Home » History of Jazz Timeline

History of Jazz Timeline

1873


1877


1877

July 1877 - Thomas Edison patents tinfoil cylinders and the 'phonograph' in both the US (patent #200-521) and England (patent #2909/1877) - for business uses 'the talking machine'

1877

July 1877 - Thomas Edison patents tinfoil cylinders and the 'phonograph' in both the US (patent #200-521) and England (patent #2909/1877) - for business uses 'the talking machine'

1878


1883


1885


1886


1886


1887

1887 - Emile Berliner develops a successful method of modulating the sound carrying groove laterally in the surface of the disc, "The Gramophone." Though many speeds and sizes will be experimented with, 78 RPM 10 inch record is considered the best for sound reproduction. He, unlike Edison, sees the value of sound reproduction lies in the creation of a music industry and mass production.

1888


1889


1890


1890


1892


1892


1893


1894


1894


1895


1895

Ragtime composer and pianist Scott Joplin is born in Texarkana, TX on November 24, 1868.

1895

Hot cornet player Buddy Bolden is born in uptown New Orleans, La. in 1868. Buddy is considered by many to be the first person to play the Blues form of New Orleans Jazz.

1895

The handcranked phonograph is demonstrated by Thomas Edison on November 29, 1877. The phonograph will eventually allow the spread of popular music.

1895

Joe Cornetist Joe "King" Oliver is born on a plantation near Abend, LA on May 11, 1885.

1895

Pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton (Ferdinand La Menthe) is born in Gulfport, LA. on September 20, 1885. Jelly Roll learns harmonica at age 5 and is proficient on guitar at age 7.

1895

Blues singer Ma Rainey (Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett) is born on April 26, 1886 in Columbus, Ga.

1895

Thomas Edison invents the first motor-driven phonograph. Phonographs are improving but are still a long way away from being commercial.

1895

Stride piano player Willie "The Lion" Smith is born in 1893.

1895

Stride piano great James P. Johnson is born on February 1, 1891 in New Brunswick, N.J.

1895

Blues singer Mamie Smith (believed to be the first black to make a record) is born on September 16, 1890 in Cincinnati, OH.

1895

First use of the word Ragtime appears in the song title "Ma Ragtime Baby" by Fred Stone in 1893.

1895

Blues singer Bessie Smith is born on April 15, 1894 in Chattanooga, TN.

1895

Band leader Benny Moten is born on November, 13, 1894 in Kansas City, MO.

1895

Boogie Woogie piano player Jimmy Yancey is born in 1894.

1895

Stride piano player Luckyeth "Lucky" Roberts is born on August 7, 1895 in Philadelphia, PA.

1895


1895


1895


1895

Clarinetist Jimmie Noone born in New Orleans, LA.

1895


1896

In the Supreme Court, Plessy vs. Ferguson establishes the "separate but equal" concept that will allow segregation and "Jim Crow" to flourish.

1896

Pioneer Boogie piano player Lloyd Glenn born in Texas in 1896.

1896


1896


1897


1897

Buddy Bolden Buddy Bolden organizes the first band to play the instrumental Blues (the fore-runner of Jazz). The band's repertoire consists of Polkas, Quadrilles, Ragtime and Blues.

1897

Storyville (the famed red light district of New Orleans) opens. It was named after New Orleans alderman Sidney Story.

1897

The Ragtime craze is at full tilt.

1897

Soprano saxophone and clarinet virtuoso Sidney Bechet born in New Orleans on May 14.

1897

Stride piano great Willie "The Lion" Smith born in Goshen, NY on November 23.

1897


1897


1897


1897


1898

Scat singer Leo Watson born in Kansas City, MO on February 27.

1898


1898


1898


1899

Piano player, band leader and Jazz composer Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington is born on April 29 in Washington, D.C. to a moderately well-to-do butler/navy blueprint man.

1899

Thomas E. "Georgia Tom" Dorsey is born in Georgia.

1899

A publisher buys the rights to several Scott Joplin rags, but turns down "Maple Leaf Rag". Shortly thereafter, (farmer, ice cream salesman, and piano peddler) John Stark hears the song, likes it, and publishes it for Joplin. "Maple Leaf Rag" sells over 100,000 copies.

1899


1899


1899


1899


1899


1900


1900

July 4, 1900 is the day that Louis Armstrong always claims as his birthday. Armstrong's nickname will be Satchmo. He will receive this nickname in England in the early 1930's when the British hear his original nickname, Satchelmouth, incorrectly. Armstrong will be recognized as the first genius of Jazz because the entire concept of swinging will be attributed to him.

1900

Blues become a standard feature of honky tonks and dancehalls. Horn players imitate the human voice with mutes and growls.

1900

New Orleans players are playing a mix of Blues, Ragtime, brass band music, marches, Pop songs and dances. The Jazz stew is brewing. Some musicians are beginning to improvise the Pop songs.

1900

The end of the Spanish-American war has brought a surplus of used military band instruments into the port of New Orleans.

1900

Jelly Roll Morton is a youth working the "high class sporting houses" or more bluntly, brothels, as a Ragtime piano player. His wages come from tips from wealthy patrons.

1900

Migrations from the south into Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, etc. are beginning.

1900

Trombonist James Henry "Jimmy" Harrison is born in Louisville, KY on October 17. Harrison will invent an important style of Swing trombone.

1900

Trumpeter Tommy Ladnier is born in Mandeville, LA on May 28. Ladnier will become one of the important early Jazz trumpeters.

1900


1900


1900


1900


1901

Louis Armstrong Daniel Louis Armstrong is born on August 4 in New Orleans.

1901

New Orleans clarinet player Edmund Hall is born on May 15. Hall was one of the few New Orleans players to become a Dixieland player in the 1940's and beyond.

1901

Multi-instrumentalist Frank Trumbauer is born in Carbondale, Illinois. Trumbauer is a descendent of Charles Dickens. Trumbauer's primary instrument will be the saxophone.

1901


1901


1902


1902

Jelly Roll Morton is now seventeen years old. He is beginning to attract attention in the New Orleans area as a brothel piano player. At this point he is playing primarily Ragtime and a little Blues. He is one of the first to play this mix that is a forerunner of Jazz. Jelly Roll will later claim to have invented Jazz in this year by combining Ragtime, Quadrilles and Blues.

1902


1902

The phonograph has been drastically improved. Victor and Columbia emerge as leaders in the phonograph field (at that time phonograph companies made records and vice versa). People have finally started to buy phonographs and records (cylinders) for home use. This will enable the rapid spread of popular music.

1902

W.C. Handy has started a saxophone quartet. The saxophone was a novelty in 1902.

1902

Trumpeter Joe Smith is born in Ripley, Ohio on June 28. Joe will become Bessie Smith's favorite accompanist.

1902

Clarinetist Buster Bailey is born in Memphis. Buster will be raised on the music of W.C. Handy.

1902


1902


1903


1903

W.C. Handy hears the Rural Blues played on a slide guitar (knife blade used as a slide) by an itinerant Blues guitarist in a railroad station in Tutwiler, Mississippi. It sparks a career for him and it is an important event in Amercan popular music history.

1903

Sidney Bechet borrows his brother's clarinet. The rest is history.

1903

Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke is born in Davenport, Iowa on March 10. Bix's family is a proper Victorian type family and they do not approve of popular music as a career.

1903

Jimmy Rushing (Mr. Five-by Five) is born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on August 26. Jimmy will be the primary male singer for the Count Basie band.

1903


1903

Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke born in Davenport, IA.

1903

Valve trombonist/arranger Brad Gowans born in Billerica, MA.

1903


1903


1903


1904


1904


1904

Trombonist Glenn Miller is born in Clarinda, Iowa. Miller was one of several star sideman in the 1920's trend-setting Ben Pollack Orchestra. He roomed with fellow band-mate Benny Goodman. Young trumpeter Harry James drove the bus.

1904

Stride piano player and composer Thomas "Fats" Waller is born on May 21 in Harlem as one of twelve children born to Edward Murtin Waller.

1904

Tenor saxophone giant Coleman Hawkins is born in St. Joseph, Missouri on November 21.

1904

Eddie Lang is born in Philadelphia, PA as Salvatore Massaro. Lang will become the first jazz guitarist and will thus influence all to come.

1904

Alto saxophone and clarinet player Henry "Buster" Smith is born on August 26 in Ellis County, Texas. Buster became a favorite of Charlie Parker and is credited with teaching Charlie quite a bit.

1904

Boogie Woogie piano pioneer Clarence "Pinetop" Smith is born.

1904

Boogie Woogie piano pioneer Pete Johnson is born in Kansas City, MO.

1904

Bass saxophonist Adrian Rollini is born in New York City on June 28.

1904


1904


1904


1904


1904


1904


1904


1904


1904


1904


1905


1905


1905

Trombonist Tommy Dorsey born, Shenandoah, PA. Dorsey recorded with Bix Beiderbeck in the 1920's and was in demand as a studio musician. He became the leader of the "General Motors" of the big band era, when his band featured arrangments by Sy Oliver, singers Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford and the Pied Pipers, drummer Buddy Rich and trumpeter Ziggy Elman.

1905

Sidney Bechet Sidney Bechet becomes virtuoso clarinetist George Baquet's protege and he sits in with trumpeter Freddie Keppard's band as a 8 year old child.

1905

Earl "Fatha" Hines, one of the most important Jazz piano players of all times, is born in Duquesne, PA on December 28.

1905

Twelve string guitarist and Rural Blues man Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter meets Blues man Blind Lemon Jefferson in a Dallas saloon. A partnership is formed.

1905

Boogie piano player Meade Lux Lewis is born in Louisville, KY.

1905


1905


1905


1905


1905


1905


1906


1906


1906

Duke Ellington begins studying piano at age seven. Duke's piano teacher is somewhat appropriately named Mrs. Clinkscales.

1906

Alto saxophone great and Ellington band member Johnny Hodges is born in Cambridge, Massachesetts on July 25.

1906

Clarinetist and Ellington band member Barney Bigard is born in New Orleans, Lousiania on March 3. Bigard and Sidney Bechet will eventually introduce the Duke to true Jazz.

1906

Saxophonist Bud Freeman is born on April 13.

1906

Cornetist and key Dixieland figure Wild Bill Davison is born in Defiance, Ohio on January 5.

1906

Trumpeter Frankie Newton born in Emory, VA.

1906


1906


1906


1906


1906


1906


1906


1906


1907


1907


1907


1907


1907

New Orleans Blues trumpet pioneer Buddy Bolden runs amok and is committed to the state hospital at Angola on June 5. Buddy will spend the rest of his life there and will, sadly, never be recorded.

1907

Trumpet player Rex Stewart of the Ellington orchestra is born in Philadelphia, Pa on February 22.

1907

Trombone player Benny Morton of the Basie band is born in New York City on January 31.

1907

Alto sax man Benny Carter is born in New York City on August 8.

1907

Popular band leader Cab Calloway is born on December 24 in Rochester, N.Y.

1907

Piano player Joe Turner (not Big Joe) is born in Baltimore, Md. on November 3.

1907

Boogie Woogie piano player Albert Ammons is born in Chicago, Ill.

1907


1907


1907


1907


1907


1907


1908


1908


1908

Vibraphone pioneer Lionel Hampton born in Birmingham, Al. Raised in Kenosha, Wisconsin. During a stint with Les Hite's band on Central Avenue in Los Angeles, he joined the Benny Goodman Quartet, which, along with pianist Teddy Wilson and drummer Gene Krupa, became the first integrated, commercially accepted jazz group. He has fronted his own Big Bands since Sept. 1940. Biggest hits: "Flying Home" and "Midnight Sun". Many early Bop stars began in his band.

1908


1908

Trumpeter Freddie Keppard and his Creoles were playing more powerful Jazz in New Orleans than the Original Dixieland Jazz Band will play in 1917. Keppard was not recorded until many years later because he was afraid of having his style stolen.

1908

Trumpeter Cootie Williams of the Ellington band is born in Mobil, Alabama on July 24.

1908

Dixieland trumpeter Max Kaminsky is born in Brockton, Mass. on September 7.

1908

Boogie Woogie piano player Sammy Price is born in Texas.

1908

Columbia produces the first two-sided disc.

1908


1908


1908


1908


1908


1909


1909


1909


1909

Tenor saxophone innovator Coleman Hawkins begins playing the piano at age five.

1909

Tenor saxophone innovator Lester Young is born in Woodville, Mississippi on August 27. Lester's family moved to New Orleans and Lester toured the midwest as a child with his father Billy's barnstorming band.

1909

Tenor saxophone great Ben Webster is born in Kansas City, MO on February 27. At some future date, Ben will save his rival Lester Young from drowning.

1909

Benny Goodman is born in the Maxwell street ghetto in Chicago to Russian immigrant parents on May 30.

1909

Drummer Gene Krupa is born in Chicago. He is the first to use and record with a full drumset in the 1920's with Eddie Condon. He will become a wild, flashy Swing Era icon who leads his own popular big band after skyrocketing to fame with Benny Goodman. He will be the drummer on "Sing, Sing, Sing" at Carnegie Hall in 1938. He will feature Roy Eldridge, Anita O'Day and Gerry Mulligan in his big band in 1940's. He will lead small groups and tour with JATP through 1950's. He will co-own a drum school in NYC with Cozy Cole.

1909

Blues publishing pioneer W.C. Handy brings saxophones into his dance band.

1909

Trombone player Dickie Wells of the Basie band is born in Tennessee on June 10.

1909

Progressive Swing band leader Claude Thornhill is born in Terra Haute, IN on August 10.

1909

Trumpeter Roland Bernard "Bunny" Berigan is born in Fox Lake, Wisconsin.

1909


1909


1909


1909


1909

Trumpeter Jonah Jones born in Louisville, KY.

1909


1909


1910


1910


1910


1910


1910


1910


1910

Ragtime is still popular, but it is dying.

1910

The first non-American Ragtime sheet music appears in London, England. English musician Vic Filmer begins playing Rags. American black music begins to gain appeal in Europe.

1910

Dance craze starts. Foxtrot, etc.

1910

Leadbelly hears New Orleans Jazz and is not intrigued or impressed.

1910

Saxophonist Leon "Chu" Berry is born in Wheeling, W. Va. on September 13.

1910

Jean Baptiste "Django" Reinhardt is born in Liberchies, Belgium on January 23 to a gypsy family. Django will become the first European to have a major influence on American Jazz players.

1910

Clarinetist and bandleader Artie Shaw (Arthur Jacob Arshawsky) is born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He will grow up in New Haven, Connecticut.

1910

Jazz and Blues proponent John Henry Hammond is born in New York City.

1910


1910


1910


1911


1911


1911


1911


1911

Blues shouter Big Joe Turner is born in Kansas City, Mo. on May 18.

1911


1911

Trumpeter Roy Eldridge is born in Pittsburgh, Pa. on January 30. Eldridge was an excellent player and is viewed, maybe unfairly, as the link between Armstrong and the Boppers. Roy will eventually get the nickname Little Jazz because of his diminutive size.

1911

Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson is born in New Orleans on October 26.

1911


1912


1912


1912


1912

W.C. Handy writes Memphis Blues. It becomes a big hit and begins the publishing of the Blues.

1912

Classic Blues singer Bessie Smith begins work as a dancer in a vaudeville show.

1912

Trumpeter Freddie Keppard's band leaves New Orleans for parts unknown.

1912

Louis Armstrong forms a vocal quartet with some of his boyhood friends in New Orleans.

1912

Pianist Teddy Wilson is born in Austin, Texas on November 24.

1912

Band leader Stan Kenton is born in Wichita, Kansas on February 19.

1912

Arranger Gil Evans is born in Toronto, Canada on May 13.

1912


1912


1913


1913


1913


1913


1913

Thirteen year old Louis Armstrong is sent to a waif's home after he fires a pistol in celebration. This is where he learns to play cornet. The rest is history.

1913

Louis Armstrong is proud when he leads the waif's home band through his neighborhood.

1913

Fourteen year old Duke Ellington visits pool halls and burlesque theatres. He is introduced to the entertainment world that he will soon be a part of.

1913

According to stride pianist James P. Johnson, Luckyeth Roberts is the best stride piano player in New York City at this time.

1913


1913

The stride pianists are still playing Ragtime as the New Orleans players did a generation before. So we will see an interesting evolution in their playing over the next few years that parallels the beginning of Jazz in New Orleans.

1913

Boogie Woogie piano player Jimmy Yancey quits vaudeville to work as a Chicago White Sox groundskeeper.

1913

On November 21, Coleman Hawkins' parents give him a C-Melody saxophone for his ninth birthday.

1913

British musician Vic Filmer brings Ragtime to Paris.

1913

Art Tatum is three years old and is already picking out hymns on the piano in Toledo.

1913

Future bandleader Woody Herman is born in Milwaukee, WI. on May 16.

1913


1913


1913


1913


1913


1913


1914


1914


1914


1914

W.C. Handy writes St Louis Blues. This will be his biggest hit. The Blues is going full tilt.

1914

There is a major impetus around this time for the Europeanization of the Blues. Up till now the Blues form varied between 13.5 and 15 bars to suit the lyrics or the mood of the performer. Eventually a 12 bar form based on the 1-4-5 chord progression (what we know as the Blues today) will become standard. This occurred for three reasons: 1) appealled to whites, 2) solved problems understanding, playing and notating the Blues 3) established harmonies and a form for band members to work with.

1914

Sidney Bechet is now playing in the Eagle Band with Jack Carey and Buddy Petit.

1914

Duke Ellington hears piano player Harvey Brooks in Philadelphia and is inspired to learn Ragtime.

1914

The Freddie Keppard band turns up in Los Angeles.

1914

Louis Armstrong is released from the waif's home where he learned his life's trade.

1914

Innovative drummer Kenny Clarke is born in Pittsburgh, Pa. on January 9. Clarke will become the first Bop drummer.

1914

Bass player Leroy "Slam" Stewart is born in Englewood, N.J. on September 21.

1914


1914


1914


1914


1914

Ralph Ellison is born in Oklahoma City on March 1. He will achieve critical acclaim with his novel, Invisible Man, in 1952. Ellison, who attended Tusegee Institute with the intention of pursuing a career in music, will write influential essays on jazz music and on African American folk culture.

1914

Tin Pan Alley publishers establish the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)

1914


1915


1915


1915


1915


1915


1915


1915


1915

Arranger and pianist Billy Strayhorn of the Ellington band is born in Dayton, Ohio on November 29. Billy will be raised in North Carolina and will be schooled in Pittsburgh, Pa.

1915

Jazz singer Billie "Lady Day" Holiday is born in Baltimore, MD on July 7.

1915

Ragtime composer Scott Joplin produces Treemonisha (a Ragtime opera which he previously wrote) in Harlem. Public reaction is indifferent and it breaks Joplin.

1915

Pop/Jazz singing idol Frank Sinatra is born in Hoboken, N.J. on December 12.

1915

RCA offers to record Freddie Keppard. He turns them down and misses the chance to be the first Jazz performer to record because he is afraid that his style will be copied.

1915

Trumpeter Freddie Keppard's band turns up in Coney Island.

1915

Dixieland trumpeter Bobby Hackett is born in Providence, Rhode Island on January 31.

1915

At this point, Jean Goldkette dislikes pre-Jazz music so much that he quits Lamb's Cafe in Chicago rather than share the stage with Tom Brown's Band from Dixieland.

1915


1915


1915


1915


1915


1915


1916


1916


1916


1916


1916


1916


1916


1916


1916


1916


1916


1916

Louis Armstrong begins playing the bars in Storyville for $1.25 a night.

1916

Bechet is in Joseph "King" Oliver's Olympia Band, but will soon leave for Chicago. He will work with Tony Jackson and then Freddie Keppard there.

1916

Coleman Hawkins has learned the saxophone and is already playing dances at the age of twelve.

1916

Guitarist, pianist and vibrophonist Bulee "Slim" Gaillard is born in Detroit, Michigan on Jan 4. Slim became popular as half of the famed duo Slim and Slam with Slam Stewart on bass.

1916

Trumpeter Harry James born, Albany, GA. 3/15. Played with Ben Pollack mid-30's. Rose to fame with Benny Goodman's band in late 30's. Started own band 1939. Discovered and developed young vocalist Frank Sinatra. Led big bands off and on until his death on 7/5/83. Married to actress Betty Grable. Biggest Hits: "You Made Me Love You", "Two O'Clock Jump","Ciribiribin". Louis Armstrong believed James was one of the best trumpeters who ever blew.

1916


1916


1916


1916


1916


1917


1917


1917


1917


1917


1917


1917


1917


1917


1917


1917

Scott Joplin dies from syphilis related complications in a mental institution in New York City.

1917

The history of recorded Jazz begins on February 26 when the white band the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (originally, Original Dixieland Jass Band ) records Livery Stable Blues at Victor Studios in New York City. The ODJB was from New Orleans and consisted of Nick LaRocca on cornet, Larry Shields on clarinet, Eddie "Daddy" Edwards on trombone, Henry Ragas on piano and Tony Sbarbaro on drums. Many black bands of the time were probably producing far more authentic and better music. Never the less, the Jazz Age begins. Trumpeter Freddie Keppard had refused the chance to make the first Jazz record because he feared that his style would be copied.

1917

New Orleans Jazz is a melting pot for the Blues, Ragtime, Marching Band music, etc. It can be thought of as an impressionistic view of these forms, just as Impressionistic painting gives a novel view of what we normally see.

1917

Sidney Bechet leaves New Orleans for good and will shortly make his way to New York and Europe.

1917

Duke Ellington leaves high school short of graduation and is earning a reputation as a piano player around Washington, D.C.

1917

Fifteen year old Bix Beiderbecke hears the ODJB records and becomes enamored.

1917

Thelonious Monk is born on October 10 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. His family will move to New York City when he is still an infant.

1917

Future Bop trumpet innovator John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie is born on October 21 in Cheraw, South Carolina.

1917

Stride pianist James P. Johnson makes the piano roll After Tonight. From this it is obvious that J.P. is still playing Ragtime at this time.

1917

Pianist and singer Nat "King" Cole is born in Montgomery, Alabama on March 17. Nat will become an innovator by forming the first piano-guitar-bass trio.

1917

Drummer Buddy Rich born in Brooklyn, N.Y. on September 30. One of the highest paid child stars of the 1920's, he was known as "Traps The Drum Wonder", and began playing the vaudeville circuits with his parent's act. During the Swing Era, he was featured in the bands of Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, and Harry James. He led his own first big band in the late 1940's, and played on and off with JATP and again with Harry James until 1966. It was then that he formed his most famous big band, which he led until his death at age 69 on April 2, 1987.

1917

Future Bob Crosby Bearcat trumpeter Billy Butterfield is born in Middleton, Ohio on Jan 14.

1917

Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson is born in Houston, Texas on December 18. Even at this age, the "Cleanhead" nickname probably applies.

1917

Future Bop composer and arranger Tadd Dameron is born.

1917

When he is seven years old, Artie Shaw's family moves to New Haven, Connecticut. Here, Artie is tormented mercilessly for being Jewish.

1917

John Lee Hooker is born to a Baptist minister and sharecropper in Clarksdale, Miss. He will be one of 11 children. His father will discourage his musical career.

1917


1917


1917


1917

Original Dixieland Jazz Band Livery Stable Blues Nick LaRocca After Freddie Keppard declines to be recorded, Jazz gains first national exposure with Victor's release of the Original Dixieland Band's "Livery Stable Blues. This release outsells by many times over any 78s by the days recording stars like Enrico Caruso, John Phillip Sousa or the US Marine Military Band. Sales estimates are around 500K in the first year. The group consisted of cornetist Nick LaRocca, clarinetist Larry Shields, trombonist Eddie Edwards, pianist Harry Ragas, and drummer Tony Sbarbaro.

1917


1918


1918


1918


1918


1918


1918


1918


1918


1918


1918


1918


1918

Joe "King" Oliver leaves Kid Ory's band to front his own band in Chicago.

1918

Clarinetist Jimmy Noone leaves New Orleans for Chicago.

1918

Louis Armstrong is hired by Kid Ory to replace Joe "King" Oliver on cornet.

1918

Armstrong is also hired by Fate Marable to work the showboats.

1918

Armstrong learns to read music while working for Fate Marable.

1918

Louis Armstrong marries New Orleans prostitute Daisy Parker.

1918

Although not a prolific songwriter, Louis Armstrong writes the well known song "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate."

1918

Duke Ellington marries Edna Thompson. The Duke is currently doing very well supplying bands for dances and parties. Duke's sidemen at this point are Toby Hardwicke on bass and saxes, Arthur Whetsol on trumpet, Sonny Greer on drums and Elmer Snowden on banjo.

1918

Bix Beiderbecke has just begun to play the cornet.

1918

Earl "Fatha" Hines is hired by Lois Deppe (a man) in Pittsburgh to play piano. This is Earl's first job.

1918

Coleman Hawkins attends school in Chicago and gets to hear early Jazz players such as Jimmy Noone there.

1918

Ella Fitzgerald is born in Newport News, Virginia on April 25.

1918

The so-called "Lost Generation" of white American youths is ripe for a new kind of music.

1918

On January 1, James Reese Europe arrives in France.

1918

On March 18, James Reese Europe's 369th Infantry Regiment (The Hellfighters) Band begins a six week tour of twenty-five French cities. Bill "Bojangles" Robinson is the drum major.

1918

On April 20, James Reese Europe accompanies a french combat unit into battle and becomes the first black to face combat during WWI.

1918

Will Marion Cook's Southern Syncopated Orchestra is formed. Will Cook will shortly become a great influence on Duke Ellington's composing skills.

1918

Pianist Hank Jones is born in Detroit.

1918

Vocalese singer Eddie Jefferson is born in Pittsburgh, PA on August 3.

1918


1918


1918


1919


1919


1919


1919


1919


1919


1919


1919


1919

After years of lynching and other mistreatment of blacks by whites, the NAACP promotes the slogan "The new Negro has no fear". This type of thinking will further the cause of Jazz.

1919

In this year, 70 blacks are killed by KKK mobs. More than 10 of these are soldiers still in uniform.

1919

Sidney Bechet moves to New York City and joins Will Marion Cook's Southern Syncopated Orchestra. Bechet travels to Europe with the orchestra where he will gain accolades from Classical musicians as a distinguished musician. It is at this time that Bechet discovers the soprano saxophone.

1919

Accolades (mentioned above) given to Sidney Bechet by Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet appear in Revue Romande. This article is the first serious article on Jazz to appear anywhere.

1919

In February, James Reese Europe and his Hellfighters return home. They go on a tour of the U.S. in the Spring.

1919

On May 9, in Boston, James Reese Europe is confronted in his dressing room by Herbert Wright (one of his men). They have words because Wright thinks that Europe is treating him unfairly. Wright plunges a penknife into Europes neck. Europe bleeds to death.

1919

It is probable that young Bix Beiderbecke heard Louis Armstrong play on the riverboats that stopped in Davenport, Iowa during this year.

1919

Innovative guitarist Charlie Christian is born in Dallas, Texas. His father is a blind guitarist. Christian will be influenced by Lonnie Johnson, Eddie Lang and Django Reinhardt.

1919

Hard Bop drummer Art Blakey is born in Pittsburgh, Pa on October 11. Art will become one of the major Hard Bop leaders along with Horace Silver in the late 1950's.

1919

Innovative pianist Lenny Tristano is born in Chicago on March 19 during a major flu epidemic. His eyes are affected and he will eventually be completely blind.

1919

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band visits England and triggers an interest in the new music.

1919

Free Jazz pianist Herbie Nichols is born New York City on January 3.

1919

The Southern Syncopated Orchestra is in Europe with Sidney Bechet. On November 15, conductor Ernest Ansermet hears Bechet in London and believes that he is a genius.

1919

The Scrap Iron Jazz Band (from the Hellfighters) makes a series of records in Paris.

1919

Pianist George Shearing is born in London on August 13.

1919

Singer Anita O'Day is born in Chicago on December 18.

1919

Bandleader Paul Whiteman leaves San Francisco for Atlantic City.

1919

Bassist Al McKibbon born in Chicago, IL.

1920


1920


1920


1920


1920


1920


1920


1920


1920


1920


1920


1920


1920


1920

Prohibition of alcohol begins. In many respects, prohibition has the opposite of its intended effect. For example, before prohibition, few, if any women drank in bars. However, women were very likely to drink in speakeasys. Prohibition indirectly furthers the cause of Jazz.

1920

Armstrong drops in on a St. Louis dance and the band he is with blows away the most popular band in town with New Orleans Jazz.

