Editing New Orleans Rhythm Kings (section)

==Race and cultural context==

At its roots, New Orleans jazz (which influenced Chicago jazz) represented an assimilation of Southern black traditions carried over from their [[Native ethnic groups of Africa|African]] heritage mixed with white [[Europe]]an traditions. The instrumentation was European ([[trumpets]], [[trombones]], etc.), while the melodic ideas and unconventional (at least, in the context of [[classical music]]) rhythms and musical forms were born from the [[ring shout]]s and [[country blues]] styles of black [[slaves]]. The very first jazz bands were mostly black and played for black audiences, though the genre progressively got picked up by white audiences too. Many of the musicians were unable to read music but instead relied heavily on head arrangements (learning the arrangement by ear and then committing it to memory) and an ability to [[improvise]]. In many other cases the musicians could read music, but white audiences were so captivated by the improvisational ability that they were convinced was inherent in black musicians that the musicians would memorize the arrangement beforehand and appear to improvise to cater to the expectations of white audiences.<ref name="ebook">Kenney, William Howland (1993). ''Chicago Jazz: A Cultural History, 1904–1930''. New York: Oxford University Press.</ref> 
	
The New Orleans Rhythm Kings represents a contingent of white jazz bands that emerged from 1915 to the early 1920s.<ref name="ebook"/> These bands, perhaps the best-known of which was the [[Original Dixieland Jazz Band]], attempted to imitate the fast [[virtuosic]] style of their black counterparts.
"The relatively small inner circles of acute jazz listeners in the 1920s recognized that black musicians played better, more mature, and more confident jazz".<ref name="ebook"/>
	
Despite a significant bias that only black musicians could play "real" jazz,<ref name="ebook"/> white bands such as the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band emerged and were successful, especially in their recordings. "[[Livery Stable Blues]]" recorded by the ODJB in 1917 personified the vaudevillian style that white audiences sought in jazz: choppy, comedic, almost poking fun at itself with its animal sounds.
	
The New Orleans Rhythm Kings, however, brought a new flavor to recorded jazz. NORK and ODJB were not the first white jazz bands (there were many others that played around [[Chicago]] and [[New Orleans]]), but they were some of the first to make recordings, and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings was one of the first white jazz bands to make mixed-race recordings (with [[Jelly Roll Morton]], a [[Creoles of color|creole]]).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barnett |first=Kyle |title=Record cultures: the transformation of the U.S. recording industry |date=2020 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=978-0-472-12431-2 |location=Ann Arbor, [Michigan] |pages=42}}</ref>