A Historical Look At America's Jazz

1890 -	The start of the heyday of Ragtime
1897 -	New Orleans creates red light district known as Storyville - . It spawns such legendary founding fathers a s Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton.
1917 -	First jazz recording by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
1922 -	Armstrong moves to Chicago, plays with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band and launches his own Hot Five.
1927 -	Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club Orchestra set up shop at the Cotton Club in Harlem.
1933 -	Billie Holiday makes first recordings with Benny Goodman, begins collaboration with Lester Young.
1935 -	Benny Goodman launches the big band swing craze.
1940 -	Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie invent bebop.
1949 -	Miles Davis cuts "The Birth of the Cool - ." Cool jazz flourishes with such players as Gerry Mulligan, Art Pepper, Stan Getz and Paul Desmond.
1955 -	John Coltrane joins Miles Davis Quintet
1960 -	Coltrane records "My Favorite Things," puts together his quartet and begins experimenting with solos that run as long as 45 minutes.
1969 -	Miles Davis "fuses jazz and rock in "Bitches Brew."
1980 -	Jazz struggles for direction. Miles Davis records with Lyndi Lauper.
1984 -	Wynton Marsalis wins Grammys as both jazz and classical soloist.
1991 -	Miles Davis dies.

Lingo of Jazz...

From blues to bebop, fusion to swing, here is a quick trip through some of the "Lingo of Jazz"

• Bebop: The first modern jazz style, evolved in the 40s. Bop's emphasis was on complexity, harmonic improvisation and technical virtuosity. Spectacular examples: Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.
• Blues: A 12-bar song form that evolved from black spirituals and work songs. It's unique elements are blue notes, speech-like inflection and emotional expressions.
• Cool Jazz: A small-group jazz style that originated in the 1950s with Miles Davis' "Birth of the Cool" and is often identified with West Coast jazz. It's main features are subdued expression and a more intellectual approach.
• Dixieland: A general label that usually refers to early New Orleans-style jazz or to the version of (pre-1930s) Chicago jazz played by white musicians.
• Free Jazz: A controversial style of jazz that emerged in the 1960's in the music of Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and others. The music - "free" of either conventional rhythm, harmony, melody or all of the above - often strikes new listeners as chaotic and unmusical.
• Fusion: A mix of different musical styles - especially jazz and rock or jazz and R&B.
• Improvisation: An on-the-spot musical mini composition in which a player (or, less often, a group) deviates from the original them (or song or tune) with as much ingenuity as he/she can manage without abandoning the original theme
• Ragtime: A pre-jazz hybrid that combined European harmonies with the syncopated rhythms of black folk music. Most notable example: Scott Joplin.
• Swing: Dance-oriented, big-band music that became immensely popular during the 1930's. Notable examples: Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington

*From "Jazz For Beginners" by Ron David (Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc.)