Dixieland Jug Blowers

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The Dixieland Jug Blowers were a popular American musical group of the 1920s. While being a Jug band, the group is often classified as a Jazz band due to its set up which while including regular Jug band instruments such as Jug, Banjo, Guitar and violin, it also used alto saxophone, trombone, piano and even the famous Johnny Dodds on clarinet. This wide variety of instrumentation caused the Jug Band to become the most sophisticated of its time and influenced many other Jug bands of the time such as the Memphis Jug Band.

The Dixieland Jug Band was originally formed through the commingling of two separate groups run by banjoist Earl MacDonald and fiddler Clifford Hayes. They were brought together in 1926 in for a Victor Records recording session in Chicago and again later in 1927 Earl MacDonald had been a musician for almost 30 years and so favoured the earlier traditional and minstrel tunes. Clifford Hayes on the other hand favoured a more straight ahead Jazz styled approach, eventually dispensing with the jug altogether. The two would only work together in the studio due to Hayes' financial shenanigans, in which he would lie to fellow bandmates about the takings and would pocket more than his fair share.