Dominick LaRocca

From Wind Repertory Project
Dominick LaRocca

Biography

Dominic James "Nick" LaRocca (11 April 1889, New Orleans, La. – 22 February 1961, New Orleans) was an early jazz cornetist and trumpeter and the leader of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band.

Young Nick was attracted to the music of the brass bands in New Orleans and covertly taught himself to play cornet against the wishes of his father who hoped his son would go into a more prestigious profession. La Rocca at first worked as an electrician, playing music on the side. From around 1910 through 1916 he was a regular member of Papa Jack Laine's bands.

In 1916 he was chosen as a last-minute replacement for Frank Christian in Johnny Stein's band to play a job up in Chicago, Illinois. This band became the famous Original Dixieland Jazz Band, making the first commercially issued jazz recordings in New York City in 1917. These recordings were hits and made the band into celebrities. La Rocca led this band on tours of England and the United States into the early 1920s, when he suffered a nervous breakdown. He returned to New Orleans and retired from music, going into the construction and contracting business. In 1936 Nick La Rocca reunited the O.D.J.B. for a successful tour and more recordings. La Rocca proclaimed that he and his band were the inventors of the now nationally popular swing music. He and the reunited Original Dixieland Jazz Band performed Tiger Rag in The March of Time newsreel segment titled Birth of Swing, released to U.S. theaters February 19, 1937. Personality conflicts broke up the band again in 1937, and La Rocca again retired from music.

LaRocca is credited by some sources as the composer of Tiger Rag. Other sources consider the tune to be a group effort by O.D.J.B. members, based on tunes that had been heard in New Orleans for years prior to its recording in 1917.


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