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THE SAVOY BALLROOMH A R L E M , N E W Y O R K C I T Y

Start the car, I know a whoopee spotWhere the gin is cold, but the piano’s hotStart the car, I know a whoopee spotWhere the gin is cold, but the piano’s hot

from Overture/All That Jazz“Chicago” movie soundtrack© 2002 Sony Music Entertainment, Inc.

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JazzAZZ HAS BEEN LABELED HOT, COOL, SWING, BEBOP AND FUSION,

yet it is all these styles and more. Jazz is the irrepressible expression of freedom,liberation, and individual rights through musical improvisation. It is a way people

can express themselves and their emotions by means of music. As Art Blakely, notedjazz drummer and band leader, once said, “Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life.”Jazz has been called the purist expression of American democracy; a music built onindividualism and compromise, independence and cooperation.

Though it was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 1800s, jazz music was con-ceived over a period of 200 years from world influences including African, Latin Amer-ican, and European. New Orleans, a major seaport of the United States, was the mostcosmopolitan city of its time and a melting pot of cultures and nationalities. Even then,the city was known for its openness and vitality. Storyville, a part of town famous forbars and brothels, became the perfect environment for musicians to experiment andimprovise with music.

By the 1890s there were two distinct styles of music played in New Orleans: ragtimeand blues. Ragtime, with its innovative syncopated rhythms, was popular for dancing.It featured the piano accompanied by banjo and brass instruments. Blues, with itsthree-chord progressions and heartfelt lyrics, mirrored the call-and-response of gospeland spiritual music (see “The Red Hot Blues” in the January Forum). When musiciansstarted to play the blues on horns, they took another step in the evolution of jazz.

Although New Orleans piano player Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton claimed that heinvented jazz, in truth no one can be given credit for single-handedly creating thismusical genre. The descendants of black slaves and white plantation owners, sometimescalled creoles, played an important role in the history of jazz. Many creole musicianswere classically trained in the European musical traditions and played in the sympho-ny orchestras of New Orleans or in brass bands for parades, weddings, and funerals.These and many other innovative musicians, black and white, experimented with rag-time and blues, adding new instruments and creating space for improvisation. We canonly look back to those musicians who left the greatest musical legacies and say that allof them helped to invent jazz.

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This couple dances gracefullydown the dance floor of one ofthe biggest and most famousnightclubs in Harlem, the SavoyBallroom. It was to the Savoy, anunofficially integrated club, thatblacks and whites alike went todance away their troubles duringthe Great Depression. The dancefloor of maple and mahogany was one block long and had tobe replaced every three yearsbecause of the wear from thedancers that came nightly. Thebest jazz musicians appearedregularly at the Savoy and con-tinued to draw crowds until itsclosing on October 3, 1958.

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The Jazz JourneyBuddy Bolden, a cornet player who led bands in New

Orleans from the mid 1890s until 1906, had a bigimpact on the early formation of jazz music. Althoughhe never recorded any of his songs, Bolden was regardedby many of his peers as the first band leader to play im-provisational jazz. He and many other jazz greats, suchas Joe “King” Oliver, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, and“Jelly Roll” Morton, played their new music in Story-ville until it was closed down in 1917. Morton was alsoan innovative and accomplished composer; he was thefirst jazzman to write his compositions in musical nota-tion. In New York City in 1917, the Original DixielandJazz Band, made up of five white musicians from New

Orleans, made in the first jazz recording. That record,“Livery Stable Blues,” was an immediate smash hit andsold more than any previous record.

Around this time came another benchmark of jazzmusic, known as The Great Migration. It was a periodwhen blacks from the south went to northern cities toseek work and create a better life for themselves. Amongthem were many musicians. When they arrived in citiessuch as Chicago, Memphis, Kansas City, Los Angeles,and New York, they brought jazz with them. An addi-tional factor in the spread of jazz was Prohibition. In the1920s, when alcoholic drinks were declared illegal in theUnited States and bars were closed down, thousands ofspeakeasies (clandestine bars that served alcohol) openedin towns and cities across the nation. In many of them,especially in the larger cities, people wanted to hear thebold new style of dance music called jazz.