1920

Alto saxophonist Charlie Parker (a.k.a. Bird or Yardbird) is born on August 29 in Kansas City, Kansas.

1920

Ellington has developed into a decent and fairly successful band leader earning about $10,000 a year to support wife Edna and one year old Mercer.

1920

The first recorded Blues appears when Mamie Smith records Crazy Blues. This kicks off the Classic Blues craze of the 1920's.

1920

Over forty prominent New Orleans Jazzmen have moved to Chicago.

1920

Somebody discovers that the New York brownstone basement (being narrow and running from mainstreet to back alley) is well suited to use as an speakeasy. In time, the cellars of New York City will become riddled with speakeasys providing numerous opportunities for Jazz musicians.

1920

The cabaret business begins in New York. This will eventually be the cause of the shift of Jazz from Chicago to New York.

1920

This year marks the beginning of an age of great interest in black arts and music (Jazz). The young future Bop players are being born. They will be raised in an era which will allow them to want to rebel. Thus, Bop will begin in about twenty years.

1920

Future MJQ pianist John Lewis is born in LaGrange, Ilinois on May 3. Lewis will grow up in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

1920

The New Orleans Rhythm Kings are playing in Chicago at Friar's Inn.

1920

Adrian Rollini begins playing bass saxophone with the California Ramblers (a popular New York City dance band). Rollini was one of the top Jazz saxophonist's in the 1920's. He will later play with Bix Beiderbecke.

1920

Babs Gonzalez Scat singer and composer Babs Gonzalez is born Newark, N.J. on July 12.

1920

Paul Whiteman and his Band record the classic Whispering in New York City. Whiteman's band does not play true Jazz but the so-called symphonic Jazz.

1920


1920

After Sophie Tucker fails to attend a recording session, Okeh records Mamie Smith performing "Crazy Blues." This release would be the first "race" or blues recording and would sell over 250,000 copies, averaging 7500 sales a week in the early stages of its release.

1921


1921


1921


1921


1921


1921


1921


1921


1921


1921


1921

Future Ellington trumpeter Bubber Miley sees King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band at the Dreamland Cafe in Chicago and becomes interested in Jazz. Bubber will learn to play blue notes and growls in imitation of Oliver. These growls and slurs will later become a trademark of Ellington which are passed down to Cootie Williams and other future trumpeters.

1921

Bix Beiderbecke begins attending the Lake Forest Academy near Chicago. He will get the opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge of New Orleans and Chicago Jazz.

1921

Frankie Trumbauer works briefly for Isham Jones at the College Inn in Chicago. He says that he is happy when the black waiters smile when he plays because that tells him that he is doing it right.

1921

Sidney Bechet returns from his trip to Europe. Musicians such as Duke Ellington become more impressed with Bechet's abilities. Sidney will eventually play for Duke for a short while.

1921

Fletcher Henderson is on the road with Ethel Waters. He hears Armstrong for the first time and immediately offers him a job. Armstrong turns him down.

1921

James P. Johnson's "Worried and Lonesome Blues" and "Carolina Shout" begin to approach Jazz. At any rate, Johnson becomes the pioneer of stride piano with these recordings.

1921

Saxophone player Coleman Hawkins joins Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds.

1921

Young Lenny Tristano (age 2) takes an interest in piano.

1921

Saxophonist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis born.

1921

Pop Jazz pianist Errol Garner is born in Pittsburgh, Pa on June 15.

1921

Gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe is born in Cotton Plant, Arkansas on March 20.

1921


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922


1922

Joe "King" Oliver's Creole Jazz Band is in Chicago at the Lincoln Gardens. Oliver sends for Armstrong who is still in New Orleans.

1922

Armstrong goes to Chicago on August 8 to join King Oliver's band. Armstrong is afraid to play because Oliver sounds so good.

1922

Duke Ellington goes to New York City with Sonny Greer and banjo player Elmer Snowden. Duke meets his idol James P. Johnson as well as Fats Waller and Willie "The Lion" Smith.

1922

Bix Beiderbecke is expelled from the Lake Forest Academy.

1922

The original Austin High Gang begins to frequent the Friar's Inn in Chicago. Currently, gang members include Frank Teschemacher (clarinet), Jimmy McPartland (cornet), Richard McPartland (guitar and banjo) and Lawrence "Bud" Freeman (sax). Others such as Gene Krupa (drums) will join later.

1922

At this point, Coleman Hawkins is a well schooled musician, perhaps the best in Jazz. He is asked to join Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds. This group will take him to New York where Fletcher Henderson will eventually hire him.

1922

Alto saxophonist Benny Carter hears Frank Trumbauer on a recording by Chicago's Benson Orchestra. Carter will later claim Trumbauer as a major influence. Since Lester Young also does this, that makes two major Jazz sax players who claim to owe a lot to Trumbauer.

1922

Django Reinhardt's mother gives him a banjo, teaches him the rudiments and within weeks, he is playing cafes with his father Jean Vees.

1922

Fats Waller makes his first of hundreds of piano rolls.

1922

Innovative bassist, composer and bandleader Charles Mingus is born in Nogales, Arizona on April 22. Charles will grow up in Watts and will be the most well-rounded musician in Jazz by the Modal and Free Jazz phases.

1922

Woody Herman is currently nine years old and a child vaudeville star who sings and dances. He begins playing alto and soprano saxophones (he took up the clarinet later).

1922

Carmen McRae is born in New York, N.Y. on April 8.

1922

Vocalese singer King Pleasure is born in Oakdale, Tennessee on March 24.

1922

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band is now playing commercial music such as Fox Trots. They've sold out.

1922

Paul Whiteman controls twenty-eight bands on the east coast. In this year, he will gross over $1,000,000 (a tidy sum for producing pseudo-Jazz in the early 20's).

1922


1923

Duke Ellington returns to New York City after being persuaded by Fats Waller. His first stay had been a disaster. He works for Ada "Bricktop" Smith. His first job is at the Hollywood Club (later the Kentucky Club). He also works at Barron's in Harlem. The Duke finally becomes the official band leader. Snowden, the original band leader, leaves and is replaced by Fred Guy.

1923

Ellington makes his first recording (on a cylinder - acoustic recording still most used). It is a stride piano piece called Jig Walk.

1923

On June 30, Sidney Bechet cuts his first two sides "Wild Cat Blues" and "Kansas City Blues" with Clarence Williams' Blue Five.

1923

Tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins joins the Fletcher Henderson band. It is with this band that Coleman will develop his first reasonable tenor sax style. This style will be based on the trumpet style of Louis Armstrong.

1923

The Fletcher Henderson band opens at the Club Alabam on 44th Street just off Broadway with Coleman Hawkins on tenor sax.

1923

By now, Bix Beiderbecke is occasionally playing on the riverboats.

1923

Benny Moten Band cuts their first records. These records are marred by some obnoxious clarinet effects by Herman "Woody" Walder.

1923

Bessie Smith records "Downhearted Blues" and "Gulf Coast Blues." "Downhearted Blues" sells 780,000 copies in less than six months. Bessie is an instant star. Bessie marries Jack Gee, a Philadelphia policeman, who is primarily interested in her money.

1923

Gertrude "Ma Rainey" Pridgett is recorded for the first time this year.

1923

The Lois Deppe band with Earl Hines on piano cuts a few records. Hines winds up in Chicago as a result of the popularity gained. He plays as a single using a portable piano in a cafe. At this time, the combination Stride/Blues piano style which Hines pioneered was already well formed. Hines will become the most influential early pianist in Jazz.

1923

Future Bop trumpeter extraordinare Fats Navarro is born in Key West, Florida.

1923

Hard Bop pianist Elmo Hope is born.

1923


1923


1923


1923

Vibraphonist Milt Jackson born in Detroit, Michigan.

1923


1923


1923


1923


1923


1923


1923


1923


1923


1923


1923


1923


1923


1923


1923


1923


1923

Vibraphonist Milt Jackson born 1923 in Detroit, Michigan.

1923


1923


1923

New Orleans Rhythm Kings Gennett March 12, 1923: Gennett begins to record the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. They would release the soon to be jazz standards, "Tin Roof Blues," "Bugle Call Blues," and "Farewell Blues." Members of NORK include Paul Mares, coronet, George Brunies, trombone, Leon Rappolo, clarinet, Mel Stitzel, piano, & Ben Pollock, banjo

1923

April 6, 1923 - Gennett records and releases King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. This would be the first recordings to feature Louis Armstrong and the incredible two coronet leads. Recordings from this session include "Canal Street Blues,' "Chimes Blues," "Weather Bird Rag," "Dippermouth Blues," "Froggie More," "Just Gone" and a few others. Member of King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band include: King Oliver & Louis Armstrong on coronet, Honore Dutrey on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Lil Hardin Armstrong on piano, Bill Johnson on piano and Baby Dodds on drums.

1923

June 1923 - Jelly Roll Morton begins to record with Gennett, including a session with New Orleans Rhythm Kings ("Mr. Jelly Lord"), often considered the first inter-racial jazz recording.

1923


1923


1923

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band with Louis Armstrong on second cornet makes their first recordings. Armstrong is first recorded on March 31 on the Gennet recording of Chimes Blues. Other members of the band were Warren "Baby" Dodds on drums, Honore Dutrey on trombone, Bill Johnson on bass, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, and Lil Hardin on piano. The most notable recording was the legendary Dippermouth Blues which was written by Oliver.

1923

Jelly Roll Morton Jelly Roll Morton moves to Chicago. By now, Jelly is more interested in his music than he is in pimping and conning. Morton will record his first piano solos during this year. The list of songs includes Grandpa's Spells, Kansas City Stomps, Milenburg Joys, Wolverine Blues and The Pearls. Morton is at the frontline of Jazz with Bechet and Oliver at this point.

1923

Early occurance of the "color barrier" being broken when Jelly Roll Morton sits in with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings.

1923

In late January, Duke Ellington pays his way into the segregated section of the Howard Theatre in Washington D.C. to hear soprano saxophone master Sidney Bechet. This is Ellington's first encounter with authentic New Orleans Jazz.

1924

Louis Armstrong marries piano player and composer Lil Hardin on February 5.

1924

Armstrong, now big news, accompanies the now supreme Classic Blues singers Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith (notably "St Louis Blues") and others.

1924

Armstrong reluctantly quits the Oliver band in June at Lil's request.

1924

Armstrong attempts to get a job with Sammy Stewart but is turned down flat. Armstrong says that he "wasn't dicty enough" for Stewart.

1924

Armstrong arrives in New York City on September 30.

1924

Armstrong joins the Fletcher Henderson band in October at Lil's insistence. During Armstrong's year with Henderson, this band will become the most important early big band. This is the band that will be the model for the swing bands of the next decade.

1924

Ellington writes first revue score for Chocolate Kiddies and records the novelty song "Choo Choo" for Blue Disc label. Ellington is still not doing Jazz at this time.

1924

Sidney Bechet takes a summer job playing dances in New England with Ellington.

1924

In October, Ellington and his Washingtonians are at the Hollywood Club on 49th street and Broadway.

1924

Earl Hines forms a group in Chicago. His apartment is next to Armstrong's.

1924

Bix Beiderbecke (cornet), Min Lelbrook (tuba), Jimmy Hartwell (clarinet), George Johnson (tenor sax), Bob Gilette (banjo), Vic Moore (drums), Dick Voynow(piano) and Al Gandee (trombone) form the Wolverines (named after Jelly Roll Morton's song "Wolverine Blues").

1924

On February 18, Bix Beiderbecke and the Wolverines record at the Gennett studios in Richmond, Indiana. Their first record is "Fidgety Feet". Bix is still banging down heavily on the beat.

1924

Jean Goldkette lures Bix Beiderbecke from the Wolverines only to fire him a few weeks later when he finds that he can't read music.

1924


1924

In October, Bix Beiderbecke and the Wolverines (now called the Personality Kids) are at the Cinderella Ballroom on 41st street and Broadway.

1924

Hoagy Carmichael first hears Bix Beiderbecke with the Wolverines and is quite impressed. Says years later, "I could feel my hands trying to shake and getting cold when I saw Bix getting out his horn. Just four notes...But he didn't blow them -- he hit 'em like a mallet hits a chime..."

1924

At twenty-one, Bix Beiderbecke has already become a recognizable figure among Jazz musicians. His playing represents one of the few styles which oppose rather than imitate Armstrong. He will be influential to Lester Young on tenor sax as well as the future Boppers via Young and directly.

1924

Coleman Hawkins joins Fletcher Henderson's band.

1924

Fletcher Henderson is invited to play the Roseland Ballroom on 51st street and Broadway in Manhattan during the summer of this year.

1924

In October, the Fletcher Henderson band with Louis Armstrong is at the Roseland Ballroom on 51st street and Broadway in Manhattan.

1924

Coleman Hawkins is inspired by Louis Armstrong to develop a distinctive saxophone style.

1924

Kansas City bands are beginning to play a style with a four even beat ground beat (New Orleans Jazz had a distinct two beat ground beat behind a 4/4 melody). This paved the way for more modern forms of Jazz. Charlie Parker as a child growing up in K.C. heard this music. Count Basie is later quoted as saying "I can't dig that two-beat jive the New Orleans cats play; cause my boys and I got to have four heavy beats to a bar and no cheating."

1924

Bessie Smith, most famous of the Classic Blues singers, begins her period of greatest fame. She will be recorded with Armstrong, trumpeter Joe Smith, Don Redman, James P. Johnson, Charlie Green, Fletcher Henderson and others over the next few years.

1924

Fats Waller is now twenty and is playing rent parties in New York City.

1924

Trumpeter Tommy Ladnier is playing in Joe Oliver's band in Chicago. Ladnier was brought to Chicago as a child.

1924

Django Reinhardt switches to guitar and is now playing the clubs of Paris.

1924

Art Tatum (only in his early teens) is already playing rent parties.

1924

Benny Moten band is moving towards the New Orleans style. The song "South" has breaks which could have been played by Oliver or Armstrong.

1924

Clarence Williams from New Orleans opens a record store in Chicago.

1924

George Gershwin writes "Rhapsody in Blue".

1924

Earl "Bud" Powell is born in New York City.

1924

Future Bop trombone innovator J.J. Johnson is born in Indianapolis, Indiana.

1924

Bop singer Sarah Vaughan is born in Newark, N.J.

1924

Singer Dinah Washington is born.

1924

Mahalia Jackson's idols are Bessie Smith and Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso.

1924

Paul Whiteman makes Jazz "respectable" with his February 21 concert at Aeolian Hall in New York City. The first song is an authentic version of ODJB's "Livery Stable Blues" which is merely meant to show how crude the real thing is, but most fans like it better than the "Symphonic Jazz" which follows.

1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924


1924

May 1924 - Bix Biederbecke's Wolverine's records college student, Hoagy Carmichael's song "Riverboat Shuffle,' for Gennett.

1924


1925


1925


1925

Armstrong starts to work with Erskine Tate, Carol Dickerson and others.

1925

Armstrong returns to Chicago in November and plays the Dreamland Cafe.

1925

On November 12, Armstrong records the first of the classic hot fives with Lil Hardin on piano, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Kid Ory on trombone and Johnny St. Cyr on banjo and guitar. First tune was the Lil Hardin composition "My Heart". First scat solo was on the song "Heebie Jeebies" allegedly when Armstrong accidently dropped the sheet music. The recordings were originally issued on Okeh and can be found on Columbia/Sony Hot Fives and Sevens series CD's as well as on JSP.

1925

New Orleans giants Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet are now playing together in the Red Onion Jazz Babies with Blues singer Alberta Hunter. At this point, Bechet is the superior Jazz player. Recordings can be found on Classic CD - The Chronological Sidney Bechet 1923-1926 and EPM Musique CD - The Complete 1923-1926 Clarence Williams Sessions.

1925

Sidney Bechet is Armstrong's only serious musical rival.

1925


1925

Sidney Bechet is also playing with the Clarence Williams Blue Five at this time.

1925

Sidney Bechet opens his own cabaret on Seventh Avenue in Harlem. It is called the Club Basha (most New Yorker's pronounce his name that way). The house band is led by Bechet and includes Johnny Hodges.

1925

Sidney Bechet sails to Paris in Seprember.

1925

La Revue Negre introduces Sidney Bechet and Josephine Baker to Paris.

1925

In February, Bix Beiderbecke attempts to "straighten up and fly right" when he continues his formal studies at Iowa State University. The effort lasts only eighteen days, however, and Bix is off on the road again playing Jazz.

1925

C-Melody Sax player Frankie Trumbauer hires Bix Beiderbecke to play cornet in his new nine piece orchestra.

1925

The Ellington band is still not a Jazz band, but a commercial orchestra playing Pop tunes and dance numbers. However, the addition of New Orleans players Sidney Bechet on clarinet and Bubber Miley on trumpet begin to turn the band around. Miley's signature mutes and growls (borrowed from Oliver) become Ellington's signature passed on to a number of horn players in the band throughout the decades.

1925

Bassist Walter Page forms the first version of the Blue Devils.

1925

Benny Moten's band is now a solid New Orleans style group even though they are from Kansas City. The trumpeter Lammar Wright is now playing with a fast terminal vibrato. 18th Street Strut uses Oliver-style phrases.

1925

Twelve-string guitarist and Folk and Blues singer Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter is released from a Texas Penitentiary where he was serving time for killing a man in a fight.

1925

Lyrical trumpeter Joe Smith begins to play with the Fletcher Henderson band. Joe is one of the most underrated trumpeters in early Jazz. Joe is often compared to Bix.

1925

Ma Rainey's piano player Thomas A. Dorsey is celebrated for his risque tunes. He will soon, however, become the father of modern gospel music.

1925

Red Norvo who is the first important mallet instrument player in Jazz begins on the xylophone.

1925

Bud Freeman switches from C-Melody to Tenor sax.

1925

Saxophonist Art Pepper is born on September 1.

1925

Pianist Oscar Peterson is born in Montreal.

1925

Mel Torme the Velvet Fog is born.

1925


1925


1925


1925


1925


1925


1925


1925


1925


1925


1925


1925


1925


1926


1926


1926


1926


1926


1926

On February 26, Armstrong, Kid Ory (trombone), Johnny Dodds (clarinet), Johnny St. Cyr (guitar) and Lil Armstrong (piano) record the second set of Hot Fives for Okeh.

1926

Armstrong leaves Dreamland (Chicago) in the spring to join Carroll Dickerson's band at the Sunset Cafe (Chicago's brightest pleasure spot). The Sunset is Chicago's most succesful black and tan. Joe Glaser is the Sunset's manager. His mother is the Sunset's owner.

1926

Armstrong is playing for Erskine Tate's Orchestra and Carol Dickerson's Orchestra. This is the year that Armstrong and Earl Hines meet.

1926

King Oliver and his Dixie Syncopators are playing at the Plantation Cafe in Chicago.

1926

Joe "King" Oliver will do his last eventful music this year with his Dixie Syncopators group. Joe does a remake of his landmark "Dippermouth Blues". It is called "Sugarfoot Strut".

1926

In September, Jelly Roll Morton cuts his first band recordings with his Red Hot Peppers group. Jelly Roll had acquired Lester and Walter Montrose as publishers. Notable songs are "Deep Creek", "The Pearls", "Wolverine Blues", "Dead Man Blues" and King Oliver's "Doctor Jazz".

1926

On an autumn day on Chicago's south side, Jelly Roll Morton rides a big gray mule with a sign that advertises the Victor Recording Company's recording of his "Sidewalk Blues".

1926

The Ellington band has finally taken shape. They are now playing bonafide New York Jazz. Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton on trombone and Harry Carney on clarinet join Ellington. Ellington forms a significant partnership with music publisher and band booker Irving Mills.

1926

Duke Ellington and his band record "East St Louis Toodle-o" on November 29. This is Ellington's first signature song and his first important original composition.

1926

Kansas City, Missouri becomes the wildest city in America (a perfect match for Jazz) when Tom "Boss" Pendergast (the Democratic boss of Jackson county) begins his reign over the city.

1926

Bix Beiderbecke is working in a Frankie Trumbauer band with Pee Wee Russell on Clarinet.

1926

In May, Jean Goldkette offers Trumbauer a job as musical director of one of his bands (we'll call them the Goldkette band, but the real name is the Victor Recording Orchestra). Trumbauer accepts on the condition that Bix Beiderbecke can also join the band.

1926


1926

The Goldkette band with Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer start playing the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan in early October.

1926

The Goldkette band and the Fletcher Henderson band do battle at the Roseland on October 13. Henderson is caught by surprise and is defeated by the likes of Beiderbecke and Trumbauer.

1926

Sidney Bechet visits Berlin. On learning that American reedman Gavin Bushell is there and has a Great Dane, Sidney insists that his Doberman-Bulldog mix and Bushell's Great Dane fight to prove which is the toughest.

1926

Sidney Bechet visits Moscow.

1926


1926

Until now, Bechet was the only black saxophonist of importance. Coleman Hawkins is beginning to change that. Currently, most Jazz saxophonist's are white (not many used saxophones, only whites could afford them). Hawkins admires Adrian Rollini.

1926

Lester Young is meanwhile being influenced by Frankie Trumbauer and trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke.

1926

Benny Goodman joins the Ben Pollack band.

1926

On December 9, the Ben Pollack Band with Benny Goodman on clarinet records "Deed I Do"/"He's the Last Word" for Victor. It is Benny Goodman's recording debut.

1926

On the evening of December 9, Benny Goodman's father dies at the corner of Madison and Kostner streets in Chicago after being struck by a speeding auto. He never got to hear Benny's first recording done that very same day.

1926

John Coltrane is born on September 23 in Hamlet, North Carolina.

1926

Thelonious Monk, aged six, becomes interested in piano.

1926

Jimmy Harrison is playing saxophone for Fletcher Henderson. Jimmy is beginning to create an influential Jazz trombone style that will rule for awhile.

1926

Tommy Ladnier is playing trumpet for Fletcher Henderson. Tommy is one of the most underrated trumpeters of early Jazz.

1926

Miles Davis is born in Alton, Illinois. Shortly after, the Davis family moves to East St. Louis, Illinois.

1926

Hammond B-3 master Jimmy Smith is born in Norristown, PA.

1926

Lenny Tristano begins to take piano lessons.

1926

Swedish Jazz group called the Paramount Orchestra is formed.

1926


1926


1926


1926


1926


1926


1926


1926


1926


1926


1926


1926


1926


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927

Americans will buy more than 100 million phonograph records this year.

1927

It seems as if the music of Oliver and Morton will capture the world but.

1927

Armstrong makes the greatest of the hot fives and sevens. He is now setting whole phrases ahead or behind the beat, not just pulling single notes. This will set the stage for Swing. Armstrong is now a star and because of him, New Orleans style ensemble playing is disappearing and is being replaced by Chicago and New York style solos. In short Jazz is becoming a soloist art primarily because of Armstrong. A few songs of significance include "Struttin' with Some Barbecue", "Big Butter and Egg Man" and "Hotter than That". In May, Warren "Baby" Dodds on drums and Pete Briggs on tuba are added to hot fives to make hot sevens.

1927

Joe Oliver's band is offered a job as house band at the new Cotton Club in Harlem. Joe turns down the job or loses it because he wants too much money. It was a fatal mistake for Joe.

1927

Barney Bigard joins Ellington band.

1927

Irving Mills gets Ellington a recording contract with Columbia. Resulting sides can be found on the set The Okeh Ellington on the Columbia label. Notable selections include "Black and Tan Fantasy" and "East St. Louis Toodle-oo". People like Ellington's music at this time primarily for Bubber Miley's freaky trumpet style.

1927

Ellington records "Black and Tan Fantasy" for Columbia on October 26 in New York City.

1927

Ellington band starts at the Cotton Club in Harlem on December 4 after the job is turned down by Joe Oliver. The Cotton Club broadcasts Ellington's performances from coast to coast. Ellington uses Adelaide Hall's raspy voice as an instrument (not scat). The Cotton Club job will last until 1932.

1927

Jelly Roll Morton and the Red Hot Peppers issue their classic sides.

1927


1927

Goldkette band featuring Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer (Bix and Tram) will collapse financially and then Bix and Tram will join the Paul Whiteman Band.

1927

Bix, who is now at his peak, is also working with various pickup groups and producing lasting music such as "Singin' the Blues" and "I'm Comin' Virginia" with these groups. See the Columbia collection Singin' the Blues. Even black players are copying Bix at this time.

1927

Bix Beiderbecke is now spending time playing piano and composing for it. Writes "In a Mist", "Flashes", "Candlelight" and "In the Dark".

1927

Bix Beiderbecke records "In a Mist" on September 9.

1927

Art Tatum at seventeen is hired as staff pianist for station WSPD in Toledo, Ohio. His talent is so evident that the show goes national. He begins to become an influence on the future Boppers via Coleman Hawkins.

1927

Coleman Hawkins drops his "slap tongue" style of playing tenor saxophone and begins improvising by playing the notes of the chords of a song. He'd heard a teenaged Art Tatum do this and was quite impressed. Up to this time all improvisation had been based on a song's melody. At first, this new style seemed somewhat incoherent but it will eventually lead to modern forms of Jazz.

1927

Bootlegger Joe Helbock (a friend of Jimmy Dorsey) opens a speakeasy called The Onyx on 52nd street. It becomes a musicians' hangout featuring such attractions as Art Tatum.

1927

Lester Young is now eighteen and is a competent musician. His main influence is the white saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer. Young likes the way Tram introduces the melody and then plays around it.

1927


1927

James P. Johnson is now playing Jazz with his release of "Snowy Morning Blues". The stride style at this point is analogous to the former rag players swinging the rags like Jelly Roll did about a decade earlier.

1927

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie is sent on a scholarship to Laurinburg Institute. He studies trumpet, trombone and theory.

1927

Benny Goodman makes first record using his own name.

1927

The first talking movie is released. It is The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson in black face. It opens on October 6.

1927


1927

Billie Holiday's mother brings her to New York.

1927

Chick Webb's band is playing the Savoy Ballroom.

1927

Mahalia Jackson opens a cosmetics shop in Chicago. She turns down an offer from the now famous Earl Hines.

1927


1927

Meade Lux Lewis records "Honky Tonk Train Blues".

1927


1927

Trumpeter Wild Bill Davison is playing in Chicago.

1927

Saxophonist and composer Gigi Gryce is born in Hartford, Connecticut.

1927

Bing Crosby joins the Paul Whiteman band.

1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927


1927

October 1927 - Hoagy Carmichael records two versions of his composition "Star Dust," one with lyrics (which get edited a year later), one instrumental - Gennett releases the instrumental version which is a poor seller, when Gennett is approached to release the vocal version, Fred Wiggins head of Gennett writes on the master: "Reject. Already on Gennett. Poor Seller." "Star Dust" would soon become one of the most recorded songs in pop and jazz.

1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928

On February 7, federal agents raid a dozen of Chicago's North Side nightclubs. They take names of everybody that is caught with alcohol. They had already closed a number of the South Side black-and-tans. This is all part of a "get tough on booze" policy of the new Republican mayor William Dever (Big Bill Thompson's successor). Chicago will soon fall as the Jazz capital.

1928

The last of the Hot Fives and Sevens are recorded by Armstrong and the rest. As hard as this may be to believe, in many respects, it's all downhill from here for Armstrong.

1928

Armstrong drops the New Orleans style completely and with it, he drops the New Orleans players except for Zutty Singleton. Landmark recordings are made by Armstrong with Earl Hines on piano. Hines is almost the equal of Armstrong in terms of Jazz talent and the result is such memorable recordings as "West End Blues" (many believe this to be the top Jazz recording of all times) and "Weather Bird Rag", both Joe Oliver tunes. These and others can be found on Columbia CD Louis Armstrong Vol 4. - Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines or the Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1928-1929.

1928

In contrast, Jelly Roll Morton's and Joe Oliver's music is already on the way out, soon to be replaced by Swing.

1928

On November 30, in Cleveland with the Whiteman Band, Bix Beiderbecke passes out in the middle of a tune. Another band member (Charles Margulis) steadies Bix to keep him from falling over. Bix wakes up and in his confusion, takes a poke at Margulis. Whiteman witnesses this and sends Bix back to the Palace Hotel where he becomes violent due to delirium tremens and is put under a nurse's care.

1928

Earl Hines records with Armstrong and then with clarinetist Jimmy Noone's Apex Club Orchestra. Then Earl begins work as a soloist for Q.R.S. (a piano roll company). All of Earl's recordings during this year are landmark recordings which will establish his reputation.

