Presidents" because he had performed for seven of them, from Taft to Truman.

Borbee's "Jass" Orchestra recorded two songs "It's A Long, Long Time" and "Just The Kind Of Girl You'd Love To Make Your Wife" on February 14, 1917 but this record was not released until July of 1917 after the success of the Original Dixieland Jass Band's record. Apparently the record was to be released under the name of Borbee's Tango Orchestra but the band's name was changed from "Tango" to "Jass" to take advantage of the success of the Original Dixieland Jass Band and the Jazz craze that they had spawned in New York. The band returned to the studio in August and recorded two additional songs "Paddle-Addle" and "The Ragtime Volunteers Are Off To War" Other than the Borbee's "Jass" Orchestra name, there was nothing "jazzy" about these records. These were pretty much standard dance records of that period and shouldn't be considered further in our discussion of the first Jazz records.

The next song to be recorded with the word "Jass in the title was Arthur Fields' "Everybody Loves A 'Jass' Band". This tune was recorded on March 15, 1917 and released in July of that year. The Edison paper disc jacket that came with this record stated,

"Do you love a 'Jass' band? Doubtless you would if you knew what one was. You'll know all about it when you have heard this song. 'Jass' bands are all the rage this year in the 'Lobster Palaces' along Broadway."

Earl Fuller's Famous Jazz Band which featured Ted Lewis on clarinet made their first record on June 4th of 1917 Slippery Hank and Yah-De-Dah. Slippery Hank is absolutely manic in it's pace and instrumentation. This is easily the hottest record released during the first year of recorded Jazz. Records released under the name of Earl Fuller's Rector Novelty Orchestra in 1917 are not of much Jazz interest. Ted Lewis went solo in 1919 and would become one of the best selling and most popular musicians of the 1920s and 1930s.

Marion Harris a rising star of vaudeville and musical theatre joined the Jazz fad on July 18th, 1917 with her version of the tune "When I Hear That Jazz Band Play". The song was another "instructional" record similar to Collins' and Harlan's "That Funny Jas Band From Dixieland". The lyrics of the song attempt to explain what Jazz is and how you were supposed to behave when you've heard some Jazz. The song was the closing number of Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolic in 1917. Some Jazz historians consider Marion Harris to be the first female Jazz singer to record. She continued to perform and record Jazz and Blues tunes throughout her career.

W.C. Handy's Orchestra of Memphis jumped on the Jazz bandwagon in September of 1917 by recording ten songs for Columbia including their cover version of Livery Stable Blues the Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band's big hit record. Handy was forty-three years old when these records were made. If you consider Wilbur Sweatman's and his Jass Band records of 1917 to be Ragtime stylistically and not Jazz then you could safely say that Handy's records were the first Jazz recordings made by an African-American band. Only the song That "Jazz" Dance (The Jazz Dance Everybody Is Crazy 'Bout) was labeled as jazz but I've included Handy's version Livery Stable Blues on this list for obvious reasons. W.C. Handy's association with Jazz after 1917 was primarily as a songwriter. His songs such as the "St. Louis Blues" and "Memphis Blues" would become part of the standard repertoire of jazz.

Ford Dabney was another African-American bandleader that recorded songs in 1917 that could be considered Jazz. Dabney's Band made their first records in August of 1917. At the time that these recordings were made Dabney's Band was featured in Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolic, a musical revue that played at the New Amsterdam Roof atop the New Amsterdam Theatre (214 W. 42nd Street at Broadway) in New York. The show began at 11:30 PM and featured dance music between the acts. "The Jass - "Lazy Blues"" was the only one of his 1917 records to be labeled as "Jass", but Dabney recorded several of the same songs that appeared on the records of other Jazz artists that recorded in 1917.

The first record where both sides song titles contained the word Jazz was Columbia A2472. Sam Ash alerted us that Cleopatra Had A Jazz Band. Ash was a vaudeville performer and star of Broadway musicals during the 1910s and 1920s. He is best remembered today for the string of music stores that still bear his name.

On the flip side of this record was a song by vaudeville star Gene Greene, "The Ragtime King". Greene accurately predicted the future of American popular music by informing us that Alexander no longer played Ragtime with his rendition of Alexander's Got A Jazz Band Now. Some Jazz historians consider Greene's 1911 song "King of the Bungaloos" to be the first example of scat singing on record. He re-recorded this song once for Emerson in December of 1916 and twice in 1917 for Victor and for Little Wonder. It is true that Greene recorded improvised vocals on many of his records starting in 1911 but it is not an easy fit to tie him stylistically to the legions of jazz vocalists that became known as scat singers in the years that followed.

Edison recording artist Eugene Jauda's Society Orchestra recorded "The "Jass" One-Step". There is nothing particularly "jazzy" about the song other than the title. Jaudas was the musical director at Edison.

Yerkes' Jazarimba Orchestra was a series of recording sessions under the direction of band booker Harry Yerkes. The sessions featured George Hamilton Green and his brother Joe Green on marimbas and xylophones. In September of 1917 the group recorded their first five records for the Columbia and Gennett labels.

Discographers at first attributted Blake's Jazzone Orchestra's recording of "The Jazz Dance" and Morse and Frankel's recording of "Jazzing Around" to the pianist Eubie Blake. It is now believed that Eubie Blake had nothing to do with these records. Blake's Jazzone Orchestra's is thought to have been a band from Richmond, Virginia and "Jazzing Around" was incorrectly listed in discographies as being recorded by the Eubie Blake Trio.

The remaining bands that recorded songs in 1917 that included some form of the word "Jazz" in the song title or band name were anonymous studio groups. The Memphis Pickaninny Band recorded Some Jazz Blues. The Emerson Military Band recorded two versions of Hong Kong "Jazz" One-Step and a version of Yah De Dah (A "Jazz Fox Trot"), the Emerson Symphony Orchestra recorded Hawaiian Butterfly "Jazz"Foxtrot.

Although some of these performer's association with jazz ended in 1917, the majority of the performers listed here were able to sustain careers once the initial jazz fad had passed. Of all the groups and individuals who recorded the first jazz records the Original Dixieland Jass Band has proved to have had the most lasting impact on the history of the music. W.C. Handy's songs have enjoyed the greatest popularity over the years and Ted Lewis was the most popular and successful of all the artists who first recorded jazz in 1917. Over the years Lewis' bands featured many musicians who would later go on to be the future stars of jazz such as Muggsy Spanier, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, George Brunies and Jack Teagarden. Wilbur Sweatman also employed several up and coming jazz musicians early in their careers such as Duke Ellington, Sonny Greer, Otto Hardwick, Cozy Cole and Coleman Hawkins.

The question of who did what first and what was ragtime and what was jazz is often a divisive question among those who are interested in early jazz. I hope that this list of songs that were labeled as jazz in 1917 will help all who listen to them to form a better understanding of the first recordings of the style of music that has come to be known as jazz.

I was inspired to write this article after reading Tim Gracyk's "Jass" in 1916-1917 and Tin Pan Alley. I would also like to thank Dan Cassidy for his illuminating look into the etymology of the word jazz, Bruce Vermazen, Uncle Dave Lewis, Dr. Rainer Lotz, and MAC of the Antique Phonograph Hour on WFMU for their the help with this article. Corrections and additions are welcome.