In Chicago, cornet player Louis Armstrong joinedKing Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band in 1922 and took the cityby storm. A protégé of Oliver at the time, Armstrongbecame renown for his joyful and exuberant playing andsinging. However, white musicians have sometimes beencredited with establishing the Chicago style of jazz, indi-cating the diversity of jazz as well as the racial tensions ofthe era. Band leader Paul Whiteman, who was advertisedas the King of Jazz, had one of the most celebrated andimitated bands in America in the 1920s. His greatestcontribution to jazz was that he recognized it as an art

Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton (above left)

This 1938 photograph of Morton is from a recording session for the Libraryof Congress in which he played and sang, and spoke on the origins of jazz.

Louis Armstrong (left)

This publicity portrait is from 1931, prior to Armstrong’s first European tour.

Paul Whiteman (above right)

A smiling Whiteman is photographed while conducting his band.

William “Count” Basie (far right)

This publicity portrait of Count Basie from 1936 was made to promote hisfirst recording session for Decca Records.

King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band (1923) (right)

Although Joe “King” Oliver’s band played together for only four years, it hada significant influence on the development of jazz in the early 20th century.The members of the band were Louis Armstrong, slide trumpet; King Oliver,coronet; Baby Dodds, drums; Honore Dutrey, trombone; Bill Johnson, banjo;Johnny Dodds, clarinet; and Lil Harden, piano.

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form and wanted to orchestrate jazz music to make itmore commercially viable. Unfortunately, in doing so,much of the improvisation and spontaneity of the musicwas lost.

In Kansas City, jazz musicians created a distinctivestyle based on ragtime, rural blues, and new musicalideas from vaudeville shows. Two key figures were pianoplayer and band leader William “Count” Basie and sax-ophonist Lester Young. Radio broadcasts of Basie’sorchestra in the mid 1930s gave him wide exposure thatresulted in recording contracts and bookings around thecountry. He led his orchestra and continued to tour

until the 1970s. Many famous players got their start inBasie’s enduring orchestra, which was known for featur-ing the talents of soloists.

In New York in the 1920s, the migration of jazzmusic into Harlem’s music halls was in full stride. Sever-al innovations of jazz artists during this period were tohave a profound effect on the music. Fletcher Hender-son and his band, tired of playing polite dance music,combined orchestral arrangement with free improvisa-tion, thus creating a style called swing. Louis Armstrongjoined Henderson’s band in 1924 and was instrumentalin the development of this new style. Soon Armstrongwas making studio recordings under his own name.

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Although his bands the Hot Five and the Hot Sevennever played before a live audience, their studiorecordings would become classics of jazz. These influ-ential bands included Armstrong’s wife Lil Hardin onpiano and occasionally as composer and singer.

Notable Jazz MusiciansArmstrong, or “Satchmo,” was an incomparable

innovator in the early years of jazz. He invented scatsinging, which is singing without clear words andusing nonsense syllables instead. The legend goesthat he first sang scat when he dropped his sheet ofsong lyrics during a recording session and was forcedto improvise on the spot. As his career and musicprogressed, he became the undisputed King of Jazz.After World War II and into the 1960s, Armstrongserved as Ambassador Satch, performing concerttours around the globe under the sponsorship of theU.S. Department of State. His infectious and opti-mistic outlook is summarized by the spoken intro-duction to his song “What a Wonderful World”: “AllI’m saying is, ‘See what a wonderful world it wouldbe if only we would give it a chance?’ Love, baby,love. That’s the secret.”

Another important figure in the development ofjazz was Edward “Duke” Ellington. Originally apiano player from Washington, DC, Ellingtonfound success in New York as a band leader andcomposer. During his long and prolific career hewrote songs for his orchestra that have become jazzstandards, including “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If ItAin’t Got that Swing),” “In a Sentimental Mood,”and “Take the ‘A’ Train.” He also wrote many com-positions longer than the two or three minutes thatfit on one side of a record, including the symphonicsuite “Black, Brown, and Beige,” (subtitled “A ToneParallel to the History of the Negro in America”).