1928

Earl Hines forms his own big band. Earl will be a big bandleader until 1947.

1928

The Benny Moten Band is now a Swing band and is acknowledged by most to be the best in the southwest. Some, however, considered Walter Page's Blue Devils to be better. It was reported that the Blue Devils cut the Moten band in one memorable Kansas City band battle. This is not surprising considering that the Blue Devil's were Walter Page on bass, Buster Smith (Charlie Parker's early idol) on alto sax, Eddie Durham on trombone, Hot Lips Page (no relation to Walter) on trumpet, Bill "Count" Basie on piano and vocalist Jimmy "Mr. Five-by-Five" Rushing to round it out (no pun intended).

1928

Important bandleader Fletcher Henderson suffers a concussion in an automobile accident. After this, Fletcher's interest in and tolerance for business matters declines from previous low levels. This might account in part for other bands coming to the forefront.

1928

Sidney Bechet is now with the Noble Sissle band.

1928

Twenty year old clarinetist Benny Goodman is still with Ben Pollack as is trombonist Jack Teagarden.

1928

Johnny Hodges joins the Duke Ellington band on alto sax.

1928

Armstrong records "West End Blues" on June 8.

1928

Teenager Billie Holiday hears Armstrong's West End Blues and is inspired.

1928

Bessie Smith records "Poor Man's Blues." This is a harbinger of things to come. By next year, most people will be poor as a result of the depression.

1928

Bessie Smith begins her downhill slide. Classic Blues is on the way out.

1928

Ma Rainey records Blame it on the Blues and Leavin' this Morning with Tampa Red on guitar.

1928

The word bop appears in the song Four or Five Times by Mckinney's Cotton Pickers.

1928

Django meets violinist Staphane Grapelli and makes his first records which have no Jazz value.

1928

Django Reinhardt is married at eighteen. He lives in a caravan near a cemetary. His wife sells silk flowers to support them. One night, Django is trying to remove a rat and he catches the flowers on fire with a candle. He burns his legs and his left hand badly saving his wife. His left hand never completely healed with two fingers partially paralyzed. He, nevertheless became a great guitarist in months. Stephane Grapelli says that the injury probably improved Django's playing because it slowed him down causing him to be more thoughtful. If you've ever listened to the speed of Django, it is hard to imagine him playing faster.

1928

Stan Kenton is now writing arrangements for Los Angeles bands.

1928

Lenny Tristano is by now eight years old and is completely blind.

1928

Dancer George "Shorty" Snowden comes up with a new dance that is filled with "breakaways." The dance will be named the Lindy Hop after Charles Lindbergh.

1928

Future Hard Bop pianist and bandleader Horace Silver is born in Norwalk, Connecticut on September 2.

1928

Trumpeter and Flugelhorn player Art Farmer and his twin brother Addison are born in Phoenix, Arizona.

1928

Trumpeter Wild Bill Davison is currently playing like Bix on Smiling Skies with the Benny Meroff band.

1928

Spanish/Fillipino, Fred Elizade persuades the Savoy Hotel management in England to let him bring in a Jazz band with American trumpeter Chelsea Qualey, sax players Bobby Davis and Adrian Rollini, and an English rhythm section.

1928

Bing Crosby, an early Jazz fan, visits Harlem to hear Ellington and other authentic Jazz players.

1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1928


1929


1929

The band consisted of:
  • Louis Armstrong (Trumpet)
  • Jack Teagarden (Trombone)
  • an unknown horn player
  • Happy Caldwell (Tenor Saxophone)
  • Joe Sullivan (Piano)
  • Eddie Lang (Guitar)
  • Kaiser Marshall (Drums)
This is Armstrong's first recording with Jack Teagarden, and at the same time the last of the classic Hot Five / Hot Seven recordings.

1929


1929


1929


1929


1929


1929


1929


1929


1929


1929


1929


1929


1929


1929


1929


1929


1929

On March 4, Armstrong has traveled from Chicago to New York to play a one night stand in Harlem at a banquet that is given in his honor. Many friends from Chicago are there and many musicians are there.

1929

On March 5, in the early morning, Eddie Condon suggests to Tommy Rockwell (producer of the Hot Fives and Sevens) that he take the opportunity to record Armstrong with some of the superb musicians who have gathered to honor Armstrong. Rockwell is concerned about a mixed group, but goes ahead anyway. As a result, Armstrong, Jack Teagarden (trombone), Eddie Lang (guitar), Happy Cauldwell (saxophone), Kaiser Marshall and Joe Sullivan record the classic "Knockin' a Jug" in the Okeh studios after knockin' back a bottle of whiskey.

1929

Armstrong shifts base from Chicago to New York. This coincides with a general shift of the Jazz mainstream from Chicago to New York. Bigger Swing type orchestras will begin to dominate.

1929

Armstrong begins fronting big Swing bands such as Les Hite and Luis Russell. He is becoming more commercial. This will cause later Jazz artists to say that he sold out.

1929

Armstrong does Fats Waller's tune "Ain't Misbehavin'" from the show Hot Chocolates. His version becomes far more popular than the show's original. This is the first Pop song that he records and it represents a pivotal point in his carreer. He does his first big band recordings. Recordings can be found on Columbia CD Louis in New York - Vol 5, Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1928-1929 or Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1929-1930.

1929

Dave Peyton of the Chicago Defender reports that Louis Armstrong is the current rage in New York City.

1929

Ben Pollack formally presents an engraved gold watch to Armstrong at Connie's Inn where he performed in Hot Chocolates. The watch had been bought by a group of white musicians who went to see Armstrong perform and to honor him. The engraving says "Good Luck Always to Louis Armstrong from the Musicians on Broadway."

1929

Jelly Roll Morton and the Red Hot Peppers record again. These recordings are not as good as the first ones and in fact represent a style that is rapidly becoming defunct.

1929

New Orleans style is moribund. Big band Swing is overtaking it.

1929

Earl Hines and his big band begin a stay at the Grand Terrace Ballroom in Chicago that will last until 1948.

1929

Bix Beiderbecke is now a hopeless alcoholic. After suffering a complete mental collapse, he is sent back to Davenport by Paul Whiteman early this year.

1929

In Davenport, Iowa, in February, Bix Beiderbecke writes the following to Frankie Trumbauer: "I guess I am A minus quality. I haven't had a drink for so long I'd pass on one." Then he complained of knee pain and added, "I'll be back as soon as my knees will work. If Paul will have me."

1929


1929

Bix Beiderbecke returns to the Whiteman band in March and spends the summer in Hollywood with the band. They are there to film a biography of Whiteman. At some point, Bix begins drinking again. He remarks to a friend that drinking is the path of least resistance since he is afraid of a return bout with delirium tremens.

1929

Bix Beiderbecke returns to New York with the Whiteman band in September. He is unable to perform at Columbia Studios where the band is recording "Waiting at the End of the Road"/"When You're Counting the Stars Alone."

1929

On October 14, Bix Beiderbecke checks into an alcoholism treatment center as requested by Whiteman. Bix will not stop drinking permanently though and will be dead within two years.

1929

Jimmy Rushing does "Blue Devil Blues" with Walter Page's Blue Devils.

1929

Cootie Williams replaces Bubber Miley on trumpet in the Duke Ellington band. Cootie has to learn to use mutes and growls like Bubber and these effects become Duke's signature. Ellington does his first recording of the "The Mooche".

1929

Duke Ellington appears in a short called Black and Tan. Ellington is portrayed as a handsome, elegant, hard working composer even though the subject matter is degrading.

1929

Boogie Woogie piano player Clarence "Pine Top" Smith dies shortly after recording the influential "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie".

1929

Trumpeter Jabbo Smith records "Take Me to the River".

1929

Lionel Hampton is currently playing drums in, among others, the Les Hite band.

1929

Future piano innovator Bill Evans is born in Plainfield, New Jersey on August 16.

1929

Drummer Dave Tough and clarinetist Mezz Mezzrow get together a Jazz band in Place Pigalle in Paris. The music is spreading. Dave Tough will later become one of the few players to successfully switch from Swing to Bop - most could not.

1929

Clarinetist Edmund Hall moves to New York City. He works with Claude Hopkins and Lucky Millinder big bands.

1929

Mary Lou Williams is playing piano for Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy.

1929

Juan Tizol joins Ellington.

1929

Pianist Barry Harris is born in Detroit.

1929

On Friday, October 24 (Black Friday), the stock market crashes, the Great Depression begins and for the most part, the big party that was most of the 1920's ends.

1929


1929

Herbert Hoover announces in December that "conditions are fundamentally sound".

1929

Drummer Jimmy Cobb born in Washington, DC.

1929


1930


1930


1930


1930


1930


1930


1930


1930


1930

  • Duke Ellington: The Mooche; East St. Louis Toodle-oo

  • Jelly Roll Morton: When They Get Lovin' They's Gone; You Done Played Out Blues

  • Ted Weems: Slappin' The Bass; Washing Dishes (With My Sweetie)

1930


1930


1930


1930


1930


1930

Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers recorded four numbers at this session:
  • Each Day
  • If Someone Would Only Love Me
  • That'll Never Do
  • I'm Looking For A Little Bluebird
"If Someone Would Only Love Me" features a bass clarinet solo by an unknown player--an early example of this instrument in a jazz setting.

1930


1930


1930


1930


1930


1930


1930


1930


1930


1930


1930


1930

Armstrong is by now enunciating no more than one beat per measure. His music swings like nothing before. Swing is under way. Louie is recording more excellent big band Swing sides such as St Louis Blues, Dallas Blues, Confessin, If I Could Be With You, and others. Listen to Columbia CD St Louis Blues - Louis Armstrong - Vol 6, JSP CD Big Band - Vol 1, Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1929-1930 or Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1930-1931.

1930

Armstrong's manager is now small time hood Joe Glaser. Glaser will make Louie rich but will lead him to commerciality.

1930

Ellington records his first big hit in October, a masterpiece of tone color called Dreamy Blues (aka Mood Indigo).

1930

Duke Ellington travels to Hollywood to appear in the movie Check and Double Check with Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll starring as Amos 'n Andy. Ellington retains his integrity even though the stars are middle-aged whites in blackface and the plot is demeaning to blacks. The story revolves around two dimwitted fellows from Georgia who move to Chicago and start the Fresh Air Taxi Company of America Incorpulated with only one topless taxicab.

1930

Young people begin to revolt against the standard of "niceness". "Express your true feelings" becomes a catch phrase (much like the 60's).

1930


1930

Tenor saxophonist Ben Webster debuts with the Gene Coy band and then joins the Jug Allen band.

1930

With Coleman Hawkins and his followers Ben Webster and the young Chu Berry and his only competitor at the time Lester Young, the saxophone, in general, and the tenor saxophone, in particular, becomes a major competitor of the trumpet/cornet in Jazz. Recall that the cornet was king in New Orleans Jazz. The faster changes which a sax allows begins to push the trombone out of Jazz.

1930

Walter Page and Buster Smith of the Blue Devils walk past a little club in Minneapolis and hear a tenor sax playing "After You've Gone." The tenor style is new and spare compared to Coleman Hawkins' style. The tenor player is Lester Young who is immediately hired by Page.

1930

Alto saxophonist Benny Carter leads a group called the Chocolate Dandies drawn from the Fletcher Henderson band. Coleman Hawkins on tenor and Jimmy Harrison on trombone play excellent solos on recordings by the group.

1930

Django Reinhardt is listening to and learning from Ellington, Armstrong, Beiderbecke and last but not least Eddie Lang.

1930

Joe Oliver puts together a touring band with the help of his nephew Dave Nelson a trumpet player and arranger who once played in Ma Rainey's backup band. The band is not a success. The King is in deep decline.

1930

Teenager Billie Holiday performas at a small club in Brooklyn.

1930


1930

Bessie Smith is virtually washed up. Classic Blues has run its course.

1930

Lionel Hampton begins to play the vibraphone.

1930

Earl "Bud" Powell (age 6) begins to study piano. He is currently learning classical music and European theory.

1930

Scotsman Tommy McQuater is the leading British Jazz trumpeter.

1930

Future alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman (Free Jazz) is born in Fort Worth, Texas. He will be reared in poverty.

1930

Future trumpet great Clifford Brown is born in Wilmington, Delaware.

1930

Future tenor saxophone colosus Sonny Rollins is born in New York City.

1930

Future Rock and Roll singer Ray Charles is born in Albany, Georgia.

1930

Singer Betty Carter is born.

1930


1930

Helen Merrill is born.

1930


1930


1931


1931


1931


1931


1931


1931


1931


1931


1931


1931


1931


1931


1931


1931


1931


1931

Armstrong gets a record contract with Victor this year. This will end his Okeh recording career. Recordings can be found on Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1930-1931 and Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1931-1932.

1931

Armstrong visits New Orleans for the first time since 1922.

1931

Armstrong and his band are arrested in Memphis and thrown in jail. They are bailed out by the manager of the Palace Theatre where they are booked to play. They dedicate "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You" to the Memphis police.

1931


1931

Louis Armstrong and Vic Berton (drummer with Abe Lyman's band and former drummer with Bix Beiderbecke and the Wolverines) are arrested at Frank Sebastion's New Cotton Club in Culver City, CA. for possession of marijuana.

1931

In September, posters begin to appear in Austin, Texas. These posters advertise the October 12 performance of "Louis Armstrong, King of the Trumpet, and His Orchestra" at the Hotel Driskill in downtown Austin. Surprisingly, for this time and place, there is nothing degrading in this advertisement.

1931

Armstrong records Hoagy Carmichael's classic "Stardust".

1931


1931

Duke Ellington writes "Dreamy Blues" (aka "Mood Indigo") in 15 minutes while waiting for his mother to cook dinner. When Duke recorded "Mood Indigo", the melody was stated by muted trumpet, muted trombone and clarinet. Sam Nanton played the highest part on the trombone and Barney Bigard played the lowest part on the clarinet. This reversal of traditional roles sounded eerie and compeling. "Mood Indigo" was Ellington's first big hit.

1931

Ellington records the first extended Jazz piece called Creole Rhapsody this piece covers two full 78 sides. He will also record Mood Indigo and Rockin' in Rhythm (there's that word rock). Duke is by now very famous.

1931

Duke Ellington decides to live apart from his wife after she slashes his face for having an affair with a Cotton Club dancer. He retains custody of his son and sends for his mother, father and sister to join them.

1931

On November 4, cornet player Buddy Bolden (who many people think was the first person to play Jazz) dies in a Louisiana state hospital. He was never recorded.

1931

Influential Swing trombone player Jimmy Harrison dies at an early age.

1931

Bix Beiderbecke dies in Sunnyside Queens, New York City from pneumonia which was brought on by acute alcoholism. Jazz has lost a disproportionate number of artists to drug and alcohol addiction.

1931

Fletcher Henderson's drummer, Walter Johnson, moves the ground beat from the bass/snare combination to the bass/hi-hat combination on Radio Rhythm and Low Down on the Bayou. Basie's drummer Jo Jones adopted this method and is usually given the credit for this important innovation which became necessary to quiet the drums for a small group.

1931

Tenor saxophonist Ben Webster is in the Blanche Calloway Band (Cab's sister), but he will soon join Benny Moten.

1931

The Bennie Moten Band now contains most of the members of the now defunct Blue Devils who had run into financial troubles. Even Walter Page is with Moten. Walter is the first bass player to sound all four beats. Basie and Ben Webster are also with Moten. This band is on par with the best, the Fletcher Henderson band. Tunes like Toby, Blue Room and Prince of Wails show complicated writing but usually they revert to simpler riffing which is where this band shines.

1931

Bandleader Zack Whyte has a Cincinnati based territory band call the Chocolate Beau Brummels.

1931

Classic Blues singer Bessie Smith stops recording.

1931


1931

Young piano player Teddy Wilson is currently in Chicago working with Armstrong, Jimmy Noone, et al. Wilson will be the primary propogator of the Earl Hines style of piano.

1931

Young Charlie Parker is given his first alto sax by his mother.

1931

Lenny Tristano is playing music professionally at age twelve.

1931

Pianist Oscar Peterson begins to study piano.

1931

At the age of 7, Kenny Dorham moves from piano to trumpet.

1931

Future Dixieland leader Bill Davison has a band.

1931

Pianist Wynton Kelly is born in Jamaica.

1931

Pianist Conrad Yeats "Sonny" Clark is born in Herminie, Pa. (about 25 miles east of Pittsburgh).

1931

The Mills Brothers group forms in New York City.

1931

Future Gospel and Rock and Roll singer/songwriter Sam Cooke is born.

1931


1931


1932


1932


1932


1932


1932


1932


1932


1932


1932


1932


1932


1932


1932


1932


1932


1932

Armstrong is somewhat burned out. He leaves the U.S.A. to tour Europe. In London, at a concert, people hear his nickname Satchel Mouth incorrectly and dub him Satchmo, a nickname which he will take to his grave.

1932

Armstrong records "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea", "Home" and "Hobo, You Can't Ride this Train" with Chick Webb. Recordings can be found on Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1931-1932 and Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1932-1933.

1932

Ellington is also getting a bit fed up with the music business. He records the classic It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got that Swing.

1932

The Benny Moten Band swings in Kansas City, Missouri with five brass, four saxes and four rhythm pieces. This band is what defined the standard Swing band. Benny's band does a famous recording session with Ben Webster on tenor sax. Ben's reputation is secured.

1932

Art Tatum comes to New York City and accepts a job accompanying Adelaide Hall. He will take New York by storm. His friend's played a little game where they would take him to after hours clubs to spring him on unsuspecting musicians, particularly, the pianists. He awed other pianists who in some cases would not play in his presence. Piano great Fats Waller once said, "I play piano, but God is in the house tonight" when Tatum was present.

1932

The Hot Club of France is founded with Hugues Panassie as the first president. The club includes Charles Delaunay and Pierre Noury.

1932

English trumpet player Nat Gonella establishes himself with the English by playing Jazz. He cuts I Can't Believe that You're in Love with Me and I Heard a Don Redman song.

1932

Japanese trumpeter Fumio Nanri spends six months in America. Louis Armstrong calls him the Satchmo of Japan.

1932

John Hammond (now an executive with Columbia) produces a session with Fletcher Henderson's Band for British listeners. This establishs Hammond as a full-fledged record producer.

1932

Pianist Tommy Flanagan is born in Detroit.

1932

Tenor saxophonist Tina Brooks is born.

1932


1933

Ben Webster is now with the Fletcher Henderson band.

1933

Eddie Lang dies at the height of his powers at twenty-nine from complications following a tonsillectomy. This was a great loss to Jazz.

1933

Django Reinhardt on guitar and Stephane Grapelli on violin begin to play together in Louis Vola's Hotel Claridge orchestra. This was the start of what might have been the greatest duo in Jazz. Django makes a recording of Si J'aime Suzy with L'Orchestra du Theatre Daunon. Lang's influences are showing.

1933

Art Tatum makes his first solo records including Tiger Rag and Tea for Two. The stride is very evident on Tea for Two. Art is currently the biggest draw on 52nd Street. Tatum who has a better grasp of harmony than anyone currently in Jazz claims Fats Waller as his inspiration.

1933

In the spring, Sidney Bechet (soprano saxophone, clarinet) and Tommy Ladnier (trumpet) quit music and open the Southern Tailor Shop at 128th Street and Nicholas Avenue in Harlem. Ladnier shines shoes and Bechet presses and delivers.

1933

Walter Page's Blue Devils disband in West Virginia. Zack Whyte tries to get nine of the Blue Devils to join his band. They refuse telling him that it's all of us or none of us.

1933

Future Free Jazz pianist Cecil Taylor is born in Corona, Long Island, New York where he grew up.

1933


1933

Benny Carter is chosen by English composer and critic Spike Hughes to organize a group to record a set of Hughes compositions.

1933

Pianist Errol Garner is now working professionally in Pittsburgh, Pa.

1933

The Hot Club of France gives its first Jazz Concert with a group of lesser known black American musicians living in France at the time.

1933

Wild Bill Davison moves to Milwaukee. He had been ostracized because a car that he was driving was hit by a cab killing the much beloved clarinet player Frank Teschemacher. The accident was not even Davison's fault!

1933

Prohibition is repealed. Jazz moves out of the speakeasys. Speakeasys become legal bars. Joe Helbock's Onyx on 52nd Street in N.Y. becomes a very good draw. However, much competition moves in. 52nd Street will become legendary in Jazz annals.

1933

The depression has taken its toll on most early Jazz musicians. A new breed is emerging. This new breed is the Swing musician.

1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933


1933

Armstrong cuts his last records (for this contract) for the Victor label. Sides can be found on the Bluebird CD Laughin' Louis 1932-1933 and Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1932-1933.

1933


1933

Armstrong travels to Europe. He is a sensation everywhere that he plays. He fills the Tivoli in Copenhagen eight nights in a row.

1933

Bessie Smith records for the last time in a session which is arranged by John Hammond. Gimme a Pigfoot was recorded at this session.

1933

On June 2, the morning of Duke Ellington's departure for Europe on the SS Olympic, John Hammond takes a portable phonograph to Ellington as a bon voyage present. Ellington declines. He does not like Hammond and does not need his presents or advice.

1933

The Ellington Band goes to Europe. Their reception in England is very good. The fans love Ellington and know most of the band members by name. Ellington discovers that he is considered a significant composer in London.

1933

Ellington records Solitude and Sophisticated Lady.

1933

Teddy Wilson is in New York City working with the Benny Carter band.

1933

Billie Holiday is discovered in Monette's in New York City by --guess who-- John Hammond. Billie records with Benny Goodman.

1933


1933

On the morning of November 27, John Hammond records two tunes with Broadway star Ethel Waters. After this, he brings his new discovery Billie Holiday into the same studio for Waters to hear. Waters is not impressed, but that will not deter Hammond or Holiday.

1933

Benny Goodman meets John Hammond. Hammond convinces him to hire heavy-handed drummer Gene Krupa and trombonist Jack Teagarden. In addition, Hammond persuades Goodman to hire black musicians, notably Billie Holiday and Teddy Wilson. This was a breakthrough. Goodman is ready. He is tired of following, he wants to lead. And lead he will.

1933

Most musicians, even Benny Goodman, are having a tough time because of the depression. Goodman heads a pickup band that has been organized by John Hammond. The band includes Jack Teagarden, Gene Krupa and Joe Sullivan. They record "Ain'tcha Glad"/"I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues" for British Columbia. It is Benny's first record as a bandleader. It sells 5000 copies.

1933

Coleman Hawkins, still with Henderson, is making his new style of improvising from the notes of the chords much more coherent and appealing.

1933

Coleman Hawkins battles Kansas City tenor players Herschel Evans, Ben Webster and Lester Young at the Cherry Blossom at Twelfth Street and Vine in Kansas City, Mo. According to pianist Mary Lou Williams, Hawkins lost this battle because of Young's unconventional style.

1934


1934


1934

Armstrong is in Europe. He begins and ends recording with French Polydor. Recordings can be found on Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1934-1936.

1934

Armstrong's lip splits on a London stage. He retires in Paris for eight months.

1934

While in Europe, Armstrong fires his current manager Johnny Collins. Collins retaliates by taking Armstrong's passport back to America leaving Louis "high and dry" in Europe without a passport.

1934

Trumpeter Rex Stewart joins the Duke Ellington band.

1934

Large bands with five brass instruments (mostly trumpets and trombones), four reed instruments (mostly clarinets and saxophones which are increasing in popularity) and four rhythm instruments (usually piano, guitar, bass and drums) become the standard. The brass and reed sections normally play together as two voices which playoff against each other in "call and response" form. Riffing (developed by Don Redman with Fletcher Henderson's band) becomes increasingly popular.

1934

Benny Goodman has his own orchestra which supplies the Jazz portion of a popular radio show Let's Dance sponsored by Nabisco to advertise the Ritz Cracker.

1934

Benny Goodman acquires around 36 Fletcher Henderson arrangements dating back to the 1931 Connie's Inn appearances.

1934

Coleman Hawkins (now one of the premier Jazz players) leaves Fletcher Henderson and goes to Europe to work with Jack Hylton. He is replaced by Lester Young. The band members do not like Lester's light style. They prefer the bigger sound of Coleman Hawkins or even Ben Webster. Lester soon leaves Henderson for Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy.

1934

Fletcher Henderson's band breaks up. Ben Webster goes to the Duke Ellington band.

1934

Fats Waller, currently the most popular pianist in the country, forms his own group.

1934


1934

Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey change the Dorsey Brothers Band from a records-only band to a full-time unit.

1934

Quintet of the Hot Club of Paris is formed with Django Reinhardt on guitar, Stephane Grapelli on violin, Louis Vola on bass, Joseph Reinhardt (Django's brother) on guitar and Eugene Vees on guitar. This is the first non-American group to give the Americans serious competition. Their first recording is Dinah/Tiger Rag.

1934

Sixteen year old Ella Fitzgerald wins first prize at a talent contest at the Harlem Opera House.

1934

Sister Rosetta Tharpe (then Nubin) marries a Pittsburgh pastor named Thorpe. She will divorce shortly and change her name to Tharpe.

1934

Soul Jazz saxophonist Stanley Turrentine is born in Pittsburgh, Pa.

1934


1934


1934


1934


1934


1934


1934


1934


1934


1934


1934


1934


1934


1934


1935


1935


1935


1935


1935


1935


1935


1935

Armstrong tours Italy.

1935

On Armstrong's return from Europe, he begins to record again, for Decca. See the GRP CD's Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra - Vol 1 and Vol 2 and the Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1934-1936. Louie seems to be more relaxed, but his music is deteriorating.

1935

Charlie Parker leaves school at fifteen. He had played baritone horn in the school band. He marries the nineteen year old Rebecca Ruffing.

1935

Bennie Moten dies suddenly (from a botched tonsillectomy). His band scatters. Basie finds work in Kansas City and draws many former Moten band members into his new band. The best of all Swing bands has gotten its start.

1935

Blues shouter Jimmy Rushing (formerly of Walter Page's Blue Devils) joins Basie Band.

1935


1935

Ellington records In a Sentimental Mood and the extended piece Reminiscing in Tempo which covers four sides. Billy Taylor joins the Duke.

1935

The Swing band era opens with the sudden rise of Benny Goodman. Benny's band toured the U.S. from the east to the west with little success until August 21 when the band played the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles where much to his and his dejected band's surprise, they were a huge success and their fortune was sealed. The band had played the late night Jazz portion of Nabisco's radio show from New York and had developed a wide following among young adults on the west coast. But when they played elsewhere they flopped in front an older audience. They became confused and tried to play popular dance music. When they played this Pop music at the Palomar, they were flopping and Benny said, "If we're going to flop, at least we'll do it playing Jazz". They switched to Jazz and the rest is history.

1935

Benny Goodman records Jelly Roll Morton's King Porter Stomp (same arrangement as Fletcher Henderson's 1932 New King Porter Stomp). In retrospect, Henderson's version is superior.

1935

Teddy Wilson and Benny Goodman play together at a party. Benny is very impressed and later forms a trio with Teddy and Gene Krupa. This is the beginning of one of the first mixed race combos. Oddly enough, Jesse Stacy (a white pianist of the Hines style) comes to work with Benny's big band at the same time.

1935

Roy Eldridge is recognized as the coming trumpet player. With his style, at first influenced by Armstrong and Henry "Red" Allen and by saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, he is thought to be the link between the Armstrong school of trumpet and the Bop or Gillespie school of trumpet. To view him as a link to Gillespie is to do a disservice to Roy.

1935

During a concert at Glen Island Casino in May, the Dorsey brothers have a violent argument on stage over the tempo of a tune. Tommy walks off the stage and two new bands (The Tommy Dorsey Band and The Jimmy Dorsey Band) are formed.

1935


1935

Dizzy Gillespie drops out of school to go to Philadelphia with his mother. He begins to work in local bands.

1935

Bunny Berigan becomes Goodman's principle trumpet player for a few months.

1935


1935

Ella Fitzgerald becomes Chick Webb's star.

1935

Benny Carter goes to Europe.

1935

There is a lot of Jazz action going on in England, more than in the rest of Europe.

1935

Django and the Quintet of the Hot Club of Paris record Hoagy Carmichael's Stardust with Coleman Hawkins. It is clear the Django understands Jazz rhythm.

1935

By now, a number of blacks have not only succeeded in Jazz, but some have become "legitimate" actors and singers too. For instance, Paul Robeson has become a well-respected actor and Marion Anderson a well-respected opera singer. This will set the stage for the "Bop Rebellion".

