In the turn from the century about 1920, numerous artists made their mark by playing in the discreet underground nightclubs called "Speakeasies" which are high class, "Blind pig" lower class or "Smokeasy" for tobacco users. The United States once prohibited the sale of alcoholic drinks and smoking tobacco in clubs as a constitutional amendment. One could typically find an underground nightclub by the thresholds without an indication to indicate that there was such as establishment inside. Those dives also had a secret doorway that lead out to a passageway or alley just in case the police came to investigate. The police had the power to arrest everybody in the position attributable to the fact that they were broke the law by being there.
Although, thing were beginning to seek out for Jazz Music once the creation of the record player or phonograph was designed to play jazz albums. In addition, radio stations helped promote Jazz music, and made it favorite among the populace. Jazz Music became a music of class that earned the era a nick name called the "Jazz age". The band leaders who became famous as Jazz musicians were Paul Whiteman, Ted Lewis, Harry Reser, Leo Reisman, Abe Lyman, Nat Shilkret, Earl Burnett, Ben Bernie, George Olson, Bob Haring, Vincent Lopez, Ben Salvin and a good many more. Paul Whiteman stated to be the king of Jazz music as a result of his popularity. He earned the title when he hired some white Jazz musicians with Bix Beiderbecke included to combine jazz with larger orchestrations.
In point of fact George Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue' was commissioned by Whiteman as his debut for the orchestra.
Ten years after Jazz music became popular it was reinvented into a style that might be suitable for radio and dancing. This style was known as "Swing" which allowed musicians to improvise their own individual interpretation of the melody or style that was sometimes tough to do. In the Swing era Jazz bands grew into a more substantial size which was often noted as "Big Band" music that would always feature a soloist.
The band leaders and music arrangers for Jazz music who became famous for this style of music was Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, Fletcher Henderson, Walter Page, Benny Goodman, Don Redman, Chick Webb, Jimmie Lunceford, and Jay McShann. During this period there were racial issues of segregation between charcoal and white people, but it slowly died down sufficient for the white band leaders to find black musicians to perform with them. In the center of the 1930's Benny Goodman invited Teddy Wilson (pianist), Lionel Hampton (vibraphonist), and Charlie Christian (guitarist) to be a component of a group.
Each musician learned from the style of other musicians as a way to form their own. To Illustrate, Taxi Calloway, Dizzy Gillespie(trumpeter), Bing Crosby (vocalist) were influenced by the improvising of Louis Armstrong. Later, the vocalists Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, and Sarah Vaughn joined the scene with Jazz Improvisation known as the scat. To Scat is to vocally imitate instruments using such non verbal language as doot 'n doo bee yah bah loo bey doo ee ya boy lay bah doo doot 'n doo yah doo doy.
Before now of the 1940's Jazz music evolved yet again into a new style called "Jump Music" which was upbeat music using blues chords carried out by small music groups. These small music groups are the forms many bands make currently. Later, another style of Jazz music came using the music of the 1930's as an inspiration called "Boogie-Woogie" where the typical 4 beat bar section expanded into an eight beat bar section in the rhythm which Big Joe Turner took the lead in the 1940's.
In the 1950's, music reinvented again when turner turned to "Rock and Roll music". As for the Swing era music it was reborn in the employment of the modern dance trends. Kansas City made memorial for Charlie Parker in their American Jazz Museum that displays the history of the music and the individuals who made Jazz music what it is now.
