Early jazz from Duke Ellington - A swing jazz composer and entertainer


The last 2 months of 1926 marked the moment when Duke Ellington’s music came of age. His band’s debut on the Vocalion record label that November put a marker down that a new jazz voice of maturity and imagination had arrived, with original and creative ideas about how to use a large jazz band, and which raised the question Ellington himself posed about the balance of his work between the “serious composer” and the “swing musician”.

Saxophone jazz from Benny Carter, another great jazz legend


The other man who made a real difference to Henderson’s own eventual output as an arranger was the alto saxophonist, Benny Carter. He has generally been viewed as a less significant component in the development of swing arranging.

A true jazz icon and bandleader - Fletcher Henderson


By 1925, Henderson’s orchestra was the leading African-American big-band in New York, and through its extensive touring, it also established itself on a national basis. It maintained this position until the end of the 1920’s, and Henderson’s bands of the early 1930’s were also highly regarded, although by that period there was stiff competition from Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway, among others.

The rise of the Big Bands - Paul Whiteman King of Jazz


Few famous bandleaders have been the cause of more critical controversy than Paul Whiteman. To many Americans in the 1920’s and 1930’s, this avuncular, rotund figure, waving a baton, and with a wry grin under his pencil moustache, personified jazz.

Boogie woogie piano jazz - Meade Lux Lewis


Some stride players took such exception to what they saw as a simplistic variation on the twelve-measure blues that they refused to play it - Fats Waller even including a clause in his contracts that expressly stated he would not perform any kind of boogie-woogie. But not even Waller could ignore the popularity of the style.

Another great jazz piano artist: Earl Hines


The other most significant jazz-piano soloist of the 1920’s shared Fats Waller’s ability to blend what was essentially a solo style with an ensemble. This was Earl Hines, who developed his mature “trumpet style” in Chicago.

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