1935

Acclaimed Jazz writer, arranger, composer, performer and critic Leonard Feather comes to the U.S. from England for the first time. Leonard will eventually settle here.

1935


1935

Jazz Hot is created in France by Charles Delaunay. This is the first Jazz journal in the world.

1935

Swing has developed a language of its own. Some examples of Jazz related slang at this time follow:

1935

Hot - a superlative meaning really good

1935

Break it down - get hot, got to town

1935

Freak Lip - a pair of lips that won't quit no matter how long or hard the musician plays

1935


1935

My Chops is Beat - when a brass man's lips give out

1935

Wax a Disc - cut a record

1935

Boogie Man - a critic

1935

Joe Below - a musician who plays under scale

1935

Chill ya - when an unusual hot passion gives you goose bumps

1935


1935


1935


1935


1935


1935


1935


1935


1936


1936


1936


1936


1936


1936


1936

Armstrong is king of the trumpet. He is currently doing Pop songs such as Swing that Music for Decca. See GRP CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra - Vol 2 - Rhythm Saved the World or Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1934-1936.

1936

Joe "King" Oliver is out of music. He moves to Savannah, becomes a janitor and runs a fruit stand. He is basically destitute. His teeth gave out and he could no longer play the trumpet.

1936

Ellington records Echoes of Harlem.

1936

Teddy Wilson is featured with a Goodman small band at the Congress. The color barrier (at least in the North) is beginning to crumble.

1936

Lionel Hampton is playing in the Benny Goodman quartet (formerly trio).

1936

Goodman has the most popular Swing band, but.

1936

John Hammond hears the Basie band on late night radio in Chicago and arranges for bookings, a record contract and a trip to New York for an engagement at the Famous Door.

1936

The Basie band begins to accumulate a major amount of talent because he essentially absorbed the talent of the two major southwest bands, the Blue Devils and the Benny Moten band. He will continue to attract the best southwest talent until the 1940's. A lot of people consider the Basie band the best Swing band with personnel such as Buck Clayton on trumpet, Benny Morton and Dicky Wells on trombone, Lester Young on tenor sax, Walter Page on bass, etc. The list goes on.

1936


1936

Basie's band swings better than Goodman's and some of the Basie band members are already beginning to plant the seeds of Bop. Basie's 1936 record Lady be Good featured a very cool, behind the beat, sax by Lester Young in an era of very hot solos. Lester claims the white players Frankie Trumbauer and Bix Beiderbecke as his major influences.

1936

Basie's small band the K.C. Six records such songs as Dicky's Dream which can be found on the Columbia CD The Essential Count Basie - Vol 1.

1936

Lester Young makes his first recordings with a small group drawn from the Basie band. The band included Lester on tenor, Basie on piano, Jo Jones on drums, Walter Page on bass and Carl "Tatt" Smith and was called Jones-Smith, Inc. Lester considers his solo on Shoe Shine Swing his finest.

1936

Billie Holiday (Lester's good friend) begins to record with various small bands (usually lead by Teddy Wilson and usually containing Lester Young). These recordings which will be done over the next six years until the recording ban of 1942 will be the work on which her reputation rests. She has already discovered the two secrets which will make her the greatest Jazz singer of all with Did I Remember?, No Regrets and Billies Blues. They are 1) lift the melody away from the beat like Armstrong and 2) employ great balance.

1936

Django Reinhardt and the Hot Quintet make a recording of I Can't Give You Anything but Love. Django is playing better than ever. His showers of 16th notes presage Charlie Christian and Charlie Parker. Over the next four years, he will record the songs that make up the heart of his work.

1936

Charlie Parker buys a new saxophone after being awarded some money in an auto accident.

1936

Important Free Jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler is born.

1936

Important Free Jazz trumpeter Don Cherry is born.

1936


1936


1936


1936


1936


1936


1936


1936


1936


1936


1936


1936


1936


1937


1937


1937


1937


1937


1937


1937


1937

Vocalist Carol Sloane born in Providence, RI.

1937

By Joel Simpson

Origins

Meade Anderson Lewis was born September 4, 1905, in Chicago and died June 7, 1964 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in a car accident. He came from a musical family. He acquired the nickname "Lux" because as a child he would imitate the excessively polite comic strip characters Alphonse and Gaston, calling himself the Duke of Luxembourg. His father, a Pullman car porter, insisted he play the violin as a child. At age 16, when his father died, Lewis switched to the piano after hearing local boogie-woogie pianist Jimmy Yancey. Lewis was entirely self-taught on piano. He was a boyhood friend of Albert Ammons. Together they studied the music of Jimmy Yancey and other Chicago blues pianists. They also drove taxis together around 1924.

In 1927, Lewis recorded his boogie "Honky-Tonk Train Blues," a driving boogie based on the sounds of the trains that rumbled past his boyhood home on South La Salle Street in Chicago as many as a hundred times a day. The record was released 18 months later in 1929, but attracted little attention. The recording company, Paramount, went out of business, and the record became almost impossible to obtain. Lewis did various things to survive at the time, the beginning of the Depression: he dug ditches for the Works Progress Administration and he returned to taxicab driving.

Discovery

In 1933, jazz promoter/producer and record collector John Hammond (heir to the Hammond organ fortune) obtained a beat-up copy of Lewis's recording. He was so impressed with it that he embarked on a two-year search for the pianist. Hammond found Lewis in 1935, through Albert Ammons. Ammons was playing in Chicago's Club De Lisa, and he was the first person Hammond met who had ever heard of Lewis. Hammond found Lewis washing cars in a Chicago garage. After a few days practice Lewis got "Honkey Tonk Train Blues" back up to speed, and Hammond arranged a recording session to rerecorded it. The following year Hammond recorded Lewis's other classic, "Yancey Special" and booked him in a concert in New York. Following the concert Lewis performed at Nick's in Greenwich Village for six weeks, then returned to Chicago and applied for relief as an unemployed car washer.

Then in 1938 Hammond invited Lewis back to New York to perform in his legendary Carnegie Hall concert From Spirituals to Swing along with boogie-woogie pianists Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson. The performance was an enormous hit, setting off a minor riot among the fans and spawning a flood of boogie-woogie imitators. The boogie-woogie craze was on. The three pianists got together with blues singer Joe Turner and held down a long-term engagement at the Cafe Society Downtown.

Style

Lewis had the most pianistically complex style of the three major boogie pianists. He had a vast repertoire of bass patterns and right hand riffs and figures. He was more intense and quicker than his mentor Jimmy Yancey, and he frequently varied his left hand by going into stride. He had a fertile musical imagination and technique to match. He could keep a single boogie going for 20 or 30 minutes by careful use of his material: each chorus would be based on a single technical idea, which he would conclude with an unexpected twist. He used the whole range of the piano. Sometimes choruses would be linked developmental and sometimes by dramatic contrast. He utilized dynamic variety and cross-rhythms much more than the other boogie pianists.

Lewis was an excellent whistler and could whistle the blues with the ease of a trumpet-like style. He recorded "Whistlin' Blues" in 1937. He also recorded blues played on the celesta and the harpsichord.

After the Peak

In 1941 Lewis moved to Los Angeles, where most of his appearances were relatively low-paying solo gigs. He made a number of short films in 1944 (an excerpt from one is included with this program) and appeared with Louis Armstrong in the 1947 film New Orleans. He made frequent appearances on television during its early years. In 1952, along with Pete Johnson, Erroll Garner and Art Tatum he did a series of concerts on a U. S. tour entitled "Piano Parade." In his later years he became frustrated at being identified purely as a boogie-woogie pianist, and his playing was frequently rushed and perfunctory.

Lewis's weight hovered around 290 pounds until he underwent medical treatments, gave up alcohol and restricted his diet. He died in a car accident June 6, 1964, in Minneapolis after a performance. Rear-ended at 80 miles per hour, his car was thrown into a tree, and he was crushed to death. The driver of the other car was seriously injured but survived.


1937


1937


1937


1937


1937

Armstrong is still going strong and is still doing Pop songs. See Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1937-1938.

1937

Charlie Parker joins piano player Jay McShann's band in Kansas City. Parker will play in this band on and off until 1941.

1937


1937

Charlie spends the summer playing a grueling schedule at an Ozark Mountain resort. His playing improves considerably. He acquires the nickname Yardbird at this time. This, as we all know, will later become simply Bird.

1937

Duke Ellington band records the classic Caravan.

1937

Pittsburgh drum innovator Kenny Clarke moves the ground beat from the Bass/Hi-hat combination (previously innovated by Walter Johnson and Jo Jones) to the large ride cymbal. This moves the ground beat completely away from the bass drum and makes faster Bop-type rhythms possible. Clarke found that he could get pitch and timbre variations and produce an airy sound. He also was then free to use the bass drum in a new manner, to "drop bombs". He said that he simply got tired of playing like Jo Jones, but this was an important innovation in the development of modern Jazz (maybe as important as later innovations by Parker and Gillespie).

1937

Piano innovator and genius Thelonious Monk begins to scuffle for work.

1937

Roy Eldridge's playing is still showing the Armstrong/Red Allen influence. However, by now, the Coleman Hawkins influences are more dominant in his trumpet playing.

1937

Dizzy Gillespie takes Roy Eldridge's place in the Teddy Hill band at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem.

1937

Billie Holiday joins the Count Basie band but does not record with them because of contract issues. Billie and Bill do not get along well.

1937

Django Reinhardt records Ellington's Solitude. Django also records Runnin' Wild and Swing.

1937

Basie trombone player Dickie Wells goes to Europe with the Teddy Hill band.

1937


1937

Clarinetist Edmund Hall leaves the big band of Lucky Millinder to become an anomaly, a black Dixieland player. This is curious, because even though he was from the original New Orleans school and even though he made this move, he apparently did not like Dixieland music (which isn't curious ).

1937

Trumpeter Billy Butterfield joins Bob Crosby's Bobcats (a Dixieland style big band).

1937

Trumpeter Bunny Berigan is with Tommy Dorsey.

1937

By now, "Swing is King". There are dozens of Swing bands . The boom is really on. There are two different streams feeding the river. One is the Henderson/Goldkette stream using interesting scores and precise playing and the other is the Southwest school which emphasizes riffs and solos.

1937

Jelly Roll Morton is rediscovered by Alan Lomax. The famous Library of Congress recordings result. The Dixieland movement begins.

1937

Bessie Smith dies in a car accident in Clarksdale, Mississippi on September 26. The old is dying in Jazz and the new is coming on strong.

1937

Mahalia Jackson cuts her first record.

1937

Bassist Leroy "Slam" Stewart meets guitarist Bulee "Slim" Gaillard. They will form the popular duo "Slim and Slam".

1937

Archie Shepp (future Free Jazz giant) is born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He will grow up in Philadelphia, Pa.

1937


1937

Trumpeter Joe Smith dies in New York at the young age of 35.

1937


1937

At age twelve, Art Pepper receives an alto saxophone for Christmas.

1937


1937


1937


1937


1937


1937


1937


1937


1937


1937

Vibraphonist Red Norvo's band records Eddie Sauter's arrangement of

1937


1937


1937


1937


1937


1937


1938


1938


1938


1938


1938


1938


1938


1938


1938


1938


1938

Armstrong records such popular songs as Hoagy Carmichael's Jubilee, a remake of his own Struttin' with some Barbecue and I Double Dare You. See Classics CD Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra 1938-1939.

1938

Charlie Parker acquires a mentor. He is Henry "Buster" or "Professor" Smith, a Kansas City alto saxophonist and band leader formerly with Basie. Parker joins Smith's band.

1938


1938

Charlie Parker is being heavily influenced by tenor saxophonist Lester Young and piano virtuoso Art Tatum. Charlie goes to Chicago and then New York. He picks up odd jobs to support his playing. One of these jobs is as a dishwasher in a club where Art Tatum is playing. Tatum plays fast with numerous chord changes. This style would be Charlie's also.

1938

Duke Ellington meets Billy Strayhorn. Strayhorn shows him Lush Life. Ellington is duly impressed.

1938

Billie Holiday is currently with the Artie Shaw band. Basie had let her go because of her work habits.

1938

Barney Josephson books Billy to work the Cafe' Society. The Cafe' Society was one of the first clubs to accept black customers.

1938

Lester Young records a number of very influential sides for Commodore with the Kansas City Six. Young plays mostly clarinet here and produces excellent solos on Pagin' the Devil, I Want a Little Girl and Way Down Yonder in New Orleans.

1938

The Basie band is booked at The Famous Door in New York City. This event will finally give the band the publicity that it needs to succeed. John Hammond is instrumental.

1938

Trumpet virtuoso Roy Eldridge begins to work primarily in the small band format. He has developed excellent control of his ideas by now.

1938

Saxophonist Louis Jordan leaves Chick Webb's sax section to form his Tympani Five. This might well mark the beginnings of what we know as Rock and Roll.

1938

The Artie Shaw Band has its first big hit with Begin the Beguine. A lot of Shaw's fans claimed that he should have been the "King of Swing" instead of Goodman because he had numerous big hits and Goodman had only one or two.

1938

Saxophonist Benny Carter returns to the U.S. He organizes a Swing band which will enjoy modest success.

1938

King Oliver dies on April 8.

1938

Sidney Bechet is currently working as a tailor. Check out Sidney Bechet 1932-1943: The Bluebird Sessions on Bluebird CD.

1938

Sidney Bechet records a version of Summertime that many people call the definitive version of Summertime.

1938

John Hammond brings Blues shouter Big Joe Turner to New York City for a Carnegie Hall concert.

1938

Hammond's famous "From Spirituals to Swing" concert occurs at Carnegie Hall.

1938

Benny Goodman does a concert at Carnegie Hall. The famous long version of Sing, Sing, Sing is introduced at this concert.

1938

Boogie Woogie piano players Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis become the main Boogie piano players after their trio performance at the the "From Spirituals to Swing" concert.

1938

Django Reinhardt records Billets Doux, Swing from Paris, Them There Eyes and Three Little Words.

1938


1938

Hugues Panassie' comes to New York City and organizes a recording session with J. P. Johnson on piano, Tommy Ladnier, Teddy Bunn on guitar, Bechet and others.

1938

Jump bands begin to form. These are small, Swing oriented bands featuring off color lyrics and commercial arrangements. Louis Jordan has the most famous Jump band. These bands will evolve into Rock and Roll bands, possibly in response to the later Bop revolution.

1938

Vocalist Slim Gaillard and bassist Slam Stewart (affectionately known as "Slim and Slam") become almost instantly famous with the catchy Flat Foot Floogie.

1938

Robert Johnson makes his landmark recordings for Vocalion. Many believe that these represent the transition from Country Blues to City Blues. Johnson is strictly following the twelve bar Blues form. Johnson is murdered shortly thereafter when he is given poisoned whiskey in a Mississippi bar by the jealous boyfriend of a woman he had been flirting with.

1938

Future piano player Cecil Taylor is taking piano lessons from the wife of a timpani player who played with Toscanini. She lived across the street. Taylor will become big in the Free Jazz movement.

1938

Sister Rosetta Tharpe becomes the first Gospel singer to sing at a night club when she performs at the Cotton Club.

1938

Trumpet virtuoso Lee Morgan is born on July 10 in Philadelphia, Pa.

1938

Marvin Gaye is born.

1938


1938


1938


1938


1938


1938


1938


1938


1938


1938

From Spirituals to Swing John Hammond Carnegie Hall 1938 - John Hammond produces the 'From Spirituals to Swing' concert at Carnegie Hall (then again in 1939). This would be the first time race music and an integrated band would be presented on a major US Stage. Vanguard would eventually release a multi-LP collection and then a CD boxset with these recordings. Hammond intends to answer "Where did jazz come from" with his choice of styles and artists. Artists on the bill included: Count Basie (with Lips Page, Lester Young, Jo Jones and Walter Page) Helen Humes Kansas City Five, Six Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons Meade Lux Lewis/Albert Ammons/Pete Johnson/Walter Page/Jo Jones Joe Turner Sister Rosetta Tharpe New Orleans Feetwarmers Jimmy Rushing Benny Goodman Sextet (with Fletcher Henderson, Charlie Christian and Lionel Hampton) Ida Cox Sonny Terry Big Bill Broonzy

1938


1938


1939


1939


1939


1939


1939


1939


1939


1939


1939


1939


1939


1939


1939


1939

  • Oscar Aleman: Dear Old Southland
  • Louis Armstrong: Hear Me Talkin' To Ya; Save It, Pretty Mama; West End Blues; Savoy Blues
  • Charlie Barnet: Echoes Of Harlem; Scotch And Soda; Only A Rose
  • Count Basie: Miss Thing; Twelfth Street Rag
  • Lionel Hampton: Shufflin' At The Hollywood; Sweethearts On Parade; Denison Swing; Wizzin' The Wizz

1939


1939


1939


1939


1939


1939


1939


1939

War breaks out in Europe.

1939

At this point in time, we have the Swing players who are king and the Dixieland players who are trying to revive what they think of as "real" Jazz but ... what's this up on the horizon? It's Charlie Christian, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie who are sowing the seeds of what will take Jazz over in the next few years!

1939

By now, there are hundreds of Swing bands, but the Bop rebellion is beginning because many excellent young black players are getting irritated that the whites are making most of the money in Jazz.

1939

52nd Street is by now called "Swing Street". It all started with The Onyx. Now, in the block between 5th and 6th Avenues, six Jazz clubs offer a high level of Jazz. Four of these are The Famous Door, Jimmy Ryan's, The Onyx and The Three Dueces. Because of space limitations, the small house band with one major soloist like Coleman Hawkins is the thing at these clubs.

1939

Clubs also flourish in Greenwich Village, Harlem and in Chicago's south side, but 52nd Street is the symbolic headquarters of Jazz.

1939

The first formal books on Jazz appear. They are Wilder Hobson's American Jazz Music and Frederick Ramsey and Charles Edward Smith's Jazzmen. These books tend to paint a storybook picture of New Orleans Jazz and help to promote the Dixieland Revival. It must be remembered that New Orleans Jazz and Dixieland Jazz have some fundamental differences.

1939

Frederick Ramsey and William Russell locate and revive interest in the sixty year old New Orleans trumpeter Bunk Johnson. Bunk is as close as you could come to getting the legendary Buddy Bolden.

1939


1939

Alan Lomax does the famous Jelly Roll Morton recordings for the Library of Congress. This presents as close as we can get to a realistic view of the early days of Jazz.

1939

Fletcher "Smack" Henderson becomes the first black musician who is a regular member of a white big band when he becomes Goodman's pianist. Fletcher is not, however, a featured artist in the band.

1939

The Dixieland revival has two schools 1) Those committed to Armstrong, Oliver and Morton and 2) Those committed to Bix and the midwesterners. Dixieland is not really New Orleans music. It has a 4 beat ground beat instead of a 2 beat ground beat to give it a speedier feel. There are other differences. Dixieland is primarily a white movement.

1939

Armstrong is going ever more commercial. Louie plays Bottom in a parody of William Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream called Swingin' the Dream.

1939


1939

Charlie Parker is in New York City working at Clarke Monroe's Uptown. He'll be at Monroe's for about a year. One night during this year, Charlie realizes that by using the high notes of the chords of a song, he can "play what's inside of him". The rest is the history of Bop. Charlie returns to Kansas City to play in Jay McShann's band. It will be awhile before everyone realizes that he is a genius.

1939


1939

Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie is currently with Cab Calloway's band which also included Coleman Hawkins style tenor sax man Chu Berry. Dizzy was occasionally doing some things musically which others found strange. He would slip briefly into a chord containing notes 1/2 step away from normal. This practice will become standard Bop.

1939

The Ellington band begins a four year period of very high attainment. Many consider this period the best of Ellington. The Duke severs ties with Irving Mills and he leaves the Columbia label to record for RCA-Victor.

1939

Pittsburgh pianist and composer Billy Strayhorn joins the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

1939

Teddy Wilson leaves the Benny Goodman small groups and Jess Stacy leaves the Benny Goodman big band. At this point the Earl Hines influenced Wilson is the most influential pianist in Jazz. Jess Stacy is also of the Hines school.

1939

Ben Webster joins Duke on tenor sax after a short stint as a charter member of the short lived Teddy Wilson band.

1939

Jimmy Blanton joins Duke on bass.

1939

Coleman Hawkins returns to the U.S. to reclaim his title. The story goes that at three o'clock one morning, Coleman enters a club where Lester Young is playing behind Billie Holiday and a battle for tenor sax supremacy ensues. Holiday says that Lester is the clear winner, but Ellington trumpeter Rex Stewart says that Hawkins blew Young away. At any rate, Hawkins remains more popular in the short run, although Lester becomes a major force as an influence on the fledgling Bop movement.

1939

Coleman Hawkins does a version of Body and Soul which many feel is among the finest masterpieces of Jazz. It is virtually an exercise in chromatic chord movement. This is a precursor to Bop harmonics. Coleman understands harmonics very well and he will have no problem with Bop harmonics. The Bop rhythm will however elude him.

1939

Earl "Bud" Powell quits high school at age fifteen and begins gigging around New York City as a professional pianist. Bud was influenced early by Hines, Teddy Wilson and Billy Kyle. He will later be influenced by Art Tatum.

1939

Mary Lou Williams tells John Hammond of a bright young guitarist from Texas named Charlie Christian. Hammond tells Goodman. Goodman is not at first impressed, but some of the band members are. They arrange for Charlie to play while Benny is off on break. Benny comes back and this time likes what he hears so much that he lets Charlie play a version of Rose Room that lasts close to an hour.

1939

Charlie Christian's unique electric guitar phrasings allow the guitar to compete as a lead instrument head to head with the trumpet and the sax for the first time. Charlie probably learned of the electric from Floyd Smith whose Floyd's Guitar Blues made with Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy is the first important use of the electric guitar. The electric guitar was almost unknown before this.

1939

Woody Herman is leading a conventional swing orchestra and hits big with "Woodchopper's Ball." He is known by band members as a great organizer, musical coach and spirited performer.

1939

Django records Montemarte, Solid Old Man, Low Cotton and Finesse with the Duke Ellington band.

1939

Young drummer Art Blakey is playing in a band of Pittsburghers which is formed by Fletcher Henderson. Art will eventually become a first rate Hard Bop drummer and bandleader.

1939


1939

Nat "King" Cole arrives at the idea of a trio consisting of piano, guitar and bass in which all players share a prominent role. Believe it or not, this was a very important innovation of the time and it made Nat's early carreer. He'll soon give up the piano and become the popular singer who we all know.

1939

Oscar Peterson is playing piano at a radio station in Canada at age fourteen.

1939

Saxophonist Bud Freeman remakes a number of Bix Beiderbecke and the Wolverines tunes.

1939

Mugsy Spanier, an Oliver style trumpeter, forms a Dixieland band called Spanier's Ragtimers. Ragtimer records appear in the U.S. and travel to Europe.

1939


1939

Record companies begin to reissue the old music.

1939

Trumpeter Tommy Ladnier dies in New York at the young age of 39.

1939

John Coltrane's father and grandfather die.

1939


1939


1939


1939

  • Billie Holiday records Long Gone Blues; You're Too Lovely To Last; Under A Blue Jungle Moon; Everything Happens For The Best; Why Did I Always Depend On You.

  • Django Reinhardt records Jeepers Creepers; Swing 39; Japanese Sandman; Hungaria; I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight.

  • Duke Ellington records a Portrait Of The Lion; Savoy Strut; Rent Party Blues; Dance Of The Goon; Good Gal Blues; Finesse.

1939

Pianist Albert Ammons records "Shout for Joy".

1939


1939


1939


1939

Founding of Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) helps the wider exposure of independent labels and race and hillbilly music.

1940


1940


1940


1940


1940

The so-called Blanton-Webster Band was at its best on this session for Victor Records. Of the five songs they recorded that day two became instant classics, "Ko-Ko" and "Jack, The Bear", a feature for bassist Jimmy Blanton.

1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940

Charlie Parker goes on the road with Jay McShann to Wichita, Kansas. He is recorded by the local radio. His sound is thin and light and he is still basically a Swing player. On the other hand, the jagged phrasing, fast triplets and sixteenth are there.

1940


1940

Charlie Christian is edging into something new both rhythmically and harmonically. He is presaging Bop. Parker usually gets most of the credit and Gillespie the rest. The Christian solo on a recording of Stardust also is showing influence of Django.

1940

Dizzy deliberately uses major thirds over minor changes in the song Pickin' the Cabbage recorded in May. In June, he uses a diminished 9th on Bye, Bye Blues. These things are new.

1940

Kenny Clarke is fired from the Teddy Hill band for his "odd" drumming.

1940

Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Christian are occasionally beginning or ending phrases on 2nd and 4th beats. This is called "offbeat". The usual practice is to use the 1st or 3rd.

1940


1940

Henry Minton asks Teddy Hill to take over the management of his place on 118th Street. Strangely enough, Hill asks the recently fired Kenny Clarke to organize and front the band. The band is Clarke on drums, Thelonious Monk on piano, Nick Fenton bass and Joe Guy on trumpet. Dizzy Gillespie begins showing up regularly. The music is mainstream except for Clarke's "odd" drumming and Monk's unusual piano playing.

1940

Bud Powell begins showing up at Minton's. He is not readily accepted, but Monk realizes that he has potential and supports him. Ironically, Bud will become a much more sought after Bop pianist than Monk. The genius Monk nevertheless will write the 1947 song In Walked Bud in his honor. See Blue Note CD Genius of Modern Music - Vol 1, a compilation of Monk's music. Powell's influence is not Monk, but Charlie Parker.

1940

Swing is at its peak, but the seeds of Bebop have been sown and the Dixielanders are digging up the old music. Swing is doomed to fall.

1940

Big band Swing is about to be done in by the war and economics. Small band Jazz is evolving along two distinct and opposing movements. The first is the New Orleans Revival or Dixieland. This produced little that was new musically. It was a white movement to revive and exploit the black New Orleans music of the 1920's. Some notable legends resurface including Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory and Bunk Johnson. Some memorable records result. The other movement is distinctly new musically and sociologically. This movement is called Bebop, Rebop or simply Bop.

1940

In addition, the small band Swing is still there and a new big band trend is afoot. This trend is called Progressive. Its proponents are Stan Kenton, Boyd Raeburn and Earle Spencer. This will eventually influence what will become Cool Jazz.

1940

Claude Thornhill organizes a Swing band that, while not successful, presages Cool Jazz.

1940

Trumpeter Oran "Hot Lips" Page becomes the first black musician who is a regular member and a featured artist in a white big band when he is hired by Artie Shaw.

1940

Meanwhile, the most successful of the early Cuban bands is formed by a man named Machito. They are called Machito and his Afro-Cubans. They start as a completely Cuban band and slowly assimilate Jazz into their repertoire. They introduce more complex rhythms to the world of Jazz, however, they are primarily successful due to their trumpet player/arranger Mario Banza (Machito's brother-in-law and former Cab Calloway trumpet player).

1940

Saxophones have all but taken over, but trumpeters such as Frankie Newton with the Teddy Hill band, Oran "Hot Lips" Page with Basie, Bill Coleman with Benny Carter and Teddy Hill and Charlie Shavers with Tommy Dorsey begin to strike back. Joe Thomas is excellent but will soon be forgotten.

1940

There is a Trad Jazz revival in Europe. The Europeans discover Joe Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton.

1940

All of Europe except England is under Hitler's control and thus Europe will remain in the Dixieland revival and Trad Jazz phase.

1940


1940

Ben Webster has broken free of the Coleman Hawkins imitator image and has developed a style of his own. After the Teddy Wilson band breaks up, he is hired by Ellington. He benefits and he brings a strong tenor influence to Ellington for the first time.

1940

Ellington records Cottontail, a good swinger. It is actually a rearrangement of George Gerschwin's I've Got Rhythm. The feature player is tenor saxophonist Ben Webster who had recently come to the Ellington band. Cottontail anticipates Parker-style Bop.

1940

Ellington records Ko-Ko which contains elements of modality, Jack the Bear, Morning Glory, Across the Track Blues and others.

1940

According to Bluebird records and others, Ellington is beginning a peak era in his band's career. See the three CD set Duke Ellington - The Blanton-Webster Years on, you guessed it, Bluebird.

1940

Trumpeter Cootie Williams leaves Duke Ellington and joins Benny Goodman's band. Duke Ellington replaces him with Ray Nance who plays trumpet, violin and sings.

1940

Coleman Hawkins faces the challenge of Bop and encourages the young players.

