Editing Original Dixieland Jass Band (section)

==London tour==
[[File:Tigerag.jpg|thumb|left|"Tiger Rag" sheet music, 1918, Original Dixieland Jazz Band, [[Leo Feist]], New York]]
Other New Orleans musicians, including Nunez, Tom Brown, and Frank Christian, followed ODJB's example and went to New York to play jazz as well, giving the band competition. LaRocca decided to take the band to London, where they would once again enjoy being the only authentic New Orleans jazz band in the metropolis, and again present themselves as the Originators of Jazz because they were the first band to record the new genre of music dubbed jass or jazz. The band's April 7, 1919<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MPPz_HSyBmUC&pg=PT398|title=West End Chronicles: 300 Years of Glamour and Excess in the Heart of London|first=Ed|last=Glinert|date=June 5, 2008|publisher=Penguin Books Limited|isbn=9780141024646|via=Google Books}}</ref> appearance in the revue ''[[Joy Bells]]'' at the [[Hippodrome, London|London Hippodrome]] was the first official live jazz performance by any band in the United Kingdom<ref>Edwards, Tom (May 1950). [https://nationaljazzarchive.org.uk/explore/journals/jazz-illustrated/vol1-no6-may-1950/1259903-jazz-illustrated-vol1-no6-may-1950-0007?q=new%20orleans%20to%20hammersmith "Jazz Band Ball: New Orleans to Hammersmith"]{{Dead link|date=March 2021}}. ''Jazz Illustrated'' 1 (6): 11.</ref> and was followed by a [[Royal Command Performance|command performance]] for [[George V|King George V]] at [[Buckingham Palace]]. The concert did not start auspiciously, with the assembled aristocracy, which included French Marshal [[Philippe Pétain]], peering through opera glasses at the band "as though there were bugs on us", according to LaRocca. The audience loosened up, however, after the king laughed and loudly applauded their rendition of "The Tiger Rag". The British tour ended with the band being chased to the [[Southampton]] docks by [[Dudley Stanhope, 9th Earl of Harrington|Lord Harrington]], who was infuriated that his daughter was being romanced by the lead singer of the band.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23727267-buckingham-palace-hits-right-note-with-jazz-fans.do|title="Buckingham Palace hits right note with jazz fans", ''London Evening Standard'' (August 3, 2009)|website=Thisislondon.co.uk|access-date=July 31, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/aug/03/buckingham-palace-jazz-plaque-brecon|title=By royal approval: Buckingham Palace's place in jazz history|first=Stephen|last=Bates|date=August 3, 2009|website=Theguardian.com}}</ref> In London, they made twenty more recordings for the British branch of Columbia. While in London, they recorded the second, more commercially successful, version of their hit song "Soudan" (also known as "Oriental Jass").

The band returned to the United States in July 1920 and toured for four years. This version of the band played in a more commercial style, adding a saxophone to the arrangements in the manner of other popular orchestras. Jazz pianist and composer [[Frank Signorelli]], who collaborated on the jazz standards "A Blues Serenade" recorded by Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington, "Gypsy", and "[[Stairway to the Stars]]", joined the ODJB for a brief time in 1921.

In November 1925 Nick LaRocca announced that he was retiring from the music business. He was replaced by 19-year-old trumpeter Henry Levine, who in 1940 brought this kind of repertoire to the NBC radio show ''[[The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street]]''. With LaRocca's departure Tony Sbarbaro, now the only original member of the ODJB, became the bandleader. The personnel for this final incarnation of the "original" ODJB was Tony Sbarbaro (drums), Henry Levine (trumpet), Artie Seaberg (clarinet), Al Caplan (trombone), and Wilder Chase (piano).<ref>Henry Levine, interviewed by Nick Dellow, ''Jazz Journal International'', Oct. 1985, pp. 14-15.</ref> The band finished out its contract with New York's Cinderella Ballroom in February 1926, and then disbanded.