- Style
- Jazz
- Tradition
- Early jazz
- Form
- Rag, three strains and a trio
- Keys
- B♭ and A♭
- Level
- 6
- Played on
- Ensemble
In the public domain. Source
History
The Original Dixieland Jass Band first recorded it on August 17, 1917, for Aeolian-Vocalion, but those vertical cut discs would not play on most phonographs. Their Victor recording of March 25, 1918, was a hit, and it was named to the first National Recording Registry in 2002. Leo Feist published it in 1917 as a piano one step by D. J. La Rocca.
Other New Orleans musicians said the strains were played in the city before the band copyrighted them. Members of Papa Jack Laine's band knew it as "Number Two," and Jack Carey's band was said to have pieced it together from a quadrille. It had more than 136 recorded versions by 1942, and the Mills Brothers sold a million copies of theirs in 1931.