1940

Lester Young records with the Benny Goodman Sextet. These recordings for some reason are not released until the 1970's. The band includes Goodman on clarinet, Artie Bernstein on bass, Charlie Christian on electric guitar, Lester on tenor sax, Buck Clayton on trumpet , Jo Jones on drums and Count Basie on piano -- that's seven? Young is the dominant force and stands out on I Never Knew.

1940

Trumpeter Roy Eldridge can now be heard at his best on I Can't Believe that You're in Love with Me with Coleman Hawkins on tenor, Benny Carter on alto and Sid Catlett on drums.

1940

Trumpeter Bunny Berigan returns to the Dorsey Band after his own attempts at leading fail. He will later attempt to lead another band and then die of pneumonia is 1942.

1940

The Yerba-Beuna Jazz Band featuring Lu Watters begins to play at the Dawn Club in San Francisco. It played the music of Oliver and Armstrong.

1940

Sister Rosetta Tharpe is the leading gospel singer and is popular in Jazz as well.

1940

Swedish trumpeter Gosta Turner is playing Dixieland.

1940

Herbie Hancock is born in Chicago on April 12.

1940

Al Jarreau is born.

1940

Smokey Robinson is born.

1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1940


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941


1941

Bop begins in New York City. At first, Bop is only a few new ideas.

1941

The Minton guys (see 1940) hear of an obscure alto sax player named Charlie Parker who is now playing at Clark Monroe's Uptown House. They go to hear Charlie. He's doing similar things to the things that they are doing but he's way ahead. Kenny Clarke and Thelonious Monk arrange for Parker to sit in at Minton's. The stage is set.

1941

Charlie Parker is still with Jay McShann. Charlie makes his first recordings for Decca. His style is by now discernable. His playing is confident and strong. Charlie meets Dizzy Gillespie when Diz sits in with McShann at the Savoy Ballroom. The Boppers hit 52nd Street. Parker begins to sit in at Minton's (the breeding ground of Bop).

1941

Dizzy Gillespie is well schooled in music. This is particularly important in building a theory to support Bop. In May, Dizzy is playing primarily in the Roy Eldridge mold, but he is slipping into the Bop-like stuff that he'd been fooling around with for two years.

1941


1941

Bud Powell meets the creators of Bop at Minton's (an event later immortalized in the Monk song In Walked Bud). He will become Bop's premiere pianist.

1941

Others at Minton's include Monk on piano, Kenny Clarke on drums and Dizzy on trumpet. Monk will become a high priest of Bop. Parker and Dizzy are given credit for founding it. Clarke developed the rhythm on which it sits.

1941

The guys at Minton's after hours sessions were playing something close to Bop at this time, but no one could imitate it because it hadn't been recorded yet. The recording ban (starting in 1942) will make the development of the new Bop something of a romantic mystery even to this day.

1941

A quote from Tony Scott: "When Bird and Diz hit the street [52nd Street] regularly, everybody was astounded and nobody could get near their way of playing music. Finally, Bird and Diz made records, and then the guys could imitate it and go from there."

1941

Art Blakey stated years later that Monk was the guy who started it all, not Parker or Gillespie. On a few recordings made by Jerry Newman at Minton's, Monk seems to be Tatum influenced at this point. His style will become much sparer.

1941

Kenny Clarke's new Bebop style of drumming (see 1937) is finally documented on a May recording at Minton's.

1941

Bop players are substituting different but related chords for normal, mainstream "Swing" chords. Rhythm changes in Bop are bigger than the harmonic changes however. They are using faster tempos for fast songs and slower tempos for slow songs. The beats are divided more evenly for fast songs and fast tempos than Swing.

1941

Bop players are deliberately playing "off-beat".

1941

Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson joins the Cootie Williams orchestra.

1941

Roy Eldridge becomes the first black performer to be accepted as a permanent member of a white big band when he joins drummer Gene Krupa's big band.

1941

John Coltrane's mother moves to Philadelphia.

1941

Coltrane receives a clarinet as a gift and he joins community and school bands in High Point, North Carolina. Later in high school, after hearing Johnny Hodges, Coltrane decides to play the alto saxophone. Lester Young is among his favorite musicians.

1941

The Ellington Band continues on what critics say is its best period. Duke records such favorites as I Got it Bad and That Ain't Good, Take the A-Train, The Brown Skin Gal, Chelsea Bridge, etc. See Bluebird CD Duke Ellington - The Blanton-Webster Years.

1941

Duke records as a soloist for the first time.

1941

Vibes man Lionel Hampton leaves Benny Goodman to form his own big band.

1941

Cab Calloway is hit by a spitball during a concert in Hartford, Connecticut. Although trumpeter Jonah Jones probably threw it, Calloway blamed Dizzy Gillespie. A fight ensued and Calloway was nicked by a knife. Dizzy was fired.

1941

Check out Joe Thomas's trumpet masterpiece Stompin' at the Savoy with Art Tatum, Joe Turner and Edmond Hall.

1941

Future piano innovator Bill Evans is asked to sit in for a missing pianist in his brother's Jazz group.

1941

Stan Kenton forms his first band.

1941

Gil Evans joins the Claude Thornhill band. The band moves in the direction of Bop.

1941

Bassist and future composer Charlie Mingus gets a job with Louis Armstrong's big band.

1941

Billie Holiday begins an affair with drug addict Jimmy Monroe and becomes addicted to drugs herself.

1941

They record four songs: Let's Do It; Georgia On My Mind; Romance In The Dark; All Of Me.

1941

Charlie Christian collapses from tuberculosis, which he had for a few years. He is sent to Seaview Sanitarium on Staten Island.

1941

Swing is both peaking and on its way out. It will become defunct because the younger musicians will be drawn to Bop. But, currently, bands such as Benny Goodman Band, Glenn Miller Band, Tommy Dorsey Band, etc. are as highly regarded as the Beatles will become in the 60's.

1941

Mel Powell, a Hines-like piano player, joins the thriving Goodman Band.

1941

Tenor saxophone player Chu Berry is killed in a automobile accident.

1941

Jelly Roll Morton dies on July 10 in Los Angeles.

1941

Dixieland trumpeter Wild Bill Davison moves to New York where he becomes a regular at Nick's and Condon's.

1941

Otis Redding is born in Georgia.

1941

Saxophonist Lester Young turns Jack Kerouac, the founding father of the "beat generation", on to his first marijuana cigarette.

1942


1942


1942


1942


1942


1942


1942


1942


1942


1942


1942


1942


1942


1942


1942


1942

The recording ban limits recording of the fledgling Bop movement. The result is that Bop origins remain mysterious to this day. The ban had resulted from a strike by the Federation of American Musicians which began in August.

1942

It is becoming very clear to musicians that Bop is indeed a new music. A number of Jazz musicians are now playing Bop.

1942

Armstrong marries a Cotton Club dancer named Lucille Wilson. They will remain married until Louie's death.

1942


1942

Charlie Parker is now jamming regularly at Minton's and playing the Savoy Ballroom with the Jay McShann band. An example of Parker's work at this time is Sepian Blues recorded with McShann. It is Blues inflected Swing. Parker was a Blues player.

1942

An amateur recording of Parker playing Cherokee at Minton's is made by Jerry Newman. This is music in transition.

1942

Parker quits McShann in July and joins Noble Sissle's Band where he plays clarinet and alto sax.

1942

Parker is acquiring a very bad drug habit and bad personal habits in general.

1942


1942

The Earl Hines big band seems to be a breeding ground for Bop. Many of the Bop players are currently with Hines. The list includes Parker, Gillespie, trombonist Benny Green, drummer Shadow Wilson and others. The band's vocalist is Billy Eckstine. Both Hines and Eckstine are from Pittsburgh, Pa.

1942

Ellington wins Downbeat Poll. Some records from this year are C-Jam Blues, Moon Mist, Sentimental Lady and Perdido. See the Blanton-Webster collection which was mentioned earlier.

1942

Lionel Hampton has a huge hit with Illinois Jacquet's sax playing on Flying Home.

1942

Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie are both playing in Lucky Millinder's band.

1942

Dizzy Gillespie writes two of his all-time classic compositions, A Night in Tunisia and Salt Peanuts.

1942

Charlie Christian dies from tuberculosis in February. He had been improving but his friends began to bring liquor and women into the sanitarium . It proved to be too much. He was only 22.

1942

Bandleader Woody Herman commissions trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie to write some compositions which lead to a newer, more progressive sound for his band.

1942

Trumpet player Miles Davis (sixteen years old) is playing with a local East Saint Louis band called the Blue Devils (not the Walter Page group).

1942

New Orleans legend Bunk Johnson is fitted with dentures and begins to play trumpet again.

1942

Future Free Jazz pianist, Cecil Taylor (only 9) is already interested in Jazz, especially Swing.

1942

Belgian Robert Goffin and Englishman Leonard Feather act on Goffin's idea to have a formal class on Jazz history and analysis. The class consists of fifteen lectures by Feather and Goffin which are augmented by recordings and musical demonstrations by such artists as Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. The class which attracted almost one hundred serious Jazz students was given at the New School for Social Research in New York. It was repeated later in the year.

1942

Bunny Berigan dies of alcoholism related pneumonia. Berigan was a fine trumpeter, second only to Armstrong in the warmth and sincerity of his tone.

1942

Pittsburgh pianist Erroll Garner comes to New York and finds steady work on 52nd Street.

1942

One of the first European Trad bands is founded by French student Claude Abadie.

1942

Aretha Franklin is born in Memphis.

1943

Mingus leaves Armstrong to work in Kid Ory's revival band.

1943

Pianist Lenny Tristano is currently teaching at the Christiansen School of Popular Music and playing piano and reeds professionally in Chicago.

1943

Stan Kenton has a hit with Artistry in Rhythm which is based on Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe. A trend to more complex arrangements begins.

1943

Robert Goffin convinces Esquire editor Arnold Gingrich that a "real" Jazz poll, one in which Coleman Hawkins could win for tenor sax instead of Tex Beneke, is needed. Thus is born the Esquire Jazz Band Poll. At Esquire publisher David Smart's suggestion, a concert performed by the winners will be given at the Metropolitan Opera House on January 18, 1944.

1943

Louis Armstrong wins the first Esquire Jazz Band Poll for trumpet. Other winners include Coleman Hawkins for tenor sax and Billie Holiday for vocals.

1943

Pianist Andrew Hill, at age 6, is currently singing and playing accordian in talent shows around chicago.

1943

Jamaican born pianist Wynton Kelly makes his professional debut at around twelve years of age.

1943

Pianist Graeme Bell starts a Trad band in Australia.

1943

Red Norvo switches to vibraphone.

1943

Bluesman John Lee Hooker arrives in Detroit.

1943


1943


1943


1943


1943


1943


1943


1943


1943

Capital and Decca sign with the musician's union.

1943

Bop is becoming well known among young Jazz players.

1943

Charlie Parker is now in the Earl Hines band playing tenor sax. Dizzy is playing trumpet for the Hines band at the same time.

1943

John Coltrane graduates high school and moves to Philadelphia. In the fall, Coltrane attends the Ornstein School of Music to study alto sax.

1943

Charlie Parker marries Geraldine Scott.

1943

Ellington initiates a series of annual concerts at Carnegie Hall with Black, Brown and Beige, an extended concert of nearly 50 minutes.

1943

Ben Webster leaves Ellington to work on 52nd Street in NYC. Ben hears an obscure alto sax player named Charlie Parker and is duly impressed.

1943

In December, Lester Young records a number of very influential sides for Keynote as the Lester Young Quartet. Young is showing signs of change in his playing. His tone is getting thicker and his lines are not nearly as sculptured. Afternoon of a Basie-ite is particularly good.

1943

Gillespie leaves Hines and joins Ellington briefly. Later, Diz takes a group consisting of Gillespie on trumpet, Oscar Pettiford on bass, George Wallington on piano, Max Roach on drums and Don Byas on tenor into the Onyx on 52nd Street. This is a Bop band. They play the Onyx thru the winter of 1943-44. This is the public's first real exposure to Bop.

1943

Bop pianist Bud Powell gets first major job with ex-Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams. Records made by this band shows Bop style very clearly.

1943

Bop trumpeter Fats Navarro is currently playing with Andy Kirk's Clouds of Joy.

1943

Art Tatum forms a trio with Slam Stewart on bass and Tiny Grimes or Everett Barksdale on guitar. Audiences are attracted.

1943

Fats Waller dies on a train while returning from a tour.

1944

Columbia and Victor finally sign with the musician's union and the strike ends at the end of 1944.

1944

Bop is a recognized, controversial movement.

1944

In spring, vocalist Billy Eckstine leaves Earl Hines to form a Bop oriented big band. Dizzy Gillespie is chosen to be in charge of music. Gillespie brings in Charlie Parker.

1944

Charlie Parker is with Billy Eckstine's band. Eckstine had the first big band to feature the Bop artists. Parker is now in full command of his music. He does his first small combo recording with Tiny Grimes.

1944


1944

Parker leaves Eckstine late in the year to front a rhythm section at the Three Deuces.

1944


1944

Dizzy Gillespie is chosen "best new star on trumpet" in Esquire Poll.

1944

The First Bop record is cut by a band fronted by Coleman Hawkins. The band includes Hawkins on tenor sax, Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, Max Roach on drums and Leo Parker on alto sax. Sides are Woody 'n' You and Disorder at the Border.

1944

Piano innovator Thelonious Monk cuts his first records. Coleman Hawkins had been using Monk in a small combo on 52nd Street. In October, Hawkins gives Monk a solo on a recording of Flying Hawk. Monk is forever grateful.

1944

Old Swing drummer Dave Tough and buddies from Woody Herman's band drop in on 52nd Street to hear an early Bop-style band featuring Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet and Oscar Pettiford on bass. Dave says that it is scary. Dave will become one of the few to successfully make the transformation from Swing to Bop.

1944

Trumpeter Little Ben Harris from the Earl Hines Band cuts four sides which are definitely Bop with Oscar Pettiford on bass, Denzil Best on drums and Clyde Hart on piano.

1944

Boyd Raeburn forms a big band dedicated to the Bop musical approach.

1944

Innovative Pittsburgh drummer Art Blakey joins the Eckstine band. Eckstine wanted to hire Shadow Wilson but he was drafted. Blakey was exempt from the draft because of a silver plate in his head (put there after a severe beating by police).

1944

Saxophonist Lester Young is inducted into the army in September. A redneck officer sees a picture of Lester's very light skinned wife in his locker and believes that this is a picture of a white woman. As a result, the officer has Lester court-martialed for possession of marijuana. The officer knew about Lester's pot smoking because of a questionnaire that Lester filled out. Lester is sentenced to a year's detention, but gets off because of his health.

1944

The Eckstine band comes to St. Louis. A young trumpeter named Miles Davis makes a pest of himself, pressing Eckstine to let him sit in. Davis later says that Gillespie asked him to sit in. Eckstine says Miles pressed him. At any rate, Eckstine thinks that Miles is terrible and at this point, he probably is.

1944

The winners of Esquire magazine's first Jazz poll perform in the first Jazz concert ever to be given at the Metropolitan Opera House. The concert date is January 18. The concert is recorded but never released in America. A Japanese release becomes available years later.

1944

Armstrong wins Esquire magazine's Gold Award for trumpet and vocal.

1944

Duke Ellington wins the Downbeat poll.

1944

Trumpeter Cat Anderson joins Ellington's band.

1944

Lester Young joins the army. Since 1936, Lester has created one of the most influential bodies of records.

1944

Ben Webster is hired by CBS Radio.

1944

Ornette Coleman's mother gives him an alto sax. He wanted to join the church band.

1944

Detroit pianist Hank Jones makes his recording debut with trumpeter and Blues singer Hot Lips Page.

1944

George Web's Dixielanders (a Trad band) form in England.

1944

Carlo Loffredo forms the Roman New Orleans Jazz Band in Italy.

1944


1944


1944


1944


1944


1944


1944


1944


1944


1944


1944


1944


1944


1945


1945


1945

It still seems clear at this point that Swing will rule, but.

1945

Bop hits with full force. The musicians union strike ended at the end of 1944 and a lot of Bop gets recorded in 1945.

1945

Bop has broken into the open. It seems to have sprung up fully formed. This is not really the case. It just seems that way because of the musician's strike.

1945

Bop players begin to dress like business men instead of popular performers. Cool becomes the word, not hot. Things become hip, not hep. Performers cooly bow at the end of a tune. They don't mug. They become aloof.

1945

The Bop players have changed the music considerably. It is almost as if they have taken the New Orleans and Swing forms apart and reformed them in a manner similar to what Picasso did when he arrived at the idea of Cubism.

1945

The clarinet has nearly disappeared from Jazz at this point courtesy of the saxophone. By now, the sax is king even forcing trumpeters to take notice.

1945

Jazz is becoming the preferred music of white renegades (will be until the mid 60's).

1945

Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie become known as partners and the co-founders of Bebop. Diz and Bird and Bird and Miles Davis record a number of tunes in Feb, May and Nov which establish Bebop. These tunes which are the most influential sides since the Hot Fives and Sevens include Groovin' High, Salt Peanuts, Hot House, Koko, Billie's Bounce and Now's the Time. These and other tunes which mark the beginning of recorded Bebop can be found on several Savoy Jazz CD's including The Charlie Parker Story and The Genius of Charlie Parker as well the Stash CD The Legendary Dial Sessions: Vol 1.

1945

Diz and Bird go to California to work in a small combo at a club called Billy Berg's. They had been booked by Parker's manager Billy Shaw. Parker is now getting very heavily into drugs. Parker takes up with a hat check girl named Doris Sydnor while he is still married.

1945


1945

Miles Davis graduates high school and moves to New York to become a musician. He enrolls in Julliard at his parents request.

1945

John Coltrane is drafted and plays clarinet with the Navy Band in Hawaii.

1945

Monk is too individualistic of a piano player to be pinned to one school. He is not really a Swing or a Bop player but he has elements of all styles. Monk is, ironically, not the Bopper's piano player of choice. His phrasing is unique and is considered to be perverse by many.

1945

The Bop piano players of choice are Bud Powell, Al Haig and George Wallington.

1945

Bud Powell has a mental breakdown at age 21 and is sent to Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island. He'll be in and out of institutions for the next four years.

1945

Fats Navarro replaces Dizzy Gillespie in the Eckstine Band.

1945

Clifford Brown's father gives him a trumpet.

1945

Saxophonist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis is leading the house band at Minton's Playhouse (until 1952).

1945

Pianist Wild Bill Davis is currently working for Louis Jordan.

1945

Soprano saxophone virtuoso Sidney Bechet continues to record. Check out The Sidney Bechet Sessions on Storyville CD.

1945

Armstrong wins Esquire Gold award for vocal but Swing is going out of style with the musicians.

1945

The Woody Herman big band is incorporating Bop in tunes such as Caldonia and Apple Honey.

1945

Duke Ellington wins the Esquire Gold award for arranger and bandleader as well as the Metronome poll. Oscar Pettiford joins Duke on bass.

1945

Roy Eldridge is in his mid-thirties, at the height of his magnificent trumpet playing powers, and he is becoming passe'. Musicians such as Roy are unfortunately being pushed out by the Boppers and their music.

1945

Art Tatum is thrown into obscurity by the emergence of Bop (a music that he probably influenced substantially).

1945

Lenny Tristano is currently one of the most thoroughly schooled musicians in Jazz.

1945

Benny Carter moves to Hollywood and begins to write movie and TV scores.

1945

The teenaged Art Farmer and his twin brother Addison spend their summer in Los Angeles just as Bop is breaking out.

1945

The term "Moldy Fig" (sometimes "Mouldy Figge") appears for the first time in reference to the old school Jazz players in the Esquire letters column in a letter from a Navy man named Sam Platt.

1945

Eddie Condon opens his Dixieland oriented Jazz club called Eddie Condon's in the Greenwich Village section of New York City.

1945


1945


1945


1945


1945


1945


1945


1945


1945


1945


1945


1946


1946


1946


1946


1946


1946

Charlie Parker breaks down completely on July 29 after a recording session. He is admitted to Camarillo State Hospital. He will later write Relaxin' at Camarillo.

1946

Parker does his first Dial recordings. These are some of the landmark recordings of Jazz. They are available on the Stash CD series The Legendary Dial Masters - Vol 1 and Vol 2.

1946

During 1946 Parker will also start with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic. His sidemen include Miles Davis on trumpet, Red Rodney on trumpet, Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Duke Jordan on piano, Al Haig on piano, Tommy Potter on bass, Max Roach on drums, Roy Haynes on drums, Lester Young on tenor sax and Coleman Hawkins on tenor sax.

1946

Dizzy Gillespie forms a big band, against all odds, at a time when most big bands are going broke.

1946

Bud Powell is recognized as Bop's premiere pianist.

1946

Thelonious Monk is now playing in Dizzy Gillespie's big band. Later this year, Monk signs a contract as a leader with Blue Note. Monk will work as a small band leader from now until 1959.

1946

Saxophonist Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis forms the group Eddie Davis and His Beboppers.

1946

Armstrong wins the Esquire Gold award for Vocalist.

1946


1946

Armstrong stops recording for Decca and begins his second go-around with Victor.

1946

The first vinyl record is produced.

1946

After his discharge from the Navy, Coltrane returns to Philadelphia and works in rhythm and blues bands led by King Kolax, Big Maybelle, and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson. Vinson insists that Coltrane switch to tenor sax to give him more room on the alto. At first Coltrane is reluctant, but the new instrument grows on him. His early models on the tenor saxophone include Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins. Coltrane will continue to work with Vinson on and off for the next two years.

1946

Charles Mingus is now with Lionel Hampton's band.

1946

The Ellington biography Duke Ellington is written by Barry Ulanov. Ellington wins Esquire Gold award and the Downbeat poll. Russell Procope joins Duke on clarinet and alto sax.

1946

In December, eight of the biggest Swing bands break up. The list includes Benny Goodman, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, Jack Teagarden, Benny Carter and 3 more. The Swing era is truly over. Big band Jazz will not die out entirely though.

1946

Django Reinhardt sleeps through a Carnegie Hall concert with Duke Ellington.

1946

Lenny Tristano (Mr. Cool on the piano) arrives in NYC and takes Jazz into more coolness and complexity. His primary source of income is teaching. He quickly develops a reputation as a crazy genius among musicians. He has a lot of new musical ideas. He is consciously trying to weld Jazz and Classical.

1946

The seeds of Cool are being planted by Kenton and Herman.

1946

Stan Kenton has the leading Swing band. Woody Herman's is a close second. These bands are both embracing the Cool.

1946

Woody Herman presents Igor Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto at Carnegie Hall.

1946

A very cool and Canadian Gil Evans arrives on 52nd street.

1946

Claude Thornhill reforms his band. His principal arranger is the "soon to be Cool" Gil Evans.

1946

Nat "King" Cole records the classic Christmas song The Christmas Song. This will later be covered by Johnny Mathis. A lot of people don't even know that Nat recorded this first.

1946

Ray Charles begins his professional carreer.

1946

English piano player George Shearing visits the U.S.

1946

Future Fusion drummer Tony Williams is born in Chicago. Tony will be raised in Boston.

1946


1946


1946

Guitarist Oscar Aleman records

1946


1946


1946


1946


1946


1946

Woody Herman and His Herd perform at Carnegie Hall.

1946


1947


1947


1947


1947


1947


1947


1947


1947


1947


1947


1947

Bop is beginning to dominate American Jazz.

1947

With Bebop well established at this point, it is clear that the mainstream of Jazz is from New Orleans through Swing to Bebop. Bop currently rules.

1947

Early in 1947, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and others record some landmark sides for Dial in California (Ornithology, Loverman, Bebop, etc.) and in New York (Scrapple from the Apple, Dexterity, etc.). These cuts can be found on the Stash CD's which cover the Dial sessions.

1947

Parker forms the Charlie Parker Quintet with Max Roach on drums, Miles Davis on trumpet, Tommy Potter on bass and Duke Jordan on piano. Sides are cut for Dial and Savoy. Ross Russell of Dial thinks these are Parker's best.

1947


1947

In March, Dean Benedetti begins following Parker and recording him (until 1948). The complete recordings can be found on the Mosaic CD The Complete Dean Benedetti Recordings. More noteworthy CD's covering this era are Savoy CD's The Charlie Parker Memorial: Vol 1 and The Genius of Charlie Parker as well as the Stash CD's The Legendary Dial Masters: Vol 1 and Vol 2.

1947

Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie records Manteca with percussionist Chano Pozo. The Cuban influence adds rhythmic complexity to Gillespie's big band sound.

1947

Dizzy and George Russell's Cubana Be, Cubana Bop contains Modal Jazz elements way before its time.

1947

Bassist Al McKibbon joins Dizzy's band.

1947

Bud Powell records under his own name and with Charlie Parker.

1947

Monk makes a series of recordings (first time as a leader) for Alfred Lion at Blue Note. These recordings begin to establish his reputation as a genius. See the Blue Note CD's Genius of Modern Music: Vol 1 and Vol 2. Some notable titles include Ruby, My Dear; Straight, No Chaser; Round Midnight; etc. The work is still not pouring in, however.

1947

Drummer Art Blakey becomes interested in his African heritage. He travels to west Africa to learn to play like an African drummer. He remained in Africa for two years.

1947


1947

Trumpeter Fats Navarro is at his peak. He will not live long due to drug addiction.

1947


1947

Miles Davis becomes Charlie Parker's trumpet player at the age of 21.

1947

Coltrane is becoming increasingly impressed by Dexter Gordon's work on the tenor saxophone.

1947

Charlie Mingus sells his first arrangements Mingus Fingers to Lionel Hampton.

1947

Saxophonist Lee Konitz (a Lenny Tristano disciple) is now playing in the band of Claude Thornhill.

1947

Sonny Rollins graduates from High School.

1947

The big band of Earl Hines disbands. This ends a period of nearly twenty years in which Earl had a good big band.

1947

The saxophone duels of Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray are put on record in June of this year.

1947

Woody Herman's saxophone playing "Four Brothers" become the center of Herman's band. Stan Getz is the best known "Brother".

1947

Billie Holiday Louie Armstrong Louie Armstrong and Billie Holiday appear in the movie New Orleans. Louie plays himself and Billie plays a maid.

1947

Armstrong wins the Esquire Gold award for trumpet and vocal.

1947

Armstrong quits recording for Victor and returns to Decca.

1947

Ellington wins Esquire Gold award.

1947

Eddie Condon replaces Swing oriented Dixielanders with "more authentic" players. Dave Tough and Max Kaminsky are out, George Brunis and Bill Davison are in.

1947

Mahalia Jackson (whose mentor is Thomas E. Dorsey -- aka Georgia Tom -- the father of Gospel) cuts Move on up a Little Higher which sells more than 2,000,000 copies.

1947

Sister Rosetta Tharpe will sing only Gospel from now on.

1947

George Shearing becomes a permanent U.S. resident and works extensively on 52nd street.

1947

The University of North Texas in Denton, Texas offers a Jazz degree. This is the first Jazz degree to be offered in the United States.

1947

Monthly magazine Swing Journal is founded in Japan.

1947


1947


1947


1947


1947


1947


1947


1947


1948


1948


1948


1948


1948

Birdland (named after Charlie Parker) opens in New York City.

1948

Notable 1947 Savoy recordings by Charlie Parker can be found on The Charlie Parker Memorial - Vol 2, The Genius of Charlie Parker and Bird at the Roost - Vol 1.

1948

Max Roach and Miles Davis get fed up with Charlie Parker and quit.

1948

Charlie Parker begins recording for Clef/Verve. This will continue until his death in 1955.

1948

Dizzy Gillespie brings his big Bop band to Europe. The impact is great.

1948

The LP is introduced by Columbia. This is significant because it will make it possible to make longer, more spontaneous recordings.

1948

Swing has been all but pushed out by Bop in the U.S. and by Trad in Europe.

1948

Most young players in the U.S. are in the Bop camp.

1948

Clifford Brown is playing in Philadelphia with the likes of Kenny Dorham, Max Roach, J.J. Johnson and Fats Navarro who offered much encouragement.

1948

Humphrey Lyttleton forms his own Trad band in England.

1948

Elements of the coming Cool style are popping up in Woody Herman's recording of Early Autumn.

1948

Stan Kenton borrows Machito's Cuban drummer for a memorable recording of The Peanut Vendor. It is a big hit for Stan.

1948

Kenton and Herman are very influential.

1948

Gil Evans, John Lewis, Gerry Mulligan and John Carisi begin informal meetings to exchange ideas. Miles Davis will be brought in as trumpeter. See the Birth of the Cool CD.

