Nick LaRocca

Dominic James " Nick" LaRocca ( ​​born April 11, 1889 in New Orleans, † February 22, 1961 ) was an American cornetist, bandleader and jazz pioneer. He belonged to some of the bands in which jazz was developed in New Orleans, and finally the then new form of music brought about 1916 to Chicago and New York. Together with musicians from these bands, he founded The Original Dixieland Jass band. If one believes in his own words, he was with this band to the " Creators of Jazz " was the " Christopher Columbus of Music" and the " person was lying about the most since Jesus Christ."

Life and work

LaRocca was the son of a Sicilian shoemaker who tried to suppress the musical inclinations of his son. Only when his father died and LaRocca began to earn as stagehands and electricians his own support, he was free to make music. He never learned to read music.

LaRocca had experiences in numerous bands such as those of Papa Jack Laine or where the brothers Brunies. Finally he joined in 1916, which was founded in New Orleans Johnny Stein's Dixie Jass Band. The group played in 1916 for some time in New Schiller Café in Chicago. After the dissolution of the formation LaRocca founded with Alcide Nunez and Eddie Edwards in Chicago the Original Dixieland Jass band. In January of 1917 the band also played in New York City, where they are already in February of the same year recorded the first ever published jazz recording session, with the titles Livery Stable Blues and Dixieland Jass Band One -Step. The band undertook a tour to the UK and existed until 1925, later it was occasionally reactivated. Other recordings date from the year 1936.

The importance of LaRocca for the development of early jazz arises from the fact that Louis Armstrong in 1936 in his first biography, " Swing That Music" wrote: Four years before I learned to play the trumpet, the first notable jazz orchestra in New Orleans was a cornet player formed named Dominick James LaRocca ... The respected by many experts as an original jazz Jazz Band Creole Jazz Band of King Oliver was not founded until 1922. Both Louis Armstrong Lil Hardin Armstrong and reported that the plates of " Original Dixieland Jass Band" had stimulated to re-enact. Recordings of King Oliver in 1923 ( as Canal St. Blues ) show clear similarities with the 1921 version recorded by Nick LaRocca.

LaRocca is also regarded as composer or co-composer of some early jazz standards such as Tiger Rag and Fidgety Feet.

He was active in the second half of the twenties after his time as a jazz musician as a contractor in New Orleans.

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