Throughout the Great Depression (1929 to1941), jazz continued to lift the spirits of Americans.

All I am saying is, ‘See what a wonderfulworld it would be if onlywe would give it a chance?’ Love, baby, love. That’s thesecret.

Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong (above)

The Duke and Satchmo share a happy moment after a tribute to Ellington in Febru-ary 1970 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. An ardent admirer of Elling-ton’s work, Armstrong wrote: “Duke Ellington has always been my man of music…”in the notes to an album that they recorded together in 1961.

Benny Goodman (below)

Benny Goodman, clarinetist and band leader, was known as the “King of Swing.”This is a publicity photograph from the film “Big Broadcast of 1937.”

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Though the nation was poor, jazzmen Armstrong, Elling-ton, and others prospered from their music. Clarinetistand band leader Benny Goodman spread the swingingmusic of jazz on his “Let’s Dance” radio show, which wasbroadcast on Saturday nights. There were grave inequali-ties between black and white Americans in this period,and the situation wasn’t much different among musicians.Goodman, who was white, was praised by some andscorned by others for hiring black musicians to play in hisbands. Both then and now, his integration of his band isconsidered an important early step toward racial integra-tion of American society.

In the late 1930s and 1940s, vocalists Billie Holidayand Ella Fitzgerald gained nationwide fame. With theirrich and soulful voices, these women were two of themost famous jazz singers of their day. Billie Holiday sangwith several great orchestra leaders, including CountBasie and Artie Shaw. She was admired for her ability totransform popular songs into emotionally profoundpieces. Ella Fitzgerald, nicknamed “The First Lady ofSong,” sang a variety of styles with authority and set highstandards for the interpretation of many well-known bal-lads. She was a virtuoso scat singer, using all of the impro-visatory genius of the finest jazz instrumentalists. Duringher career, she sang with the bands of Louis Armstrong,Duke Ellington, and Count Basie. Her tremendous musi-cal artistry won her 14 Grammy Awards, including a Life-time Achievement Award in 1967.

In the early 1940s, two men arrived on the musicscene who were ultimately to change the course of jazzforever. They were alto saxophonist Charlie Parker andtrumpeter “Dizzy” Gillespie. They jammed at Minton’sPlay House in Harlem with band members that includ-ed pianist Thelonious Monk and drummer KennyClark. Their jam sessions were free from the regimenta-tion and commercialism of big swing bands and allowedfor greater musical experimentation. Parker brought newphrasing and solos based on the chords underlying themelody. Gillespie inverted chord changes and extendedthe rhythm and sophistication of jazz into new melodicand harmonic content. Their style of jazz music wasknown as bebop or simply bop. Initially it was criticizedby journalists and music critics, but eventually bebopgained a large following of fans and fellow musicians.Throughout his long career as a band leader and jazzpioneer, Gillespie played the trumpet with virtuosity inboth large and small ensembles, often as the featured Ella©

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Billie Holiday (above)

A serene publicity photograph of Holiday is from 1947.

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (below)

Louis Armstrong, as a guest performer, clowns around at Ella’s opening in1971 at the Empire Room at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City.

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soloist. His songs “Night in Tunisia” and “Salt Peanuts”are considered classics of the bebop style. In 1956, hetoured internationally as the first jazz ambassador spon-sored by the State Department.

Jazz GrowsIn the late 1950s and 1960s, some musicians branched

off from mainstream music to combine jazz and classicalmusic, most notably pianist John Lewis, who led theModern Jazz Quartet, and composer Gunther Schuller.Two other innovators during this time were bassist andcomposer Charlie Mingus and alto saxophonist OrnetteColeman. Mingus pioneered the bass as a melodic, ratherthan rhythmic, instrument. Coleman introduced an aton-al, discordant style of avant-garde jazz, which retained thesteady rhythmic swing of jazz but did away with chordprogressions altogether. Coleman’s fans found his theoryof harmelodics and his music liberating, but his critics—and there were many—considered it musical anarchy.