1948

The Miles Davis nonet performs at the Royal Roost on Broadway.

1948

Ornette Coleman graduates high school and goes on the road with a traveling variety show. Ornette gets fired in Natchez for trying to interest other players in Jazz.

1948

Bassist Charles Mingus quits the Lionel Hampton band.

1948

Pianist Hank Jones becomes Ella Fitzgerald's accompanist.

1948

Armstrong forms the first version of the Jazz All Stars with Jack Teagarden on trombone, Barney Bigard on clarinet, Dick Carey on piano, Sid Catlett on drums and Arvell Shaw on bass. Their music fits in with New Orleans revival.

1948

Louis Armstrong performs at the Jazz festival in Nice, France.

1948

Duke Ellington tours England and France. Although his band is on the decline, he wins the Downbeat poll again.

1948

Ben Webster rejoins the Ellington band.

1948

At the age of 3, Keith Jarrett begins to play the piano.

1948

Ray Charles integrates a Country and Western band called the Florida Playboys.

1948

Mitch Miller overdubs Patti Page singing her own harmony on Money, Marbles and Chalk. This might be the first use of this technique.

1948

John Lee Hooker records "Boogie Chillen." This will become his first big hit.

1948


1948


1948


1948

Dr Peter Goldmark William 33 1/3  LP Fans of Classical and Jazz music Dr Peter Goldmark and William Bachman invent microgroove or 'high fidelity' playback, thus the 33 1/3 RPM disc is introduced.

1949


1949


1949


1949


1949


1949

The battle lines form. In the U.S. Bop, Swing, Trad, Cool and Dixieland are being played. Bop is king here.

1949

In Europe, two schools emerge. They are Bop and Trad with the decided advantage going to Trad.

1949

Cool Jazz begins in a series of recordings made by Miles Davis, et al. Many people attach more importance to the "et al" than to Davis. Nevertheless, a nucleus of people from the Claude Thornhill band including Lee Konitz, Bill Barber, Gerry Mulligan, Joe Shulman and Gil Evans apparently arrived at the ideas which led to Cool and then called Davis in as a trumpeter and maybe more importantly, a known name. Songs include Denzil Best's Move, Mulligan's Jeru and Rocker as well as Israel and Boplicity. See the Capitol Jazz CD Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool.

1949

Latin influences become more important in Jazz.

1949

Jerry Wexler, future partner of Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records, persuades his current employer, Billboard, to change the term "Race Records" to "Rhythm and Blues." The term has been replaced occasionally by terms such as "Soul Music", but is currently in vogue again.

1949

The 45 RPM record is introduced by Victor. The first vinyl LP is made.

1949

Charlie Parker takes his first trip overseas. He takes part in the Paris Jazz festival. The new Parker quintet features Parker on alto sax, Al Haig on piano and Red Rodney on trumpet. Listen to the CD's Bird at the Roost - Vol 2 and Vol 4 on Savoy/Vogue.

1949

John Coltrane first appears on record as a member of Dizzy Gillespie's big band, playing alto saxophone. He will stay with Gillespie until 1951, later doubling on tenor sax. During his tenure with Gillespie, Coltrane plays on George Russell's "Cubana-Be, Cubana-Bop," one of the first modal recordings and also a landmark Latin jazz composition.

1949

Ben Webster leaves Ellington again. He moves back to Kansas City to work in the Jay McShann band. In addition, he begins work at this time in pioneering Rhythm and Blues bands playing a new music which might easily be called Rock and Roll. He will eventually work with Johnny Otis and others. An interesting thing appears to be happening, it seems as if many Swing musicians displaced by Bop are working in small bands pioneering Rock and Roll which will eventually totally eclipse Jazz. Talk about irony. See the EmArcy CD The Complete Ben Webster on EmArcy for some examples.

1949

Bud Powell makes recording of Cherokee for Verve which clearly shows the Charlie Parker influences in his playing. Powell has seemingly recovered from his latest bout with depression. He is playing regularly and well, but he is also drinking a lot. During the next two years, he will cut his most important records for Blue Note. These Blue Note recordings will be recognized as masterpieces.

1949

J. J. Johnson is now the premiere trombone player in Jazz.

1949

Bill Evans is attending college at Southeastern Louisiana College. The college is about 100 miles north of New Orleans. Bill is playing piano regularly in a rural juke joint.

1949

Art Blakey returns from Africa. His name is now Abdullah Ibn Buhaina and his work becomes some of the most imaginative in Jazz.

1949

Lenny Tristano group records some unique sides that are closely listened to by Jazz musicians...even musicians that don't like the music. The tunes are Intuition and Digression. The players are Lee Konitz on alto sax, Warne Marsh on tenor sax, Billy Bauer on guitar, a drummer and a bassist. The drummer and bassist are not given much latitude. Tristano is interested in complicated systems of chord changes and he wants to create pure melodic lines with shifting meters or without meter. This music is close to Free Jazz and is 5 to 10 years early.

1949

At the end of the Tristano session above, in May 1949, Tristano tells engineers to leave the mike open. Each instrumentalist plays in a melodic system of his own choice. The Tristano group is playing Free Jazz about ten years before its time and musicians and record company execs are puzzled. The record is not issued for quite some time.

1949

Ornette Coleman gets a job with the Clarence Samuels Rhythm and Blues group. The band goes on tour and Ornette is beaten up in Baton Rouge, La. His sax is destroyed. The reason for the beating is either because the locals think that his music is bizarre or because they are tired of musicians stealing their girls.

Time Line Commentary:


1949

Trumpeter Jerry Gonzalez born in New York, NY.

1956

Charles Mingus records the LP Pithecanthropus Erectus. This recording demonstrates some of the earliest use of modal themes in Jazz. Mingus uses unusual saxophone cries and hollers to simulate the human voice. Newer forms of Jazz are being explored.

1956

Art Blakey records

1956

AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces

Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus
Not just one of Rollins' great moments - one of the great "monster" jazz sessions of all time, and, in "St. Thomas," one the first crossroads between Jazz and the Caribbean.


1956


1956

Clifford Brown plays an informal gig at a Music City store in Philadelphia on June 25. Later that night Clifford Brown, Richie Powell (Bud's brother) and Richie's wife Nancy head west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. In the early hours of June 26, their car veers off the road killing all three. It was a great loss for Jazz.

1956

Clifford Brown's death is a great shock and a heavy blow for Sonny Rollins who idolized Brown.

1956


1956

Clifford Brown takes his place beside Jazz greats such as Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong.

1956

Detroit pianist Barry Harris replaces Richie Powell in the Max Roach quintet. Clifford was not replaceable except maybe by Lee Morgan.

1956

Art Tatum, who set the standard for jazz piano and inspired the young Oscar Peterson, died from uremia.

1956

Guitarist Mundell Lowe brings piano player Bill Evans to the attention of Orin Keepnews and Bill Grauer of Riverside records.

1956

Bill Evans Pianist Bill Evans records New Jazz Conceptions which is available on Original Jazz Classics. This is Bill's first effort as a leader. The personnel are Bill, Teddy Kotick on bass and Paul Motian on drums.

1956

Blue Note's Alfred Lion and Frank Woolf go to Small's Paradise in Harlem to hear a Jazz organist named Jimmy Smith. Woolf describes the scene, "It was at Small's in January of 1956. He was a stunning sight. A man in convulsions, face contorted, crouched over in apparent agony, his fingers flying, his foot dancing over the peddles. The air was filled with waves of sound I had never heard before. A few people sat around, puzzled but impressed. Jimmy came off the stand smiling...'So what do you think?' he asked. 'Yeah!' I said. That's all I could say. Alfred Lion had already made up his mind." (Woolf quote found in the Rosenthal book, page 112 - see bibliography)

1956

Piano player Cecil Taylor records for Transition with Steve Lacy on soprano saxophone, Buell Neidlinger on bass and Dennis Charles on drums. The record which they make is not a commercial success, but musicians take notice. The music exhibits most of the devices that would later become Free Jazz.

1956

Miles Davis and his quintet record four records for Prestige. These records are Cookin', Relaxin', Workin' and Steamin'. They take only two days to complete. Miles also records 'Round about Midnight on the Columbia label.

1956

Miles Davis fires Coltrane for showing up to work drunk. Davis hires Sonny Rollins to replace him.

1956

Coltrane records with pianist and composer Tadd Dameron on Mating Call (Prestige).

1956


1956

Eighteen-year-old trumpeter Lee Morgan from Philadelphia cuts his first records as a leader for the Blue Note and Savoy labels.

1956

Lee Morgan is currently with Dizzy Gillespie's big band.

1956

Pianist Horace Silver leaves the Jazz Messengers and drummer Art Blakey becomes the leader.

1956

Detroit pianist Tommy Flanagan moves to New York. He plays on Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus (see above).

1956

Duke Ellington's band performs at the Newport Jazz Festival. Duke's band devises a landmark performance which is capped by an amazing tenor saxophone solo by Paul Gonsalves on Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue. Duke gets a new record contract with Columbia.

1956

Louis Armstrong tours Great Britain.

1956

Louis Armstrong travels to Ghana as Ambassador Satch.

1956

Clarinetist Edmund Hall joins Armstrong's Allstars.

1956

Dizzy Gillespie meets Argentine pianist Lalo Schifrin and is impressed. Dizzy continues to gravitate to the Latin rhythms.

1956

Frank Trumbauer, saxophonist and major influencer of Lester Young, dies at the age of 45.

1956

Art Tatum dies in November.

1956

Bass saxophonist Adrian Rollini dies.

1956

Billie Holiday is arrested for drugs again. This time she'll quit. However, she begins to drink more and becomes addicted to television.

1956

Bud Powell makes his first appearance in Europe.

1956

Japanese artist and composer Toshiko Akiyoshi arrives in the U.S. to attend the Berklee School of Music.

1956

Ray Charles records yet another big hit called What'd I Say.

1956

In Liverpool, England, an unknown teenager named John Lennon forms a group called the Quarry Men. This group begins as a Skiffle (or Folk/Blues) group. The group will eventually include George Harrison and Paul McCartney and will evolve into the Beatles in the early 1960s. The Beatles owed a lot to the Trad Jazz which was played in England during their childhood and adolescence. They will eventually have their influences on Jazz also -- "the child is father to the man."

1956

Charles Mingus starts to greatly free up his music.

1956

Percussionist Candido records

1956

Tadd Dameron records

1956


1956

Jimmy Smith records

1956


1956

Thad Jones records

1956

Serge Chaloff records

1956

Zoot Sims records in Paris.

1956


1956


1956


1956


1956


1956


1957

Phil Woods & Gene Quill record for Prestige Records. Phil & Quill With Prestige

1957


1957


1957


1957


1957


1957


1957


1957


1957


1957

Dave Brubeck Quartet plays concert in Copenhagen. Three tunes from the Copenhagen set appear on The Great Concerts (CBS):
  • Wonderful Copenhagen
  • Like Someone In Love
  • Tangerine

1957


1957

Dizzy Gillespie Big Band records session for

1957


1957

Sonny Rollins goes

1957

Hank Mobley's Quintet records album for Blue Note Records.

1957

Johnny Griffin records

1957

Bop still rules. All future Jazz should follow from it. But...will this happen?

1957

Thelonious Monk gets his cabaret card back. He's allowed to play clubs in New York again.

1957

Monk plays the Five Spot with Johnny Griffin, Roy Haynes, John Coltrane, etc.

1957

Monk appears on the CBS Television Show The Sound of Jazz in December. Monk is rapidly becoming a leading figure in the world of Jazz.

1957

Monk records Monk's Music.

1957

Monk is declared a genius.

1957

Coltrane kicks his heroin habit "cold turkey" by locking himself in a room in his mother's house in Philadelphia with only cigarettes and water. At the same time he also stops drinking alcohol. During this critical period Coltrane devotes his life to God.

1957


1957

John Coltrane joins pianist Thelonious Monk's quartet, working with bassist Wilbur Ware and drummer Philly Joe Jones. They perform regularly at New York's Five Spot from spring through autumn. Coltrane's playing and his reputation both skyrocket.

1957

Jazzland/Riverside records the Thelonious Monk quartet for Thelonious Monk/John Coltrane (reissued by Fantasy). Blue Note Records will subsequently release a live recording from the Five Spot Quartet that was originally taped by Coltrane's wife Naima (Thelonious Monk Quartet Live at the Five Spot).

1957

Thelonious Monk teaches Coltrane how to play multiphonics on the saxophone. Coltrane also develops a rapid, sweeping harmonic style that critic Ira Gitler terms "sheets of sound."

1957

Sonny Rollins leaves the Miles Davis group. Davis hires Coltrane to replace him in the fall of 1957, at the conclusion of the Five Spot Monk Quartet gigs. The new Davis group also features pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Philly Joe Jones, and saxophonist Cannonball Adderley.

1957

Prestige signs Coltrane to his first record contract. His first record under his own name is simply entitled Coltrane (not to be confused with the Impulse! recording of the same title which came later). Subsequent Prestige releases from 1957 include Dakar, Lush Life, and Traneing In, all reissued by OJC. Coltrane also records the critically renowned Blue Train for Blue Note.

1957

Coltrane records A Blowin' Session with Johnny Griffin, also featuring Hank Mobley as part of the three-tenor front line.

1957

Sonny Rollins goes out on his own.

1957


1957

Charlie Mingus records The Clown which includes the controversial Haitian Fight Song. Mingus also records East Coasting which includes the amazing Conversation.

1957

Metronome Year Book declares Jimmy Smith the new star of 1956.

1957

Pianist Tommy Flanagan cuts his first LP as a leader. It is The Tommy Flanagan Trio Overseas with Wilbur Little on bass and Elvin Jones on drums.

1957


1957

Alfred Lion of Blue Note is introduced to Tina Brooks' saxophone playing.

1957

Orin Keepnews and Bill Grauer issue an album of Bill Evans work. The pianist's first album has little commercial success, but it brings him to the attention of Miles Davis.

1957

Art Pepper records Meets the Rhythm Section with Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums (Miles Davis' rhythm section). This album is excellent even though Art didn't know about the session until the morning of the date, hadn't played in weeks and had to repair his dried out cork with tape.

1957

Ellington does the CBS TV special A Drum is a Woman. Ellington also premieres Such Sweet Thunder, a Strayhorn suite, at Towne Hall. Ellington wins the Downbeat poll for composing.

1957

Armstrong tours the British West Indies.

1957

Armstrong releases Satchmo, A Musical Biography.

1957


1957

Sidney Bechet marries a French woman in Antibes. This is a big social event on the Riviera.

1957

Cecil Taylor is invited to play the Newport Jazz Festival. His detractors are most Bop musicians who are afraid of being pushed aside as they pushed aside the Swingers only a decade or so before.

1957

Cecil Taylor gets a break. The Termini brothers, owners of the Five Spot in the East Village, hire Dick Whitmore of Boston to bring in a small group. Whitmore hires Taylor and some of his associates as the rhythm section. As it happened, modern artists frequented the place and they sympathized with Taylor's free approach. Taylor became a force.

1957

Orval Faubus, governor of Arkansas, opposes school integration in Little Rock. Mingus will later immortalize the incident in The Fables of Faubus on Mingus Ah Um in 1959.

1957

Norman Mailer's book White Negro is published.

1957


1957


1957

Charles Mingus, Coleman Hawkins, Chris Connor and the Lighthouse All Stars record on the same day.
  • Coleman Hawkins records the album The Hawk Flies High.
  • Charles Mingus records five tracks for Atlantic Records: Passions Of A Woman Loved; Blue Cee; Tonight At Noon; Reincarnation Of A Lovebird; Haitian Fight Song.
  • Chris Connor records 3 songs for Sings The George Gershwin Almanac Of Song: Nice Work If You Can Get It; Blah Blah Blah; They Can't Take That Away From Me.
  • Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars record three tracks for the album In The Solo Spotlight!: Funny Frank; That's Rich; If You Are There.

    1957


    1957


    1957


    1957

    Barney Kessel, Ray Brown & Shelly record

    1957


    1957

    Duke Ellington, Max Roach & Sarah Vaughan record on the same day. Duke Ellington records 4 Piano Improvisations that were issued on the 2004 release of Piano In The Foreground (Columbia).

    Max Roach records three tracks with his quintet (Kenny Dorham, Sonny Rollins, Ray Bryant, George Morrow): Little Folks; Minor Trouble; Valse Hot.

    Sarah Vaughan records 12 songs for her Gershwin album released on Mercury.


    1957


    1957

    Lee Morgan records

    1957


    1957

    Al Cohn & Zoot Sims record

    1957


    1958


    1958


    1958

    Duke Ellington records

    1958

    Alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley records

    1958

    This was a very busy day regarding jazz recordings. Some memorable sessions were played:
    • The Miles Davis Sextet (Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones) recorded three tracks (Dr. Jeckyll; Sid's Ahead; Little Melonae) for Columbia Records at Columbia 30th Street Studios, NYC. The first two tracks were released on Milestones.

    • Cannonball Adderley recorded with his own quintet (Cannonball & Nat Adderley, Junior Mance, Sam Jones, Jimmy Cobb) that very same day for EmArcy Records at the Bell Sound Studios, NYC. The tracks (Our Delight; Jubilation; What's New?; Straight, No Chaser) were released on Cannonball's Sharpshooters. The remaining tracks for the album were recorded two days later.
      After that, this first Adderley quintet broke up. Nat Adderley: "Miles offered to pay Cannonball two hundred dollars more per week than both of us took out of the band, it was time to call it quits"(cited from the liner notes of Verve's 'The EmArcy Small Group Sessions').

    • Meanwhile at the Universal Studios in Chicago, the Count Basie Orchestra recorded two songs for the Chairman Of The Board album (Blues In Hoss' Flat; H.R.H).

    • At the Travis Air Force Base, Fairfield, California, the Duke Ellington Orchestra played a dance that was recorded and released as Volumes 2 & 6 of The Private Collection.

    1958

    Johnny Hodges records

    1958

    Jimmy Smith records

    1958


    1958

    Kenny Burrell meets John Coltrane at Rudy Van Gelder's studio. John Coltrane, Kenny Burrell, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb record for Prestige Records at Hackensack, NJ.

    1958


    1958


    1958

    Ornette Coleman makes his recording debut for Contemporary.

    1958

    Ornette Coleman records the influential LP Something Else! in February. This album features Ornette on alto sax, Don Cherry on trumpet, Don Payne on bass, Walter Norris on piano and Billy Higgins on drums. This album is available on OJC.

    1958

    Cannonball Adderley records the excellent LP Somethin' Else a month later. This album features Cannonball on alto, Miles Davis on trumpet, Hank Jones on piano, Sam Jones on bass and Art Blakey on drums. This album is available on Blue Note.

    1958

    Coltrane records Soultrane, Black Pearls and Settin' the Pace for Prestige (reissued on OJC). Black Pearls documents some of his most heated "sheets of sound" playing to date. At the end of 1958, Coltrane leaves Prestige and signs a two-year contract with Atlantic Records.

    1958

    Miles Davis brings pianist Bill Evans into his group.

    1958


    1958

    The new Miles Davis group, featuring Coltrane, records Milestones in April. This recording represents a significant shift toward modal jazz.

    1958

    On December 15, pianist Bill Evans records the unaccompanied piano solo Peace Piece on which he improvises two repeated chords. What makes this recording significant is that Evans draws heavily on George Russell's modal theory. It's one of the first examples of modes in modern Jazz.

    1958

    Pianist Bill Evans records Everybody Digs Bill Evans with Sam Jones on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. This album, which contains the innovative Peace Piece, is available on Original Jazz Classics. I hope that Bill didn't come up with this title! ... Just kidding. Riverside came up with the title to promote Bill in the ranks of Jazz. The cover is a unique "all quotes" design featuring complimentary blurbs from various people including Miles Davis, the first time the trumpeter allowed himself to be quoted in such a manner about a fellow musician.

    1958

    Bill Evans is chosen "New Star" pianist in the Downbeat International Jazz Critics Poll.

    1958

    Thelonious Monk begins an association with saxophonist Charlie Rouse that lasts until 1970.

    1958

    Trumpeter Lee Morgan is now with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.

    1958

    Eric Dolphy joins the Chico Hamilton Quintet.

    1958

    Sax player Benny Golson is now with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers for a short while.

    1958

    Sax player Tina Brooks records as a leader for Blue Note.

    1958

    Pianist Cecil Taylor plays the Great South Bay Festival with a group that includes Buell Neidlinger on bass, Steve Lacy on soprano saxophone and Dennis Charles on drums. Nat Hentoff gives them a good review. The resulting publicity gets Taylor a recording date with United Artists which results in the LP Love for Sale. Taylor will later go completely into Free Jazz and will gradually decline.

    1958

    Soprano saxophone virtuoso Sidney Bechet is rolling at the Brussels World's Fair Concert. His performance can be heard on Vogue.

    1958

    Ellington performs at Carnegie Hall with Ella Fitzgerald and he wins the Downbeat Critic's poll and the Downbeat poll for composing.

    1958

    Mahalia Jackson sings at the Newport Festival.

    1958

    Bop composer and arranger Tadd Dameron enters the Federal Narcotics Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky for his heroin addiction. Had it not been for his drug addiction, many feel that Dameron could have been the Ellington of Bop.

    1958

    Early in the year, British-born singer Annie Ross joins Dave Lambert and Jon Hendricks to form the Pop-Vocalese singing group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. They record the experimental Sing a Song of Basie. It is a success.

    1958

    Art Kane's photo of 57 Jazz greats on the steps of a Harlem Brownstone appears in Esquire magazine. Some of the legendary musicians who showed up for the 10:00 a.m. photo shoot were: Thelonious Monk, Lester Young, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Milt Hinton and Art Farmer.

    1958


    1958

    Ike Turner discovers Anna Mae Bullock in East St Louis, renames her Tina and begins to explore Soul and Funk.

    1958


    1958


    1958

    Tina Brooks records

    1958


    1958


    1958

    Hampton Hawes records

    1958


    1958


    1958

    Blakey Messengers AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces

    Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Moanin'
    Jazz's most explosive drummer debuted his third version of the Jazz Messengers with this instant hard-bop classic. It's way too funky in here, thanks to compositions and performances by Benny Golson, Lee Morgan and Bobby Timmons (who contributed the famous title track).


    1958

    Jimmy Smith AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces

    Jimmy Smith - The Sermon
    A foreshadowing of Smith's awesome Back at the Chicken Shack and Midnight Special, and defining moment of organ jazz. Smith, Lee Morgan and Curtis Fuller testify on the side-long title track.


    1958


    1958


    1959


    1959

    This is the one jazz record owned by people who don't listen to jazz, and with good reason. The band itself is extraordinary (proof of Miles Davis's masterful casting skills, if not of God's existence), listing John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley on saxophones, Bill Evans (or, on "Freddie Freeloader," Wynton Kelly) on piano, and the crack rhythm unit of Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums. Coltrane's astringency on tenor is counterpoised to Adderley's funky self on alto, with Davis moderating between them as Bill Evans conjures up a still lake of sound on which they walk. Meanwhile, the rhythm partnership of Cobb and Chambers is prepared to click off time until eternity. It was the key recording of what became modal jazz, a music free of the fixed harmonies and forms of pop songs. In Davis's men's hands it was a weightless music, but one that refused to fade into the background. In retrospect every note seems perfect, and each piece moves inexorably towards its destiny. --John Szwed

    On the March 2 session the following tracks were recorded: 'So What', 'Freddie Freeloader', and 'Blue In Green'. The remaining two tracks ('All Blues', 'Flamenco Sketches') were recorded on April 22.

    1959

    Sonny Clark records

    1959

    Since its creation in 1958 A Great Day in Harlem has become an icon of jazz photography. It is also recognized, in the broader context of American photography, as a major work. Through appearances on posters, postcards, in books and magazines it is celebrated worldwide. Originally commissioned by Esquire magazine, the underlying concept was simple: to create a group portrait of living legendary jazz musicians on a Harlem street. However the photograph's compositional brilliance, its historic importance, no less the complex logistics required to organize the shoot, elevated Art Kane's achievement to a true tour de force.

    This was Art Kane's first assignment as a professional photographer.


    1959

    Coleman Hawkins records

    1959

    Buddy Rich and Max Roach record for Mercury Records.

    1959


    1959

    Personnel: Gil Evans (piano, arranger, conductor); Cannonball Adderley (alto saxophone); Johnny Coles, Louis Marcel, Ernie Royal, Clyde Reasinger, Frank Rehak (trumpet); Joe Bennet, Tom Mitchell (trombone); Julius Watkins (French horn); Harvey Phillips, Bill Barber (tuba); Jerry Sanfino (reeds); Chuck Wayne (guitar); Paul Chambers (bass); Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones (drums).

    1959

    Wynton Kelly studio session for The session produced four of the six tracks of the album:
  • Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise
  • On Green Dolphin Street
  • Willow Weep For Me
  • Old Clothes The title song and "Keep It Moving" had been recorded on February 19, 1959.

    1959

    Alto saxophonist Art Pepper records

    1959


    1959


    1959


    1959

    George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept is written about use of the modes in Jazz. This is probably the first important text on Jazz theory. Modal Jazz will soon emerge in full force.

    1959

    Miles Davis AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces

    Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
    The best-selling jazz recording of the era (and a perfect introduction for the jazz newbie), Kind of Blue helped introduce a new sound for jazz. Working from relatively simple structures, the musicians here lay out wonderfully lyrical extended improvisations. Generally considered the best Jazz album ever and still sells 5,000 copies a week.


    1959

    Miles Davis is clubbed for loitering by police outside of Birdland. Miles was playing at Birdland at the time and had just stepped outside for a break.

    1959

    In September, Coltrane plays on George Russell's big band recording New York, New York (Decca) along with some of the biggest names in jazz.

    1959

    About two weeks after his work on Davis's Kind of Blue, John Coltrane records Giant Steps (Atlantic), an eloquent demonstration of his "sheets of sound" style. Along with Blue Train, this is one of his most influential early recordings.

    1959

    Coltrane also records Coltrane Jazz (Atlantic), which experiments with tone polytonality. Polytonality involves playing a melody in one key over a chord sequence in another.

    1959

    Coltrane discovers the soprano saxophone by accident in another musician's suitcase. He begins to explore the possibilities of this new instrument.

    1959

    Influential tenor sax player Sonny Rollins takes another sabbatical from Jazz. People think that he's off inventing a new kind of Jazz. At this point in time most people believe Sonny to be as important to Jazz as Coltrane.

    1959

    Ornette Coleman arrives in New York.

    1959

    The Ornette Coleman Quartet's stint at the Five Spot splits the Jazz world.

    1959

    Ornette Coleman records Tomorrow Is The Question in March. This album features Ornette on alto sax, Don Cherry on trumpet, Percy Heath or Red Mitchell on bass and Shelly Manne on drums and is available on OJC.

    1959

    Ornette Coleman records Change Of The Century in October. This album features Ornette on alto sax, Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass and Billy Higgins on drums, and is available on Atlantic LP.

    1959

    Ornette Coleman AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces

    Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come
    After four decades, this disc remains true to its title. Saxophonist Ornette Coleman solidified his group in 1959 to the working quartet recorded here. They broke convention and provided a major stepping stone on the road to free jazz


    1959

    Charles Mingus records Better Git It in Your Soul on the LP Mingus Ah Um.

    1959

    Charles Mingus records the song Fables of Faubus on the LP Mingus Ah Um. This is a sarcastic song which criticizes Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas who fought against school integration in Little Rock in 1957. Mingus is censured by Columbia for this one.

    1959

    Thelonious Monk leads a large orchestra at Town Hall in February.

    1959

    Bill Evans forms trio with brilliant young bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. Their work can be found on the excellent Portrait In Jazz on OJC.

    1959

    Wynton Kelly replaces Bill Evans in the Miles Davis group.

    1959

    Trumpeter Kenny Dorham releases his debut album Quiet Kenny. He chooses nostalgic tunes for the record. His renditions do not lean toward flashy showmanship.

    1959


    1959

    AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces

    Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out
    What was conceived by pianist Brubeck as an adventure into unusual time signatures ended up one of the most successful records in jazz history, due in large part to its beautiful melodies and the mesmerizing alto work of Paul Desmond.


    1959

    Cannonball Adderley hears little-known guitarist Wes Montgomery playing with organist Melvin Rhyne and drummer Paul Parker in a west-side Indianapolis club called the Missile Room. Adderley is so impressed he calls Riverside producer Orin Keepnews about Wes and convinces Keepnews to record him. The result is Montgomery's first album The Wes Montgomery Trio, which propels him into Jazz guitar history.

