Dixieland Jazz

Dixieland wasn't just the dawn of jazz, America's first homegrown music; it was also New Orleans' answer to a question: what should a party sound like? The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, true to their name, were the men who put the new sound on the map — their 1917 "Livery Stable Blues" is a bleating, bustling barnyard bash that's known as the first jazz record ever. In the Crescent City, even a funeral march is a ruckus-raising parade, so when the Dixieland All Stars strut and stomp their way through the most famous Dixieland tune of all, "When the Saints Go Marching In," see if you can spot its roots as an 1890s hymn. Dixieland wasn't bound to one era, either — New Orleans' musical ambassador Louis Armstrong displaced the Beatles in the #1 spot with his 1964 smash, "Hello, Dolly!," a brand-new tune to which Satchmo gave some old-school swing.

Dixieland's wildfire spreads from New Orleans to Chicago and beyond in Next Steps.

Dixieland was also dubbed "hot jazz," and it's easy to understand why when you hear the blistering blast of joy busting out of its jumping trumpets and careening clarinets. And it didn't all come from New Orleans, either — Chicago trumpeter Muggsy Spanier burns through "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" like it's winter in Siberia and his horn's a jazz-stoked fireplace. British clarinet king Monty Sunshine worshipped the Big Easy sound from afar, but he plows through "You Rascal You" with a wild 'n' wooly wail that could make crumpets taste like crawfish. But nobody blew bigger and badder than Satchmo's own mentor, Kid Ory — he damn near chews a new hole in his 'bone on "Ory's Creole Trombone."

In Deep Cuts, meet the musical madmen who made Dixieland move.

Just like the Dixieland sound itself, the players who blew the breath of life into it were freewheeling and unstoppable — king-size characters with a wild streak. Jack Teagarden was a force of nature with the Dixieland blues in his soul, not to mention his voice and trombone, and he stirs up a storm big enough to blow the house down on "The Sheik of Araby." Loose cannon Sidney Bechet once shot somebody in a quarrel over a chord change, but he was also a jazz godhead who tore into "Maple Leaf Rag" with a titanic tone that could tumble a tree. As for Big Apple banjo man Eddie Condon, a mover and shaker with his own Manhattan jazz club, well, let's just say his "I'm Gonna Stomp, Mr. Henry Lee," was no mere idle boast.

The Dixieland sound that sprang up in early-1900s New Orleans was born from the blues, ran on ragtime, and fed from the stream of street-parading brass bands. Its raw, downright sensual feel was as outrageous and intoxicating as rock 'n' roll would be four decades later. Before Dixieland introduced jazz to the world, trumpets and trombones played strict, written-out, and, well . . . rhythmically square music, but thrill-seekers like Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, and Sidney Bechet dumped that dusty stuff in the swamp and embraced a style that was all about energy and interacting in the moment. Hell, some of Dixieland's greatest players couldn't even read music — it was all about the attitude. From Crescent City kings to Chicago stompers and even U.K. trad-jazz giants, we've assembled the ultimate Dixieland dream team right here, so sit back and let the saints go marching in.