Tiger Rag

Tiger Rag might be the most argued-about composition in jazz history, and that's saying something for a genre where people argue about everything. Nick LaRocca claimed he wrote it. Jelly Roll Morton claimed he wrote it. The truth is almost certainly that nobody wrote it — it evolved out of a traditional quadrille that New Orleans brass bands had been playing for decades, and different musicians each put their own stamp on it until it became the song we know. Morton demonstrated this convincingly in his Library of Congress recordings, tracing the melody back through French quadrille figures. LaRocca responded by insisting more loudly that he'd invented it. Subtlety was not the man's forte.

The ODJB recording from 1918 is a freight train. From the opening cornet blast to the famous 'hold that tiger' crescendo at the end, the energy never drops below manic. The band plays like they're being chased, which in a sense they were — by 1918, every jazz band in America was trying to replicate the ODJB's success, and LaRocca knew that staying on top meant playing faster, louder, and wilder than everyone else.

What makes Tiger Rag historically significant beyond the authorship controversy is its structure. The multi-strain format — essentially a series of different melodies played in sequence, each one building in intensity — became the template for thousands of jazz performances. When Louis Armstrong recorded his legendary version in 1930, he was working from the same architectural blueprint that this 1918 recording established. The building changed beyond recognition, but the foundation was laid here.

Tiger Rag went on to become one of the most recorded compositions of the twentieth century. Mills Brothers sang it. Les Paul played it. Art Tatum turned it into a piano showcase that still intimidates musicians. All of them built on a foundation that belongs to New Orleans collectively and to no individual specifically, no matter how loudly that individual might insist otherwise.