At the same time another style of jazz was developingthat derived much of its inspiration from classical music.This jazz, soft in tone yet highly complex, was known asthe cool style. Trumpet player and band leader MilesDavis pioneered cool jazz, and this genre came into itsown with his 1959 album “Kind of Blue.” It featuredpianist Bill Evans and tenor saxophonist John Coltrane,who had joined Davis’ band in 1955. The album had aset of compositions that remained in one chord and key

for up to sixteen measures at a time, creating a vastexpanse for solo improvisation. Later, Davis’ fruitful col-laboration with composer and arranger Gil Evans pro-duced several other landmark albums of cool jazz, mostnotably “Miles Ahead” and “Sketches of Spain,” whichis based on a piece by Spanish composer Joaquin Rodri-go. As Davis explored new sounds and arrangements, hisinfluence on jazz music expanded. Many musicians whoplayed in his various bands would later lead their owngroups and take jazz in new directions. Their names readlike a Who’s Who list of contemporary jazz: saxophon-ists John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley and WayneShorter; bass players Ron Carter and Dave Holland;pianists Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Joe Zawinul(from Austria), and Chick Corea; drummers TonyWilliams and John DeJohnette; guitarists JohnMcLaughlin (from England) and John Scofield; andpercussionist Airto Moreira (from Brazil).

In the 1960s, rock and roll music threatened to stealthe youth audience for jazz. While some jazz artists liketenor saxophonist Dextor Gordon went into exile over-seas, others chose to stay and incorporate new elementsinto their jazz sound. Miles Davis, already an innovator,blazed another new path in jazz with the style that cameto be called fusion. Fusion featured electronic guitar andbass, organ, and percussion beyond the usual drum set.Once again, Davis recorded a seminal album of the new

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Teaching Bebop, 1947 (above)Noted jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie shows students a phrase ofmusic in the bebop style. Gillespie’s development of inverting chordchanges allowed for new melodies and harmonies.

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International Jazz Festival in Paris, 1949 (above)Charlie Parker, left, and Russell Big Chief Moore perform on the open-ing day for the festival. Similar to Gillespie, Parker developed newphrasing and solos based on the chords underlying the melody.

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style: his 1969 recording “Bitches Brew.” Around thesame time, other more rock-oriented groups took theopposite direction, that is, they were adding elements ofjazz—such as brass and woodwind instruments and soloimprovisations—to rock music. The two rock bands thatachieved the greatest commercial success by adding thesejazz elements were Chicago and Blood, Sweat, and Tears.

Mainstream jazz in the United States was also influ-enced by the rhythms of Latin America, in particular, bymusicians from Brazil and Cuba. Dizzy Gillespie, saxo-phonist Stan Getz, and flutist Herbie Mann were amongthose American jazz musicians who incorporated LatinAmerican rhythms and chord progressions into theirrepertoire and added conga drums and other percussioninstruments to their groups. The song-writing duo ofAntonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes plus gui-tarist and singer João Gilberto are the Brazilian musiciansmost often credited with bringing the sensuous sounds ofbossa nova to the world of jazz. The Cuban ensembleIrakere led by Chucho Valdez made a huge impression onjazz musicians worldwide in the 1970s and 1980s with itstechnical virtuosity on the traditional instruments of jazz(keyboards, brass, woodwind) and its complex Afro-Cuban polyrhythms. After tasting international success inIrakere, saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera and trumpet play-er Arturo Sandoval left the band and have achieved criti-cal and commercial artistic success in their solo careers.

