Wilbur Sweatman, b. 1881 in Brunswick, Missouri was an important musician who connects ragtime, vaudeville and itinerant show bands to the birth of jazz. Depending on how one determines what jazz is, he was very likely the first artist to make an audio recording of this emerging style. Comparisons of Sweatman's style to better known O.D.J.B. recordings from the time after the release of Sweatman's 1916 Down Home Rag show them to sound more arranged and scripted, possessing less of the fire and spirit of improvisation found in Sweatman's work.

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