Early jazz orchestra

When the ragtime era started to fade it was gradually replaced by the steady rise of early jazz (from 1915 and onwards). Early jazz bands played ragtime but also blues. A historic boost for jazz was the first jazz recordings in 1917 by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB). ODJB had a very different instrument setting than the traditional local orchestras so contemporary arrangements by Leroy Walker for the tunes presented here gradually added a saxophone section but kept the string section to accomodate for local bands with traditional instrumentation.

In an effort to make Leroy Walkers arrangements a bit more early jazz like some instruments have been stripped out for the audio rendition: the string section and piccolo/flute. These instrument parts are however preserved in the music sheets.

Later arrangers like Elmer Schoebel and Mel Stitzel were jazz musicians as were of course Jelly Roll Morton and they skipped the string section (except in some cases 1st violin) and added banjo. It can be noted that some Morton arrangements are so close to the recordings by his Red Hot Peppers that they may actually have been used in the recording studio.