The Mills Brothers became a national sensation with their million-selling version in 1931. A Japanese version was recorded in 1935 by Nakano Tadaharu and the Columbia Rhythm Boys. Musicians who played it included Art Tatum, Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra (in a version with lyrics), Duke Ellington, Bix Beiderbecke, and Louis Armstrong, who released the song at least three times as a 78 single, twice for Okeh in 19, and for the French arm of Brunswick in 1934. "Tiger Rag" had over 136 versions by 1942. With the arrival of sound films, it appeared on soundtracks to movies and cartoons when energetic music was needed. Archaeologist Sylvanus Morley played it repeatedly on his wind up phonograph while exploring the ruins of Chichen Itza in the 1920s. These include the New Orleans Rhythm Kings version with a clarinet solo by Leon Roppolo. Hundreds of recordings appeared in the late 1910s and through the 1920s. Dance band and march orchestrations were published. Nick LaRocca's house in Uptown New Orleans has the opening notes of "Tiger Rag" in the door screen.Īfter the success of the Original Dixieland Jass Band recordings, the song gained national popularity. The band evolved the second and third strains in order to show off the clarinetist, George Boyd, and the final strain ('Hold that tiger' section) was worked out by Jack, a trombonist, and the cornet player, Punch Miller." : 170 Other recordings It was compiled when Jack's brother Thomas, 'Papa Mutt', pulled the first strain from a book of quadrilles. The song was known as "Jack Carey" by the black musicians of the city. Furthermore, Caporaletti has accurately identified the ‘floating folk strains’ that Nick La Rocca assembled to create ‘Tiger Rag’. The Italian musicologist Vincenzo Caporaletti has shown, how the authorial self-attributions of Jelly Roll Morton are not reliable, by means of an analysis conducted on the first complete transcription in musical notation of Morton's Library of Congress performances (1938) with conclusions defined by Bruce Boyd Raeburn “justifiably compelling” on a scientific level. Īccording to writer Samuel Charters, "Tiger Rag" was worked out by the Jack Carey Band, the group which developed many of the standard tunes that were recorded by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. In his book Jazz: A History, Frank Tirro states, "Morton claims credit for transforming a French quadrille that was performed in different meters into "Tiger Rag". In one interview, Laine said that the composer was Achille Baquet.
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Members of Papa Jack Laine's band said song was known in New Orleans as "Number Two" before the Dixieland Jass Band copyrighted it.
Including Ray Lopez under the title "Weary Weasel" and Johnny De Droit under the title "Number Two Blues". Others copyrighted the melody or close variations of it, Other New Orleans musicians claimed that the song, or at least portions of it, had been a standard in the city before it was recorded. "Tiger Rag" and "Oh Didn't He Ramble" were played long before the first jazz recording, and the names of Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Bunk Johnson, Papa Celestin, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver, Freddie Keppard, Kid Ory, and Papa Laine were already well known to the jazz community." "But even before the first recording, several musicians had achieved prominence as leading jazz performers, and several numbers of what was to become the standard repertoire had already been developed.
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This authorship has never been challenged legally. In subsequent releases, the ODJB members received authorship credit. "Tiger Rag" was first copyrighted in 1917 with music composed by Nick LaRocca. The song was copyrighted, published, and credited to band members Eddie Edwards, Nick LaRocca, Henry Ragas, Tony Sbarbaro, and Larry Shields in 1917. The first release of "Tiger Rag" on Aeolian Vocalion in 1917īut the second recording on Mafor Victor was a hit and established it as a jazz standard.