Giving new meaning to an older influence, neo-clas-sic jazz has brought listeners from around the worldback to a more traditional sound. Rather than simplyrecreate the music of earlier jazz styles, trumpeter Wyn-ton Marsalis and his brother saxophonist BranfordMarsalis have extended it through new and innovativeapproaches to harmony, melody, and rhythm. Trained asa classical musician, Wynton became the first person towin Grammy Awards in both jazz and classical categories

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Charlie Mingus, 1974 (above)Charlie Mingus, bassist and composer, was one of the first musi-cians to explore the use of the bass as a melodic instead of a rhyth-mic instrument.

Miles Davis, 1987 (above)In the late 1950s, Davis developed cool jazz, which was inspired byclassical music. As music changed in the 1960s so did Davis. Heagain led the way in developing yet another style of jazz: fusion.

Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, 2002 (below)Two jazz legends perform at an awards ceremony of the InternationalCommittee of Artists for Peace in Santa Monica, CA.

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in the same year (1982). In 1997, he was awarded aPulitzer Prize for jazz music. In his role as director of thejazz orchestra at the renowned Lincoln Center in NewYork, Wynton has helped take jazz to a new generationof listeners through educational programs for youth thatemphasize the history of the music.

ConclusionSince its inception in New Orleans over a century

ago, jazz has become a global musical phenomenon withdevoted fans and talented musicians all over the world.This musical diversity has produced rich blends of melo-dies and harmonies. As jazz has spread in popularity, ithas influenced other forms of music. It has changed theway musicians view their art—from a confining, restrict-ed reenactment of a composer’s work, to an expressive,unique translation by the individual musician.

Jazz—the quintessential American music—is a musicof freedom and innovation, not just for the artist but forthe listener as well. As Wynton Marsalis noted, “It is animprovisational art that makes itself up as it goes along,just like the country that gave it birth.”

R e f e r e n c e s

Feather, L. 1980. The passion for jazz. New York: HorizonPress.

Gioia, T. 1997. The history of jazz. New York: Oxford Uni-versity Press.

Jazz. Produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick and direct-ed by Ken Burns. 19 hrs. Florentine Films and WETA,in Association with BBC. Warner Home Video, 2000.Videocassette.

Porter, L. 2002. Jazz. Encarta Encyclopedia. Microsoft Cor-poration.

Simpson, J. 1999. The Cotton Club. Duke Ellington Biogra-phy. JSS Music L.L.C. Retrieved December 17, 2002from http://www.jssmusic.com/tour_ellington_bio.html

C.L. SMOAK is a journalist and novelist currently liv-ing in Tunisia. He is also an accomplished drummerwho likes rock, electric blues and, of course, jazz.

W e b S i t e s o f I n t e r e s tPublic Broadcasting Servicehttp://www.pbs.org/jazz/

This Web site provides a remarkable amount of material forteaching about jazz, including biographies of musicians, historyof the music, lesson plans, and audio files.

The Styles of Jazzhttp://www.acns.nwu.edu/jazz/styles/

This chart of jazz styles is derived from Joachim Berendt’s TheJazz Book. It is an excellent time line and visual aid when trac-ing blues, jazz, and European classical music.

Jazz Rootshttp://www.jass.com/

This Web site has history, as well as photos, quizzes, fun facts,and jazz e-cards.

All About Jazzhttp://www.allaboutjazz.com/

This Web site has forums, reviews, interviews, profiles, and adetailed timeline of jazz history. You can also click on jazz radioor watch a film clip.

Red, Hot & Coolhttp://members.aol.com/Jlackritz/jazz/#History

This site is mostly a reference page, with over 200 links andresources listed. It leads to numerous other sites about jazz.

The Atlantic Monthlyhttp://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/jazz/articles.htm

This site contains 32 articles about jazz published in the maga-zine beginning in 1922 and continuing to the present.

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Arturo Sandoval, 2001 (top)Sandoval has received Emmy and Grammy awards for his music.

Wynton Marsalis on the A Train, 1999 (bottom)In honor of Ellington’s 100th birthday, Marsalis accompaniesmusicians from the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra to play Elling-ton’s famous song, “Take the A Train,” on an actual “A” subwaytrain in New York City.

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