ABSTRACT
The year 1919 was marked by the arrival in Britain of two important American ensembles: the all-white Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and the Southern Syncopated Orchestra, an ensemble that consisted entirely of black performers. It is fascinating to compare the activities of these extremely different groups of American musicians who were performing new and individually unique musical entertainment in London contemporaneously. The role of these ensembles in disseminating jazz in Britain has been debated at length, but all too often such discussions focus on whether the music performed can be called 'jazz', and thus falter as a modern, 'evolved' definition of jazz is applied unsuccessfully to these early incarnations of the music. As we have seen, the word 'jazz' was on the lips of the British public by 1919, however, there was continuing discussion as to its meaning. This confusion was compounded by the appearance of 'jazz bands' that sounded no different to the familiar bands that had played for dancing for several years previously, due in part to the persistent inclusion of the banjo. Whether or not we now consider the music of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and the Southern Syncopated Orchestra to be jazz, their performances were clearly seminal and definitive for those that heard them, and had considerable influence on the future development of jazz in Britain in the 1920s and beyond.
