A popular legend (apparently originating from a 1930s claim by Richard M. Jones) says that Louis Armstrong dropped his lyric sheet while recording the song and for lack of words to sing, began to improvise his vocals and thereby created the technique of scat singing. This story, though popular, may be apocryphal. Although Armstrong did not invent scat singing, because it was already practiced by many musicians in New Orleans during the early twentieth century, Armstrong, Kid Ory, and Johnny St. Cyr confirm in their accounts that he did drop the sheet music during the session, prompting the need to improvise. Nevertheless, the inventiveness of the technique impressed many when the record first came out. Mezz Mezzrow's book Really the Blues recounts the delighted reactions of Frank Teschmacher, Bix Beiderbecke, and other musicians. Another notable feature of the record is the hokum coda, in which a line is delivered too early, leaving the break over which it should have been spoken completely empty.