    1959

    Bud Powell has made some recovery. He moves to Paris and he is playing better again.

    1959

    Art Farmer and Benny Golson form their Jazztet.

    1959

    Saxman Jackie McLean switches from Prestige to Blue Note.

    1959

    Saxophonist Archie Shepp graduates from college, moves to New York and begins playing in coffee houses there.

    1959

    Duke Ellington Ellington contributes the film score for Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder and wins the Downbeat Critics' poll.

    1959

    Armstrong finishes fifth in the Music USA all-time great Jazz musician poll.

    1959

    Sidney Bechet dies in Paris on May 14 - his birthday. A bust of him is erected in Juan-les-Pins.

    1959

    Lester Young dies in New York City on March 15.

    1959

    Billie Holiday dies in New York City on July 17.

    1959

    The French Jazz group Les Double Six is formed.

    1959


    1959


    1959


    1959


    1959


    1960


    1960

    Seven tracks were recorded during the session:

    G.W.
    On Green Dolphin Street
    Les
    245
    Glad To Be Unhappy
    Miss Toni
    April Fool


    1960


    1960

    Red Garland records solo album; Bud Powell records concert in Germany. Red Garland records his solo album "Red Alone" for Moodsville.

    Bud Powell performs at the Essen Jazz Festival. The concert recording is released by Black Lion.

    1960


    1960


    1960


    1960


    1960


    1960

    Art Blakey hits The Jazz Messengers lineup of Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Bobby Timmons, Jymie Merritt, and Art Blakey record The Big Beat. Tracks:
    • The Chess Players
    • Sakeena's Vision
    • Politely
    • Dat Dere
    • Lester Left Town
    • It's Only A Paper Moon

    1960


    1960

    Buddy Rich records session for EmArcy Records issued as

    1960


    1960


    1960


    1960

    Miles Davis record session for The session produced four tracks:
    • Will O' The Wisp
    • The Pan Piper
    • Saeta
    • Solea
    "Song Of Our Country" was taped one day later, while the "Concierto De Aranjuez" had already been recorded in November 1959.

    1960


    1960


    1960

    Ornette Coleman records This Is Our Music in August. This album features Ornette on alto sax, Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass and Ed Blackwell on drums, and is available on Atlantic LP.

    1960


    1960

    The Black rights movement is currently in full swing. Left wing thought is taking hold.

    1960

    Free Jazz and Black rights become intertwined.

    1960

    Ideas of the soon to arrive "hippie" or "hippy" culture are brewing. People should be free to "do their own thing."

    1960

    Free Jazz and Modal Jazz are pushing Bop forms aside.

    1960

    In Free Jazz, it is as if the musicians have blown apart the older forms (New Orleans, Swing and Bop) and represented them in a form that is musically analogous to the Abstract Art of Jackson Pollock.

    1960

    Bop is becoming passe. In fact, Dixieland players at this point may be producing more interesting music because the Dixieland form is more varied than Hard Bop. The mainstream of Jazz (New Orleans > Swing > Bop) is drying up.

    1960

    The heyday of Soul Jazz (a popular form of Hard Bop) is beginning.

    1960

    Miles Davis records Sketches of Spain with the help of Gil Evans.

    1960

    Ornette Coleman finishes The Shape Of Jazz To Come in July after starting it in October of 1959. The album features Ornette on alto sax, Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass and Billy Higgins on drums, and can be found on Atlantic CD.

    1960

    Ornette releases the anthem LP Free Jazz in December. This album can be found on Atlantic CD. The players include Ornette on alto sax, Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Eric Dolphy on bass clarinet, Charlie Haden and Scott LaFaro on bass and Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins on drums. The original album cover featured an appropriate Jackson Pollock painting. This was one of the most important albums in the Free Jazz movement.

    1960

    Charles Mingus leads a quartet with Eric Dolphy, Ted Curson and Dannie Richmond.

    1960

    Charles Mingus in a 1960 interview comments regarding Ornette Coleman. "Now aside from the fact that I doubt he can even play a C scale...in tune, the fact remains that his notes and lines are so fresh. So when Symphony Sid played his record, it made everything else he played, sound terrible. I'm not saying everybody's going to have to play like Coleman. But they're going to have to stop playing Bird." (Quote is from "Another View of Coleman," Downbeat 27:11 (26 May 1960): 21 - I saw it in the Rosenthal book, page 152 - see bibliography)

    1960

    Over six days in October, Coltrane records material for three albums. The first one released, My Favorite Things, features his recorded debut on the soprano saxophone. "My Favorite Things," a highly modal piece, will become a Jazz favorite. Coltrane's quartet on this date includes pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Steve Davis, and drummer Elvin Jones.

    1960

    Two other albums recorded by Coltrane during these marathon October sessions were Coltrane's Sound and Coltrane Plays The Blues.

    1960

    Coltrane's The Avant-Garde, which delves into Free Jazz, was also released during 1960.

    1960

    Coltrane also becomes interested in and influenced by Ornette Coleman. He records Coleman's "The Invisible."

    1960


    1960

    Archie Shepp records for the first time on The World of Cecil Taylor.

    1960

    Pianist Barry Harris moves to New York City. Barry records Barry Harris at the Jazz Workshop with Sam Jones and Louis Hayes.

    1960

    Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard's first Blue Note LP Open Sesame includes tenorist Tina Brooks.

    1960

    Tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter joins Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

    1960

    At what is first scheduled to be just another "blowing date," tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley records the classic Soul Jazz album Soul Station. The rhythm section includes Art Blakey, Wynton Kelly and Paul Chambers. How could you go wrong with these four first-rate musicians?

    1960

    Pianist Bobby Timmons records his debut album This Here Is. It includes his most popular originals This Here, Moanin' and Dat Dere.

    1960

    Lalo Schifrin joins Dizzy Gillespie's band as a pianist, but more importantly as an arranger and composer. See the Verve CD Gillespiana.

    1960

    Poll results printed in Leonard Feather's Encyclopedia of Jazz list Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Lester Young and Count Basie as top Jazz figures in that order. This points out the lag between fan and musician appeal.

    1960

    Sister Rosetta Tharpe becomes very popular in Europe.

    1960

    Ray Charles does Georgia On My Mind.

    1960

    In Liverpool, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best name their group The Silver Beatles.

    1960


    1960


    1960


    1960

    Hammond B3 Organist Jimmy Smith records two albums in one day. At the Rudy Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, organist Jimmy Smith, accompanied by Stanley Turrentine, Kenny Burrell and Donald Bailey, records enough material for two classic albums: Back at the Chicken Shack and Midnight Special.

    1961


    1961

    Grant Green records

    1961

    Tina Brooks records This fourth and final Blue Note album of Brooks was not released during his lifetime.

    Tina Brooks: Tenor Saxophone
    Johnny Coles: Trumpet
    Kenny Drew: Piano
    Wilbur Ware: Bass
    Philly Joe Jones: Drums


    1961


    1961

    Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington record together for Roulette Records.

    1961


    1961


    1961


    1961


    1961


    1961


    1961


    1961

    Freddie Hubbard records

    1961

    Lou Donaldson records In the Englewood Cliffs, NJ studio of Rudy Van Gelder, alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson (accompanied by Herman Foster, piano; Ben Tucker, bass; Donald Bailey, drums; Alec Dorsey, congas) records the album Gravy Train.

    1961


    1961


    1961

    The Miles Davis Quintet records Possession of previous editions of this singular set simply won't do. After the Ellington at Newport and The Complete Lady Day reissues, the engineers at Columbia/Sony command respect as experts when it comes to authoritative, definitive, faithfully represented remasters of indispensable jazz recordings.

    This transitional group, between Miles' first great quintet with Coltrane and his second with Wayne Shorter, is the equal of the first ensemble and more satisfying than the second. Miles' chops were never better, and as if to make up for the absence of Coltrane, he was playing with uncharacteristic fire and pyrotechnical flare. Jimmy Cobb had practically erased the memory of Philly Joe Jones as the ideal complement to Paul Chambers and Wynton Kelly. No rhythm section ever achieved a greater sense of vitality and vibrancy within the conventional 4/4 walking-bass pattern of mainstream modern jazz. (Many drummers would do well to listen just to Cobb's ride cymbal, noting how little else is required to keep the music fresh and flowing.)

    Continue...


    1961


    1961

    Bobby Timmons records

    1961


    1961

    Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers record

    1961

    Trumpeter Booker Little's first session for the album

    1961


    1961


    1961

    Free Jazz is currently becoming more popular and it is making a number of waves in the pool of Hard Bop.

    1961

    AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces

    Bill Evans - Waltz for Debby & Live at the Village Vanguard
    The laid-back character of Bill Evans's piano playing here masks a serenely beautiful touch and wonderfully innovative ideas. His inhumanly intuitive interactions with bassist Scott LaFaro remain legendary. This is the best piano trio music ever recorded (and it's all live).


    1961


    1961

    Bassist Scott LaFaro is killed in an automobile accident at the age of 25, just a few weeks after his landmark Village Vanguard performance with Bill Evans. Evans is so shaken that he retires for several months.

    1961

    In May, Coltrane records his last Atlantic record: Ole. Eric Dolphy, who joined Coltrane's band in 1961, appears under the pseudonym "George Lane."

    1961

    Coltrane records Impressions and Live at the Village Vanguard (Impulse!) during 1961 Vanguard performances. The personnel on Impressions, released in November, include Eric Dolphy on bass clarinet, McCoy Tyner on piano, Reggie Workman and Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. The title tune is modal, but other pieces, such as "India," approach Free Jazz.

    1961

    During May and June, Coltrane records Africa/Brass (Impulse!) with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Elvin Jones. This record explores dark sounds and textures, with explicit references to African music.

    1961

    After Reggie Workman leaves the band, Coltrane forms his classic quartet with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones.

    1961

    Sonny Rollins begins to play again and records The Bridge. It is a good LP, but it is the "same old stuff" (Hard Bop) and the fans are disappointed.

    1961

    Ornette Coleman records a few albums which are far less important than his landmark Free Jazz albums.

    1961

    Bass clarinetist, saxophonist and flutist Eric Dolphy forms a quintet with Booker Little on trumpet, Mal Waldron on piano, Richard Davis on bass and Ed Blackwell on drums.

    1961

    Pianist Sonny Clark makes the excellent Leapin' and Lopin' on Blue Note.

    1961

    Pianist Elmo Hope records Homecoming on his return to New York from Los Angeles.

    1961

    Jamie Lyons joins the Cecil Taylor Unit.

    1961

    Trumpeter Don Cherry, saxophonist Archie Shepp and saxophonist John Tchicai establish The New York Contemporary Five.

    1961

    Richard Abrams forms The Experimental Band in Chicago.

    1961

    Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington record together on Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington: The Complete Sessions on Roulette. It is an excellent album.

    1961

    Pop Jazz singer Nancy Wilson and British Jazz pianist George Shearing team up on The Swingin's Mutual. Critic Leonard Feather characterized it as "one of the most logical and successful collaborations of the year."

    1961

    AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces

    Oliver Nelson - Blues & The Abstract Truth
    Some of Nelson's best work - as a composer, arranger AND saxophonist - features his large ensemble soulfully tight-roping arrangement and improvisation. A genuine masterpiece that has inspired musicians and arrangers for decades.


    1961

    A Dixieland revival or Trad Jazz movement with a modified New Orleans style is currently popular in Britain.

    1961

    John Lee Hooker tours Europe. His opening act is an unknown group called the Rolling Stones.

    1961

    Trumpet player Wynton Marsalis is born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 18.

    1961

    Tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley records With pianist Wynton Kelly, guitarist Grant Green, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones.

    1961

    Ornette Coleman plays tenor on his final recording session for Atlantic Records.

    1961

    Gabor Szabo joins Chico Hamilton's innovative quintet featuring Charles Lloyd.

    1962

    Jimmy Smith records

    1962


    1962


    1962


    1962


    1962

    Guitarist Jim Hall and pianist Bill Evans record duo album

    1962


    1962


    1962


    1962


    1962


    1962


    1962

    Dizzy Reece records

    1962


    1962


    1962


    1962


    1962


    1962


    1962

    Saxophonist Curtis Amy and his band record the album Tippin' On Through at the famous jazz club The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, CA.

    1962

    Jackie McLean records

    1962


    1962

    Ornette Coleman is temporarily out of Jazz because of a salary dispute. Ornette perceives (and is probably correct) that he is not making money like the other big names in Jazz and goes on strike.

    1962

    Ornette Coleman retires for several years.

    1962

    John Coltrane records Coltrane (Impulse!) in April and June with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums.

    1962

    Coltrane's classic quartet records Ballads, a strikingly softer, quieter and simpler album than his recent high-energy work.

    1962

    Coltrane records a number of live albums, including Live At Birdland (Charly) and Bye Bye Blackbird (OJC).

    1962

    Sonny Rollins puts together a band with Don Cherry on trumpet and Billy Higgins on drums. This group will make the album Our Man in Jazz.

    1962

    Miles Davis does Quiet Nights with Gil Evans and a large band. This will be Miles' last big band work until Aura in 1989.

    1962

    Miles Davis finally makes the Billboard charts.

    1962

    Pianist Bill Evans records Interplay. Over the next ten or twelve years, Bill will be very prolific.

    1962

    Albert Ayler makes his recording debut in Europe.

    1962

    The First Recordings of Albert Ayler is recorded. This album is available on Sonet CD.

    1962

    Cannonball Adderley and Cleanhead Vinson record the classic tunes Back Door Blues and Kidney Stew for Riverside.

    1962

    Sun Ra and his Arkestra resettle in New York.

    1962

    Pianist Andrew Hill goes to the West Coast.

    1962

    Ellington records The Money Jungle in September with Max Roach and Charles Mingus. Talk about big names. This is a very good album which can be found on the Blue Note label.

    1962

    Tenor saxophonist Stan Getz records the album Jazz Samba. This is a major commercial success. The music here represents variations on Latin dance music. This type of music becomes popular in nightclubs.

    1962

    The Latin Dance Jazz boom has begun. The first hit to break the charts wide open is Desafinado followed by The Girl from Ipanema.

    1962

    Saxophonist Tina Brooks' short recording career is unfortunately over.

    1962


    1963

    AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces

    Horace Silver - Song for My Father
    One of the greatest Hard Bop albums, and not just from that title track (honored in "Rikki Don't Lose That Number") but also his classic "Lonely Woman."


    1963

    Hard Bop pianist Sonny Clark dies of a drug overdose in a club called Junior's in New York. The owners of Junior's move Clark's corpse to another location to avoid losing their liquor license and to avoid the adverse publicity.

    1963

    Pianist Wynton Kelly forms a trio with Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums.

    1963


    1963

    Saxophonist Gigi Gryce drops out of Jazz, never to return.

    1963

    Tommy Flanagan becomes Ella Fitzgerald's accompanist.

    1963


    1963

    Pianist Andrew Hill cuts his first Blue Note LP's Black Fire and Smokestack.

    1963

    Tony Williams, a 17-year-old drummer, is asked by Miles Davis to join his quintet. Williams will record 13 albums with Davis during the next six years. He will play with such greats as Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter and Jimi Hendrix

    1963

    Gary Burton, a 19-year-old prodigy vibist, joins pianist George Shearing's band. About a decade later Burton is instrumental in another prodigy's career when he hires Pat Metheny.

    1963

    Guitarist Kenny Burrell records his finest and most successful album, Midnight Blue.

    1963

    Grant Green records his classic album Idle Moments. The guitarist gets ample support from saxophonist Joe Henderson and vibist Bobby Hutcherson. This landmark release earns Green the reputation as one of Jazz's most versatile guitarists.

    1963

    Cast Your Fate to the Wind by Vince Guaraldi becomes a Gold Record winner and earns the Grammy as Best Instrumental Jazz Composition. Guaraldi was best known for his work on the "Peanuts" television specials.

    1963

    Asian and Middle Eastern instruments are added to Jazz by flutist Yusef Lateef. Lateef also adds techniques to accommodate these new Jazz instruments.

    1963

    Bop pianist Bud Powell is recorded in Paris on the appropriately-named album Bud Powell in Paris.

    1963

    Bop pianist Bud Powell contracts tuberculosis. This is all that Bud needs.

    1963

    Pioneer Free Jazz pianist Herbie Nichols dies of Leukemia at age 44.

    1963

    Singer Dinah Washington dies.

    1963

    Martin Luther King is successful with a nonviolent march of 250,000 people on Washington, D.C.

    1963

    Trumpeter Lee Morgan records The Sidewinder (Blue Note), which will rise to number 25 on the Billboard pop album chart, impressive for a Jazz LP. Most of the record is Hard Bop, though the title track has crossover appeal.

    1963

    Kenny Dorham records

    1963


    1963


    1963

    John Patton records

    1963


    1963

    John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman record for Impulse Records. The perfect blend of passionate tenor saxophone and sensual baritone vocals, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman is one of the most romantic albums ever recorded. Both legends in their own right--John Coltrane as one of the most ingenious and inventive tenor saxophonists and Johnny Hartman the ultimate balladeer--their synergy on this 1963 recording resulted in a masterpiece that far surpassed the popularity of any of their individual recordings.

    1963


    1963

    Eric Dolphy concert in Illinois is recorded for Blue Note Records.

    1963


    1963

    Stan Getz, Joao & Astrud Gilberto record Astrud Gilberto says that her husband, Joao, informed Stan Getz that she "could sing at the recording". Creed Taylor recalls that it took Getz's wife, Monica, to get both Astrud and Joao into the recording studio; Mrs. Getz had a sense that Astrud could make a hit. And Getz himself is on record saying that he insisted on Astrud's presence over the others' objections. So who's right? What does it matter? The Gilbertos, Getz, and the legendary Antonio Carlos Jobim followed up the bossa nova success of Jazz Samba with this, the defining LP of the genre. With one of the greatest hit singles jazz has ever known--each one who hears it goes "Ahhh!"

    1963

    Herbie Hancock records

    1963


    1963


    1963


    1963


    1963


    1963

    John Coltrane meets Alice McCleod, whom he will marry in 1966.

    1963

    Coltrane records John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (Impulse!) with vocalist Johnny Hartman, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones.

    1963

    Mingus Charles Mingus records The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (Impulse!)

    1963

    Tenor sax man Archie Shepp joins the New York Contemporary Five with Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, John Tchicai on alto sax, Don Moore on bass and J.C. Moses on drums. The debut album is the excellent Archie Shepp & The New York Contemporary Five which can be found on Storyville LP.

    1963

    Archie Shepp records a very good tribute to the still-living Coltrane called Four For Trane.

    1964

    John Coltrane records A Love Supreme is a jazz album recorded by John Coltrane's quartet on December 9, 1964 at the Van Gelder studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The album is a four-part suite, broken up into tracks: "Acknowledgement" (which contains the famous mantra that gave the suite its name), "Resolution," "Pursuance," and "Psalm." It is intended to be a spiritual album, broadly representative of a personal struggle for purity. The final track corresponds to the wording of a devotional poem Coltrane included in the liner notes.

    1964


    1964

    Shirley Scott and Stanley Turrentine record

    1964

    In October, trumpeter Bill Dixon organizes a series of Free Jazz concerts called the October Revolution at the Cellar Cafe in New York, featuring John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman and others. Out of this festival grows the Jazz Composer's Guild, which includes Dixon, Archie Shepp, Roswell Rudd, Cecil Taylor, Paul Bley and Carla Bley, among others.

    1964

    The young pianist Herbie Hancock and drummer Tony Williams begin work with Miles Davis.

    1964

    AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces

    Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch (Blue Note)
    Eric Dolphy was always a big fan of bird calls, and much of his playing here reflects that natural sonority. This disc transports a relatively straightahead group into adventurous, inventive territory--with dramatically successful results.


    1964

    Eric Dolphy goes to Europe in April to tour with Charles Mingus. At the end of the tour, he elects to stay in Paris, dying shortly thereafter on June 29.

    1964

    Pianist Andrew Hill records Point of Departure (Blue Note) in March with reed player Eric Dolphy, saxophonist Joe Henderson, trumpeter Kenny Dorham, bassist Richard Davis, and drummer Tony Williams.

    1964

    Coltrane AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces

    John Coltrane - Love Supreme
    One of Coltrane's most spiritually moving recordings, this disc has been popular among devotees and neophytes alike. It's a heart-felt celebration of divine love, with equal measures of devotion and exploration. Recorded in December with his classic quartet: pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones.


    1964

    Saxophonist Ben Webster moves to Europe, eventually settling in Denmark until his death in 1973.

    1964

    Phineas Newborn records

    1964

    Bop piano great Bud Powell returns to the United States. He is playing well at times. He has an extended stay at Birdland.

    1964

    At the Antibes Festival, Ella Fitzgerald (accompanied by pianist Tommy Flanagan, trumpeter Roy Eldridge, bassist Bill Yancey, and drummer Gus Johnson) is interrupted by crickets in the pine forest while she sings "Mack the Knife." She quickly improvises a blues to the rhythm of their chirping and calls it "The Cricket Song." The performance is documented on Ella At Juan-Les-Pins (Verve).

    1964

    Thelonious Monk makes the cover of Time magazine, which calls him the "high priest of bebop." (Originally slated for November, 1963, the cover story was delayed due to the Kennedy assassination.) Click here to read the article in its entirety.

    1964

    Pharoah Sanders makes his recording debut with Pharoah's First (ESP).

    1964

    Albert Ayler records Spiritual Unity with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray, the first release on Bernard Stollman's ESP label.

    1964

    Japanese impresario Tokutara Honda stages the World Jazz Festival in Japan. Miles Davis is the biggest draw.

    1964


    1964

    Boogie woogie pianist Meade "Lux" Lewis dies on June 7.

    1964

    Robert Moog develops the Voltage Controlled Amplifier and Voltage Controlled Oscillator of the modular Moog synthesizer. Moog was previously best known for the theremin kits he sold out of his apartment starting in 1961.

    1964


    1964


    1964


    1964


    1964

    Mose Allison records

    1964


    1964

    Pianist/composer Andrew Hill records

    1964


    1964


    1964


    1965


    1965

    Grant Green records

    1965

    In one mammoth swath of recording activity, Coltrane produces Ascension, Om, and Kulu Se Mama. These three large-group recordings feature high-energy collective free improvisaton. (They will later be collected for reissue as The Major Works Of John Coltrane on Impulse!)

    1965

    Coltrane John Coltrane records Sun Ship in August, the final work by his classic quartet with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones. November's Meditations expands his working quartet to a sextet with Pharoah Sanders on tenor saxophone; Rashied Ali joins Elvin Jones on the drums. (Jones will subsequently leave the group after complaining he can not hear his own playing; Tyner will leave the next year.)

    1965

    Trumpeter Miles Davis records E.S.P. (Columbia) with his classic '60s quintet: saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams. The album has a picture of his (then) wife, dancer Frances Taylor, on the jacket.

    1965

    Saxophonist Archie Shepp records his Impulse! debut, Four For Trane, with alto saxophonist John Tchicai, trombonist Roswell Rudd on trombone, bassist Reggie Workman, and drummer Charles Moffett.

    1965

    Vibraphone player Bobby Hutcherson records Dialogue (Blue Note) with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, reedist Sam Rivers, pianist Andrew Hill, bassist Richard Davis, and drummer Joe Chambers.

    1965

    Ornette Coleman's new trio with bassist David Izenzon and drummer Charles Moffett records the two volume At the "Golden Circle" Stockholm (Blue Note).

    1965

    AAJ Building a Jazz Library: Masterpieces

    Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage (Blue Note)
    Pianist Herbie Hancock's best record adopts a nautical angle, with gentle waves of sound surrounding strong, forward-sailing melodies. Maiden Voyage relies upon subtlety, but it features wonderful group interaction and showcases some of Hancock's finest playing.


    1965

    The AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) is formed in Chicago.

    1965

    Baritone sax player Gerry Mulligan records Night Lights (Mercury) with trumpeter Art Farmer, trombonist Bob Brookmeyer, guitarist Jim Hall, bassist Bill Crow, and drummer Dave Bailey. Mulligan also plays clarinet and piano.

    1965

    Bop composer and arranger Tadd Dameron dies on March 8.

    1965

    Bill Lear announces the development of eight track tape technology. The following year Ford offers players as optional equipment on its vehicles, sparking a new listening trend. Tape player production eventually shifts to Japan.

    1965


    1965

    The classic fuzz box assumes popularity among rock guitarists, including Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, and Keith Richards (who uses a Gibson Fuzz Box on "Satisfaction" in 1965). As effects technology develops, jazz players (and even horn players like Miles Davis) will pick it up for use.

    1965


    1965

    Bobby Hutcherson records

    1965


    1965


    1965

    Pianist Herbie Hancock records

    1965


    1965


    1965


    1965


    1965


    1965


    1965


    1965

    Wes Montgomery performs at Theatre des Champs Elysees in Paris.

    1965

    Pianist/composer Sun Ra records

    1965

    Gabor Szabo leaves the Hamilton group and splits his time with the Gary McFarland Quintet and the Charles Lloyd quartet featuring Ron Carter and Tony Williams.

    1966

    Duke Ellington records Far East Suite (RCA).

    1966

    John Coltrane marries Alice McCleod, who replaces McCoy Tyner as Coltrane's pianist. Following the departure of Elvin Jones, Coltrane's new quintet, which includes Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Jimmy Garrison and Rashied Ali, records Live at the Village Vanguard Again! (Impulse!) in late May and Live in Japan (Impulse!) in July. The latter recording (reissued as a 4-CD set) features a nearly hour-long version of "My Favorite Things."

    1966

    Alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley records the live Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! (Blue Note) with his quintet. Acoustic/electric pianist Joe Zawinul composes the hit title track.

    1966

    Pianist Keith Jarrett is currently performing with the Charles Lloyd Quartet.

    1966

    The Roscoe Mitchell sextet records Sound in August with members of Chicago's AACM community, including two future members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors.

    1966

    Drummer Buddy Rich starts up a big band which would last about twenty years.

    1966

    Bop piano immortal Earl "Bud" Powell dies on July 31.

    1966

    On October 3, Dave Lambert of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross fame is struck by a car and killed instantly while trying to help a fellow motorist on the Connecticut Turnpike.

    1966

    Trumpeter Chet Baker is severely beaten on the streets of San Francisco, an event related to his drug addiction. Carol Baker was in the hospital for the birth of their youngest child, Missy, when it occurred. (Baker wrongly gave 1968 as the date in some interviews; he also incorrectly stated that he lost most of his teeth during the assault. The teeth went in ensuing years.)

    1966

    Lee Morgan records first of two sessions for album

    1966


    1966

    George Benson records session for album

    1966


    1966


    1966


    1966


    1966

    Gabor Szabo embarks on a solo career, recording the exceptional album, Spellbinder, which yielded many inspired moments. Santana later turned "Gypsy Queen" into a huge hit in 1970.

    1967


    1967

    Stan Getz records

    1967


    1967


    1967


    1967

    Aretha Franklin records I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (Atlantic), which features the hit single "Respect," by Otis Redding.

    1967

    In the final stages of developing liver cancer, Coltrane records three records which see public release: Stellar Regions, Expression, and Interstellar Space. The latter two would have to wait several years before release. The Olatunji Concert (recorded live) would be discovered later. His other recorded material from 1967 remains in the private collection of Alice Coltrane.

    1967

    John Coltrane dies of liver cancer on July 17 at the age of 40. Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler perform at his funeral, and a church will be created in his name in San Francisco.

    1967

    Strayhorn Ellington Composer Billy Strayhorn dies on March 31. Shortly thereafter, Duke Ellington records the tribute And His Mother Called Him Bill (RCA).

    1967

    Vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson records Oblique (Blue Note) with Herbie Hancock on piano, Albert Stinson on bass and Joe Chambers on drums.

    1967

    Miles Davis records Nefertiti with Wayne Shorter on tenor sax.

    1967

    Miles Davis records Sorcerer. The album cover features a picture of his second wife, actress Cicely Tyson. Nefertiti, with his '60s quintet, follows shortly thereafter.

    1967

    The Beatles record the tremendously influential Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. This album is not only influential on the Rock front. It will influence all types of music including Jazz.

    1967

    Guitarist Jimi Hendrix releases his debut, Are You Experienced? (Track, UK; Reprise, US), with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell.

