Johnny De Droit

Johnny De Droit ( December 4, 1892 , † February 1986 ) was an American cornet player and band leader of New Orleans jazz .

Johnny De Droit was a popular cornetist who played in hotels, restaurants, and parties in New Orleans in the 1920s. Johnny De Droit & his New Orleans Orchestra , in which clarinetist Tony Parenti also played for a time, was the first jazz band to play for the upper classes in New Orleans. He recorded with his orchestra from March 1924 (Brown Eyes) a number of records for Okeh . Regular members of his band were his brother, the drummer Paul De Droit, the pianist Frank Froeba or Frank Cuny, the alto saxophonist Rudy Levy, the banjo player George Potter, the clarinetist Henry Raymond and the trombonist Ellis Stratakosand Russ Papalia. De Droit was together with cornetists like Johnny Dunn , Johnny Bayersdorffer and "Sugar Johnny" Smith a cornetist of the older New Orleans School before Louis Armstrong, who was mainly influenced by Joe Oliver in his mute game. His recordings obtained are - as well as the other musicians mentioned - good examples of the transition from ragtime and popular dance music to jazz: some shots start than conventionally played "street song" and then go in a solo an instrumentalist or last chorus of the band to Jazz idiom about.

After 1925 De Droit worked outside the music scene.

Discographic notes

• Johnny De Droit and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra / The Arcadian Serenaders (Retrieval, 1924/25)

Web links

• Portrait and discography at Redhotjazz

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• Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings . 8th edition. Penguin, London 2006, ISBN 0-14-102327-9 .