“Papa” Jack Laine (September 21, 1873 – June 1, 1966) is often credited with being the first White Jazz musician. He was a drummer and saxophonist. He formed his first brass band in 1888. The band performed Ragtime and marching music. He went on to lead the Reliance Brass Band, which became popular enough for him to have several units playing under that name.
Many of the early New Orleans White Jazz musicians such as Tom Brown, Johnny Stein, Albert and George Brunies, Tony Parenti, Nick La Rocca and all of the other members of the Original Dixleland Jass Band played in the Reliance Brass Band at one time or the other. In 1917, Laine quit music and worked as a blacksmith, and later managed a garage. He never recorded during his prime but in the 1950s he can be heard briefly on an American Music recording playing a bass drum with a group that called itself Papa Laine’s Children in his honor.
Learn more from the National Park Service.
Redhotjazz.com was a pioneering website during the "Information wants to be Free" era of the 1990s. In that spirit we are recovering the lost data from the now defunct site and sharing it with you.
Most of the music in the archive is in the form of MP3s hosted on Archive.org or the French servers of Jazz-on-line.com where this music is all in the public domain.
Files unavailable from those sources we host ourselves. They were made from original 78 RPM records in the hands of private collectors in the 1990s who contributed to the original redhotjazz.com. They were hosted as .ra files originally and we have converted them into the more modern MP3 format. They are of inferior quality to what is available commercially and are intended for reference purposes only. In some cases a Real Audio (.ra) file from Archive.org will download. Don't be scared! Those files will play in many music programs, but not Windows Media Player.