    1967

    Albert Ayler records the live In Greenwich Village (Impulse!) in December 1966 and February 1967.

    1967

    Bop pianist Elmo Hope dies on May 19.

    1967

    New Orleans clarinetist Edmond Hall dies on February 11.

    1967

    Boogie woogie piano player Pete Johnson dies on March 23.

    1967

    Clarinetist Buster Bailey dies on April 12.

    1967


    1967


    1967

    Jackie McLean records

    1967

    The Don Ellis Orchestra plays

    1968

    Miles Davis Miles Davis records Filles de Kilimanjaro (Columbia) with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, and Tony Williams. His new third wife, singer Betty Mabry, appears on the cover.

    1968

    Warner Brothers releases Irish rocker Van Morrison's Astral Weeks.

    1968

    Vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson and saxophonist/flutist Harold Land play together on Total Eclipse (Blue Note) with Chick Corea on piano, Reggie Johnson on bass and Joe Chambers on drums.

    1968

    Anthony Braxton records For Alto (Delmark), a 2-LP collection of solo saxophone improvisations.

    1968

    President Richard Nixon hosts an event in honor of Duke Ellington's 70th birthday, awarding the artist the Congressional Medal of Freedom (the highest honor that can be awarded to a civilian) at the White House.

    1968

    Trumpeter and flugelhorn player Art Farmer moves to Vienna.

    1968


    1968

    Herbie Hancock plays a studio session for Blue Note Records. Herbie Hancock recorded three tracks for the album Speak Like A Child at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
  • Riot
  • Speak Like A Child
  • First Trip The musicians:
  • THAD JONES, fluegelhorn
  • PETER PHILLIPS, bass trombone
  • JERRY DODGION, alto flute
  • HERBIE HANCOCK, piano
  • RON CARTER, bass
  • MICKEY ROKER, drums.

    1968

    Hampton Hawes plays the

    1968

    Pianist/composer Chick Corea records his first trio album

    1968


    1968

    Lou Donaldson records

    1968


    1968

    Illinois Jacquet records

    1969


    1969


    1969


    1969

    Miles Davis records In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, starting the fusion revolution. Bitches Brew sells a half million copies its first year.

    1969

    Drummer Tony Williams forms an early fusion band called Lifetime with guitarist John McLaughlin and organist Larry Young, recording Emergency! (Polydor).

    1969

    Frank Zappa records his second solo album, Hot Rats, with Jean-Luc Ponty on violin (among others).

    1969

    ECM (Editions of Contemporary Music) Records is established in Munich by Manfred Eicher. The label's first release, recorded in late 1969, is the Mal Waldron Trio's Free at Last with pianist Mal Waldron, bassist Isla Eckinger, and drummer Clarence Becton.

    1969

    Tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins dies of liver cancer on May 19.

    1969


    1969


    1969


    1969

    Illinois Jacquet records

    1970


    1970

    Dreams, a fusion group featuring Billy Cobham plus Randy and Mike Brecker, releases its self-titled debut on Columbia.

    1970

    Saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Joe Zawinul, bassist Miroslav Vitous, drummer Alphonse Mouzon and percussionist Airto Moreira form the fusion supergroup Weather Report.

    1970

    Free jazz saxophone player Albert Ayler dies on November 5.

    1970

    Pianist Chick Corea, reedist/percussionist Anthony Braxton, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Barry Altschul form the free jazz group Circle. They record Early Circle and Circulus (Blue Note). The rhythm section of the group also records Song of Singing (Blue Note) under Corea's name.

    1970

    Duke Ellington records New Orleans Suite (Atlantic).

    1970

    Miles Davis records Jack Johnson takes fusion in more of a rock direction, digging deep into the groove with some real punch and more of a funky flavor. This disc offers the greatest clarity of any discs from Miles' fusion-era work.

    1970

    Horace Silver records session for album

    1970

    Pat Martino records

    1970


    1971


    1971

    Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong dies in New York City on July 6.

    1971

    In September, Thelonious Monk and a band including Art Blakey on drums and Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet begins "The Giants of Jazz" world tour in New Zealand. They would record at several venues in Europe. Shortly after the tour's conclusion, Thelonious Monk records three Black Lion sessions (The London Collection, Vol. 1-3) solo and with drummer Art Blakey and bassist Al McKibbon.

    1971

    The fusion group Weather Report records its eponymous first LP for Columbia. The group consists at this time of Joe Zawinul on keyboards, Wayne Shorter on soprano saxophone, Miroslav Vitous on bass, Alphonse Mouzon on drums and Airto Moreira on percussion.

    1971

    British electric guitarist John McLaughlin forms the Mahavishnu Orchestra, a fusion group whose first LP, The Inner Mounting Flame (Columbia), includes McLaughlin on guitar, Jan Hammer on piano, Rick Laird on bass, Jerry Goodman on violin and Billy Cobham on drums.

    1971

    Pianist Chick Corea records Piano Improvisations Vols 1 and 2 (ECM), two records of solo improvisation consisting mostly of Corea tunes.

    1971

    Henry Threadgill (flute and reeds), Fred Hopkins (bass) and Steve McCall (drums) form Air and record an eponymous record on Embryo.

    1971


    1971


    1972

    Hard bop trumpeter Lee Morgan is shot dead at 33 by his common-law wife, Helen More, at Slug's, a New York City jazz club, on February 19.

    1972

    Thelonious Monk shuts himself up in the home of Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter. He will remain there until he dies in 1982. Recall that Charlie Parker died in 1955 in Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter's apartment. Not the same place, but nonetheless an interesting fact.

    1972

    Weather Report finishes recording I Sing the Body Electric (Columbia).

    1972

    Pianist Chick Corea and Return to Forever record an eponymous debut on ECM, followed by a second album, Light as a Feather (Polydor), with Joe Farrell on flute and tenor sax, Stanley Clarke on bass, Airto Moreira on percussion, and Flora Purim on vocals and percussion.

    1972

    Gospel great Mahalia Jackson dies on January 27.

    1972

    Tenor saxophonists Ben Webster and Dexter Gordon record

    1972


    1973


    1973


    1973


    1973

    Guitarist Ralph Towner records

    1973

    Pianist Herbie Hancock records the classic jazz/funk album Head Hunters (Columbia), which includes "Chameleon" and "Watermelon Man."

    1973

    Drummer Billy Cobham records Spectrum (Atlantic) with Tony Bolin on guitar, Jan Hammer on keyboards, Lee Sklar on bass, Joe Farrell on flute and sax, Jimmy Owens on flugelhorn, John Tropea on guitar, Ron Carter on bass, and Ray Barretto on congas.

    1973

    Swing and bop saxophonist Ben Webster dies on September 20.

    1973

    Gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe dies in Philadelphia on October 9.

    1973

    Stride piano pioneer Willie "The Lion" Smith dies on April 18.

    1973

    The United States is almost completely out of Vietnam.

    1973


    1973


    1974


    1974


    1974

    Fusion band Weather Report finishes recording its fourth album, Mysterious Traveler (Columbia).

    1974

    Saxophonist Wayne Shorter records the samba-influenced Native Dancer (Columbia) with acoustic/electric pianist Herbie Hancock, singer Milton Nascimento, and percussionist Airto Moreira, among others.

    1974

    Nineteen year old guitarist Pat Metheny from Kansas City becomes the youngest teacher ever at Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music.

    1974

    Vibraphone player Gary Burton hires Berklee colleague Pat Metheny, whom he met the year before at the Wichita Jazz Festival, to join his newly expanded quintet. The group, which includes Burton, Metheny, guitarist Mick Goodrick, bassist Steve Swallow, and drummer Bob Moses, records the album Ring (ECM).

    1974

    Guitarist John Abercrombie records Timeless (ECM) with Jan Hammer on keyboards and Jack DeJohnette on drums.

    1974

    Coltrane John Coltrane's Interstellar Space (Impulse!), a series of duets recorded in 1967 with drummer Rashied Ali, is finally released.

    1974

    Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington dies on May 24.

    1974

    Hard bop tenor saxophone player Tina Brooks dies on August 13.

    1974

    Jazz-rock trumpeter Bill Chase, leader of the group Chase, dies on August 9.

    1974


    1974


    1975

    Art Farmer pays tribute to the Duke. The Art Farmer Quartet (Art Farmer, Cedar Walton, Sam Jones, Billy Higgins) records Ellington/Strayhorn compositions:
    • In A Sentimental Mood
    • It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
    • Star Crossed Lovers
    • The Brown-Skin Gal (In The Calico Gown)
    • Lush Life
    • Love You Madly
    The resulting album is To Duke With Love (East Wind).

    1975

    Count Basie and Zoot Sims record for Pablo Records.

    1975

    Miles Davis retires. He will not even play his horn for about four years. He will, however, return to playing in 1980.

    1975

    The Thelonious Monk Quartet plays the Newport in New York Jazz Festival. The Quartet, which includes Thelonious Jr., Larry Gales and Paul Jeffrey, appears at the Lincoln Center.

    1975

    Pianist Keith Jarrett's K

    1975

    Billy Cobham records A Funky Thide of Sings (Atlantic) with John Scofield and the Brecker Brothers, among others.

    1975

    Gateway (ECM) is recorded by the Gateway trio, featuring John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette.

    1975

    Guitarist Pat Metheny records his first album Bright Size Life (ECM) with bassist Jaco Pastorius and drummer Bob Moses.

    1975

    Sax player Art Pepper returns to jazz after 15 years with Living Legend (OJC) and brings with him an interest in classic bop.

    1975

    Pianist Andrew Hill moves to San Francisco, California.

    1975

    Tenor saxophonist and bass clarinetist David Murray arrives in New York City and will shortly form the World Saxophone Quartet with Hamiet Bluiett, Oliver Lake, and Julius Hemphill.

    1975

    Quirky pop jazz vocalist Michael Franks records his first major label release, The Art of Tea (Warner), with Joe Sample, Michael Brecker, David Sanborn and Larry Carlton.

    1975


    1975


    1976


    1976


    1976


    1976

    Thelonious Monk's quartet appears at Carnegie Hall with guest trumpeter Lonnie Hillyer in March, four months before his final public appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival in July.

    1976

    Bassist Jaco Pastorius joins the group Weather Report, which records Black Market (Columbia).

    1976

    Saxophonist Dexter Gordon records the influential hard bop album Biting the Apple (Steeplechase) shortly before returning to the United States to great acclaim and making the double-LP Homecoming: Live at the Village Vanguard (Columbia).

    1976

    Improvising guitarist George Benson records Breezin' (Warner), which goes to #1 on the pop charts.

    1976

    Trumpeter Bobby Hackett dies on June 7.

    1976


    1976


    1977


    1977

    Bassist/composer Charles Mingus records

    1977

    Saxophonist Archie Shepp records

    1977


    1977

    Hancock Shorter Hubbard Carter Williams Herbie Hancock records the quintet V.S.O.P. with Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis alumni Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams.

    1977

    Fusion group Weather Report records Heavy Weather (Columbia).

    1977

    Free Jazz drummer Sunny Murray states (Jazz Magazine, June) that "the music (Free Jazz) didn't stop a decade ago."

    1977

    Flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione records Feels So Good (A&M), which sells millions of copies. The short format is heard on commercial radio stations from coast to coast.

    1977

    Pianist Errol Garner dies of a heart attack on January 7.

    1977

    Rock and roll icon Elvis Presley dies on August 16.

    1977

    The disco music dance craze is going full tilt.

    1977

    Herbie Hancock uses a vocoder (voice synthesizer) on the popular hit "I Thought It Was You" from Sunlight (Columbia).

    1977


    1977


    1977


    1977


    1977


    1977

    The World Saxophone Quartet records its intense first album, Point of No Return (Moers).

    1978


    1978

    President Jimmy Carter hosts the First Annual White House Jazz Festival in honor of Charles Mingus. Many prominent jazz musicians come to the event, including Roy Eldridge, Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, and Cecil Taylor.

    1978

    Bill Evans forms his last trio with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera.

    1978

    Kenny Garrett begins performing with the Mercer Ellington-led Duke Ellington Orchestra.

    1978

    Guitarist Pat Metheny records Pat Metheny Group (ECM) with Lyle Mays on piano, Mark Egan on bass and Danny Gottlieb on drums.

    1978

    Guitarist John Scofield records Rough House (Enja) with pianist Hal Galper, bassist Stafford James and drummer Adam Nussbaum.

    1978

    Toshiko Akiyoshi's jazz orchestra places first in Downbeat magazine's readers' poll. This is a first time accomplishment for a Japanese woman.

    1978

    Woody Shaw is rated top jazz trumpeter in a Downbeat magazine poll. His record Rosewood (Columbia) is the number one jazz album in the same poll.

    1978


    1978

    The World Saxophone Quartet records Steppin' with the World Saxophone Quartet (Black Saint), the group's second album.

    1978


    1979


    1979

    Charles Mingus dies on January 5 at the age of 56 in Mexico. That same day, 56 whales beach themselves on the shores of Mexico.

    1979

    Trumpet virtuoso Wynton Marsalis comes to New York and a hard bop revival will soon be underway.

    1979

    A jam session at the Brecker brothers' club will produce the group Steps Ahead.

    1979

    Gil Scott Heron is experimenting with a new form of music which involves spoken poetry set to music, similar to what will later be known as hip hop and rap.

    1979

    Vocalese singer Eddie Jefferson dies on May 9 in Detroit, Michigan.

    1979

    Sony Walkman The first Sony Walkman (model TPS-L2) hits the market. Two years later the word "Walkman" enters the dictionary, and the product changes listening habits forever.

    1979


    1979

    Max Roach and Anthony Braxton record One in Two, Two in One (Hat Hut), their second duo album.

    1980

    Count Basie records

    1980

    Novus releases Tributaries, recorded in 1978-79 by guitarists Larry Coryell, Joe Beck, and John Scofield.

    1980

    Clark Terry remembers his former boss on Pablo Records. The Clark Terry Five (Clark Terry, pianist Jack Wilson, guitarist Joe Pass, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Frank Severino) record Memories Of Duke.

    1980

    Miles Davis begins to get back into jazz by playing his horn after four years of abstinence.

    1980

    Wynton Marsalis Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis appears with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers on his first commercial recording, Live at Montreux and Northsea, at age 18. Wynton's saxophonist brother Branford, trombonist Robin Eubanks, and guitarist Kevin Eubanks also appear with the group.

    1980

    Fusion group Weather Report records Night Passage (Columbia).

    1980

    Drummer and keyboard player Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition fuses world music, free jazz, bop and funk on Tin Can Alley (ECM).

    1980

    Spyro Gyra Popular Buffalo fusion group Spyro Gyra records Catching the Sun (MCA).

    1980

    Scat singer Babs Gonzales dies on January 23.

    1980

    Pianist Bill Evans dies on September 15.

    1981

    Guitarist Melvin Sparks made his name as a solid soul jazz player with the likes of Charles Earland and Lou Donaldson. Another of his associates was drummer Idris Muhammed, who appears on this, Sparks last album as a leader until a 1997 comeback, along with pianist Neal Creque and bassist Buster Williams. Sparks wrote two of the tunes and Creque one, with the remaining two pieces the standards "Misty" and "Speak Low." Certainly a period piece firmly in the Muse aesthetic, it admirably carries on the soul jazz tradition.

    1981


    1981


    1981

    Mark Murphy records

    1981

    Trumpeter Miles Davis returns to jazz after a six year retirement. He is the featured artist at the Kool Jazz Festival.

    1981

    24 year old guitarist Emily Remler records her debut album Firefly (Concord) with Hank Jones on piano, Bob Maize on bass and Jake Hanna on drums.

    1981

    John Scofield Guitarist John Scofield records Shinola (Enja) live in Munich in December with Steve Swallow on bass and Adam Nussbaum on drums.

    1981


    1981

    Pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi records

    1981

    Pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi records From Toshiko with Love (BMG/RCA).

    1981


    1982

    Vocalese singer King Pleasure dies on March 21.

    1982

    Pianist Thelonious Monk dies on Feburary 17.

    1982

    Saxophonist Art Pepper dies on June 15.

    1982

    The Kool Jazz Festival features Wynton and Branford Marsalis along with Bobby McFerrin.

    1982

    Saxophonist Michael Brecker states (in an interview with Jazz Hot, Sept-Oct) that his models were guitar players like Jimi Hendrix, not sax players.

    1982


    1983

    The CD is introduced to the general public. This new digital technology will eventually spawn a huge nostalgia market for all types of music, including jazz. One reason for this is that, even though CD's appear to be expensive, they are virtually indestructible compared to vinyl.

    1983

    Wynton Marsalis Wynton Marsalis records Think of One (CBS) with Branford Marsalis on saxes, Kenny Kirkland on piano, Phil Bowler on bass and Jeff Tain Watts on drums. This album will win a 1984 Grammy.

    1983

    Saxophonist and composer Gigi Gryce dies on March 17.

    1983

    Miles Davis Miles Davis records Decoy with John Scofield on guitar and Branford Marsalis on saxophone, among others.

    1983

    Art Farmer and Benny Golson revive the '60s Jazztet with Moment to Moment (Soul Note).

    1983


    1983


    1983


    1984

    Chico Freeman records

    1984

    Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis wins a jazz Grammy for the bop album Think of One. Marsalis also wins a Grammy for classical music this same year. Later he would state that it is harder to play jazz than classical.

    1984

    Miles Davis wins the Sonning Prize, an award from the Danish government which normally goes to a non-jazz composer. This would result in the 1989 release Aura, composed by Palle Mikkelborg.

    1984

    John Scofield records Electric Outlet (Gramavision) with alto saxophonist David Sanborn, trombonist Ray Anderson, synth player Pete Levin, and drummer Steve Jordan

    1984

    Sade Nigerian-born Sade Anu debuts with Diamond Life, a hybrid of R&B passion, jazz finesse and pop accessibility that results in such hits as "Smooth Operator" and "Your Love is King."

    For more information about Sade, read Daniel Garrett's article Sade, a Smooth Operator, sings of No Ordinary Love, and Is That A Crime?.


    1984

    Zoot Sims records Johnny Mandel songbook on Pablo Records.

    1985


    1985

    Pianist Kenny Barron records

    1985

    Gil Evans is granted a honorary doctorate by the New England Conservatory on May 19.

    1985

    Disagreements between Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul lead to the breakup of the enormously successful fusion group Weather Report.

    1985

    Pat Metheny Ornette Coleman Guitarist Pat Metheny collaborates with free sax player Ornette Coleman, bassist Charlie Haden and drummers Jack DeJohnette and Denardo Coleman on Song X (Geffen).

    1985

    Guitarists Larry Coryell and Emily Remler collaborate on Together (Concord).

    1985

    On Cobra, recorded in 1985-86, alto sax player John Zorn combines many styles of jazz in a novel "game piece" form of composition.

    1985

    Kansas City blues shouter Big Joe Turner dies on November 24.

    1985

    Boogie woogie piano player Lloyd Glenn dies on May 23.

    1985


    1985


    1986


    1986

    Guitarist John Scofield records Still Warm (Gramavision) with Don Grolnick on keyboards, Darryl Jones on bass and Omar Hakim on drums. This album is produced by Steve Swallow.

    1986

    Vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Buster Williams, and drummer Al Foster record In the Vanguard live at the Village Vanguard in December.

    1986

    Trumpeter Randy Brecker records In the Idiom (Denon) with Joe Henderson on tenor, Ron Carter on bass, David Kikoski on piano, and Al Foster on drums.

    1986

    Young British saxophonist Courtney Pine records Journey to the Urge Within (Antilles).

    1986

    The French government creates the Orchestre National de Jazz (ONJ).

    1986

    Miles Davis Miles Davis records Tutu (Warner Brothers).

    1986


    1986

    Woody Shaw records

    1986

    Miles Davis is granted a honorary doctorate by the New England Conservatory.

    1987


    1987


    1987


    1987


    1987

    Bassist Jaco Pastorius dies on September 21 from injuries suffered when he is severely beaten by a bar bouncer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

    1987

    Miles Davis and Marcus Miller record the soundtrack for Siesta (Warner), dedicated to Gil Evans.

    1987

    Pharoah Sanders records Africa (Timeless), drawing from his experience with John Coltrane.

    1987

    Michael Brecker Impulse! releases Michael Brecker's self-titled record with Pat Metheny on guitar, Charlie Haden on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, and Kenny Kirkland on keyboards.

    1987

    Sax, flute and keyboard player Greg Osby (formerly of M-BASE) debuts as a leader with Greg Osby and Sound Theatre (JMT), featuring Michele Rosewoman on piano, Fusako Yoshida on koto, Kevin McNeal on guitar, Lonnie Plaxico on bass, and Paul Samuels and Terri Lyne Carrington on drums.

    1987

    Mike Stern Guitarist Mike Stern records Time in Place (Atlantic) with Bob Berg and Michael Brecker on tenor sax, Don Grolnick on organ, Jim Beard on keyboards, Jeff Andrews on bass, Peter Erskine on drums, and Don Alias on percussion.

    1987

    Woody Herman dies on October 29. Herman led big bands his entire life with sidemen including Stan Getz, Milt Jackson, Bill Harris, and Davey Tough.

    1987

    CD's are becoming commonplace in record stores. Soon they will make vinyl records almost obsolete.

    1988


    1988

    Wolfgang Dauner, Charlie Mariano & Dino Saluzzi record

    1988


    1988

    Canadian arranger Gil Evans dies on March 20 at age 75.

    1988

    Art Farmer Trumpet and flugelhorn master Art Farmer records Blame It On My Youth (Contemporary) with pianist James Williams, bassist Rufus Reid, saxophonist Clifford Jordan, and drummer Victor Lewis.

    1988

    Guitarist Emily Remler releases East to Wes (Concord), a tribute to Wes Montgomery with Hank Jones on piano. This would be her last release before dying in 1990 at age 32.

    1988

    Greg Osby records Mindgames (JMT) with Geri Allen and Edward Simon on keyboards, Kevin McNeal on guitar, Lonnie Plaxico on bass and Paul Samuels on drums.

    1988

    Anthony Braxton records the vinyl-only solo saxophone LP London (Solo) 1988 (Impetus).

    1988

    Don Cherry records Art Deco (A&M) with James Clay on tenor sax, Charlie Haden on bass and Billy Higgins on drums.

    1988

    Trumpeter Chet Baker dies in Amsterdam on May 13 after falling out of a hotel window.

    1988

    Saxophonist Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson dies on July 2.

    1988


    1989

    Art Farmer records

    1989

    Lester Bowie records first session for Brass Fantasy album

    1989


    1989

    Miles Davis Columbia finally releases Miles Davis's Aura, originally recorded in 1985 with a big band consisting primarily of Danes. Aura was composed by Palle Mikkelborg as a tribute to Davis, in honor of the trumpeter winning the 1984 Leonie Sonning Music Prize.

    1989

    Miles Davis's Miles: The Autobiography, written with the help of Quincy Troupe, is released.

    1989

    Saxophonist, flutist and percussionist Anthony Braxton sees several releases, including Seven Compositions (Trio) (HatArt) with Adelhard Roidinger on bass and Tony Oxley on drums; a tribute to Warne Marsh called Eight (+3) Tristano Compositions (HatArt); and the large group Eugene (1989) (Black Saint).

    1989

    The British label Acid Jazz is recording groups with names like the Brand New Heavies who play Jazz with a driving dance beat.

    1989

    Courtney Pine records The Vision's Tale on Antilles with Ellis Marsalis on piano, Delbert Felix on bass and Jeff Watts on drums.

    1989

    Intuition releases N.Y.C. by fusion band Steps Ahead, led by Mike Mainieri.

    1989

    Claude Barthelemy becomes director of the French Orchestre National de Jazz (ONJ).

    1989

    Trumpeter Woody Shaw dies on May 10.

    1989

    Warner releases Quincy Jones' Back on the Block with a number of big names in American music, including Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Ella Fitzgerald.

    1989


    1989

    A&M releases Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach's Max & Dizzy: Paris 1989.

    1990


    1990


    1990


    1990


    1990


    1990

    John Scofield Guitarist John Scofield blends bop, swing and Hendrix-like guitar playing on Time On My Hands (Blue Note) with Joe Lovano on tenor sax, Charlie Haden on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums.

    1990

    Antilles releases British reed player Courtney Pine's Within the Realms of Our Dreams with Kenny Kirkland on piano, Charnett Moffett on bass and Jeff Watts on drums.

    1990

    British Acid Jazz band The Brand New Heavies break through with their self-entitled release. N'Dea Davenport adds vocal support to the pop-oriented tunes.

    1990

    Gunther Schuller reconstructs and records Charles Mingus' Epitaph for jazz orchestra.

    1990

    Novus releases Steve Coleman's Rhythm People.

    1990

    John Zorn Naked City Nonesuch releases John Zorn's Naked City.

    1990

    Bop singer Sarah Vaughan dies in N.Y. Vaughan was one of the finest bop singers and remained one of the most sought after for most of her life.

    1990

    Piano player Joe Turner (not Big Joe) dies.

    1990

    Tenor saxophonist David Murray records The Special Quartet with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Fred Hopkins, and drummer Elvin Jones.

    1990

    Trumpeter Tom Harrell records Form with Joe Lovano, Dave Liebman and John Abercrombie.

    1990

    Alto saxophonist Gary Bartz records West 42nd Street.

    1990

    The Art Ensemble of Chicago records Thelonious Sphere Monk with Cecil Taylor.

    1990

    Renee Rosnes records For The Moment with Steve Wilson and Joe Henderson.

    1990

    David Murray, McCoy Tyner, Fred Hopkins & Elvin Jones record as

    1991

    Clarinetist John Carter dies at 61.

    1991


    1991

    At over 70, legendary Delta/Detroit Blues man John Lee Hooker releases the enormously successful albums The Healer (1989) and Mr. Lucky (1991). These albums put Hooker in the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest United Kingdom chart position ever attained by a blues album and as the oldest performer ever to reach the top five. As if that weren't enough, The Healer sold over a million copies and won Hooker his first Grammy.

    1991

    Joe Henderson records

    1992

    Ahmad Jamal records concert in Paris.

    1992


    1992


    1993

    Ray Brown records

    1993

    Pianist Art Hodes dies at 86.

    1993


    1993

    Trumpeter/composer Wynton Marsalis records

    1993

    Guitarist John McLaughlin records his tribute to Bill Evans,

    1993


    1994


    1994

    Pianist McCoy Tyner's Trio records

    1994


    1994


    1995


    1995


    1995


    1995

    Brad Mehldau records his first Warner Bros album

    1995

    Kenny Barron records

    1996

    Keith Jarrett Trio concert in Tokyo recorded.

    1996


    1996

    John Scofield records first session for album

    1996


    1996

    Lee Konitz records

    1997

    Christian McBride records

    1997

    Arthur Blythe records

    1998

    World Saxophone Quartet records tribute to Miles Davis. Selim Sivad - A Tribute To Miles Davis (Justin Time Records)
    • Hamiet Bluiett: baritone saxophone & contra alto clarinet
    • Oliver Lake: alto saxophone & flute
    • David Murray: bass clarinet & tenor saxophone
    • John Purcell: alto flute & saxello
    • Jack DeJohnette: drums & piano
    • Okyerema Asante: african drums, kalimba and percussion
    • Chief Bey: ashiko african drum
    • Titos Sompa: african drums, kalimba, percussion & voice

    1998


    1998

    Chris Potter records

    1998


    1999


    1999


    2000

    Trumpeter Wallace Roney records

    2000

    Vocalist Abbey Lincoln records

    2001

    Brad Mehldau records first session for

    2001

    Uri Caine records

    2001

    Pianist John Hicks records tribute to Sonny Clark.

    2002

    Scott Hamilton records live session in London.

    2002

    The Tinky Winky Quartet records

    2002

    Clark Terry and Max Roach celebrate their

    2008

    Svensson was in the company of divers at a Swedish jetty/landing stage under supervision of a dive-leader when he was found severely injured on the sea bed. Continue.

    2008

    Herbie Hancock's Herbie Hancock's album River: The Joni Letters won the GRAMMY Award for Album of the Year, making it the first time a jazz artist has won Album of the Year since 1964.

    Leonard Cohen, Norah Jones, Joni Mitchell, Corinne Bailey Rae, Luciana Souza & Tina Turner, featured artists; Herbie Hancock & Larry Klein, producers; Helik Hadar, engineer/mixer; Bernie Grundman, mastering engineer.


    Disclaimer: This timeline may contain erroneous information. If you discover errors or omissions, please bring them to our attention.

  • Get more of a good thing!

    Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.