Ostrich Walk

Nobody knows why it's called Ostrich Walk. The ODJB never explained their titles, and asking Nick LaRocca to explain anything was an exercise in receiving a forty-minute lecture about how he personally invented every note ever played by anyone anywhere. The ostrich connection remains a mystery, though if you listen to the loping rhythm of the main theme, you can sort of picture a large flightless bird crossing a yard with misplaced dignity. Sort of.

What makes this recording historically interesting is the B-side context. Ostrich Walk was paired with Tiger Rag on the original 78 rpm release, which means the two most important early jazz recordings entered the world as a package deal. If you bought one, you got the other. Record companies in 1918 had no idea what would sell, so they threw everything at the wall and watched. Tiger Rag stuck to the wall and stayed there forever. Ostrich Walk slid down quietly and landed in the bin marked 'for historians only.'

But there's a charm to the undercard. Ostrich Walk has a melodic simplicity that Tiger Rag's chaos doesn't allow. The first strain is almost sweet — a series of ascending phrases that resolve with a satisfaction you don't usually associate with the ODJB. Shields's clarinet in the second strain floats above the ensemble in a way that suggests the band could have been more than a novelty act if they'd wanted to. They didn't want to. Novelty paid better.

The ODJB's recording career lasted from 1917 to 1923, with a brief reunion in 1936 that nobody needed. In those six years, they cut about three dozen sides for Victor and other labels, establishing a template for hot dance music that every white jazz band in America copied. Ostrich Walk is minor ODJB — not their best, not their most famous — but minor ODJB is still a document of a moment when popular music changed permanently, and even the B-sides matter.