Last updated 11:50, Saturday, 22 March 2008

JAZZ was born this day in 1917. That’s when the world’s first jazz record was released – and the world of music was never the same again.

For jazz buffs, it was Victor number 18,255, recorded at Victor’s New York studios February 26, 1917.

The ODJB – as the Original Dixieland Jass Band came to be known – played two numbers, The Dixieland Jass Band One-Step, and Livery Stable Blues. The sound engineer was the ever resourceful Charles Sooy, who hit upon the idea of placing the band’s members at different distances round the studio in order to achieve a balanced sound recording.

It was a big hit. The record buying public loved it. It elevated the members of the band, albeit briefly, to superstar status. Jazz had come of age.

Jazz had, of course, been around for a great many years but it was the issuing of a popular record that enabled it to be listened to the world over. In places like Great Britain. They came on tour in 1919 and went down a storm.

The band which made the 1917 record was: Nick La Rocca (cornet), Eddie Edwards (trombone), Henry Ragas (piano), Tony Sbarbo (drums) and Larry Shields (clarinet.)

And they were all white men, reputed to be unable to read music - but they were young, dynamic and played a ‘new’ music that had not been heard by many, especially in Europe.

The War was over, and young people wanted something new, something vibrant. And jazz fitted the bill.

When these fast living youngsters hit the dance floor, they wouldn’t be seen dead shuffling about like their grandparents.

The new music demanded new dance steps. Over in America they were probably making them up as they went along, but potential jazzers in this country had nobody to imitate. So how could they learn?

They went, as their parents did, to local dancing schools. This also poses a problem. Just how did these instructors pick up on what was ‘in’ across the Atlantic? I don’t know how, but they did.

They must have had the records and, I suppose, they might have made their way down to London to see the ODJB, and other bands, playing and taking note of what the dancers were getting up to. They had to move with the times.

Prof Oliver I Cowper was advertising classes in Dancing & Callisthenics in 1900. But November 1919 finds him advertising ‘new dances.’ He tells the people of Maryport that the Jazz Twinkle and the Casserett will be taught, “in addition to other new dances becoming so popular.”

Particulars for his classes could have been had from Miss Annie Knutsford, 17 Senhouse St, Maryport; or from 11, Christian Street, Workington. He was a busy man, having classes in Wigton, Maryport and Keswick as well as “private lessons & classes daily, after 5.30pm, in Christian Street.”

He would have been able to keep up with all the new dances because he used to attend the annual conferences of the United Kingdom Alliance of Professional Teachers of Dancing, held in London. He must have been held in high esteem because he was elected president of that organisation in 1909.

His brother Arthur had been master of the dances for the York Historical Pageant and, in the twenties, Paris Cowper continued dance teaching when he emigrated to New Zealand.

It seems that the Cowpers were a dancing dynasty.

William Ferguson Bryden also taught dance at the time. He’d arrived in Workington from his native Ayr to become the private dance teacher to a Mr MacKenzie, a local ironmaster.

He’d later left Workington to go to London to take up what must have been a prestigious and profitable post – dance instructor to the family of Lord Frederick Cavendish. This arrangement ended when Lord Cavendish was assassinated in Phoenix Park, Dublin in 1882.

He returned to Workington and restarted his classes in his school in Oxford Street. Anyone unable to attend classes could, for 10/6, have bought a printed manual, or “accurate description of the new Tango, Charleston Trot and Iris.”

An advert appeared in the local paper in 1919 for “an assistant with knowledge of display and modern ball-room dancing; pianist preferred.” Also, “vacancy for well educated young lady as articled pupil to train for teacher of dancing.” No name given, just a box number.

Two new members of staff wanted! Dance instructors must have been doing well at the time. Thanks to the ODJB and the new jazz craze

But does anyone still know how to do The Jazz Twinkle?