1895: The original Jazz band, according to Herbert Asbury's The Latin Quarter (1938), was the 'Spasm Band' made up of seven boys, aged twelve to fifteen, who first appeared in New Orleans. They advertised themselves as the "Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band."
1902: The 12-year-old Jelly Roll Morton "invents" Jazz, or so he later claims. A habitue of Storyville, the red-light district of New Orleans, Morton combines ragtime, French quadrilles and the hot Blues played by Buddy Bolden, the notoriously hard-living cornetist.
1917: "The Original Dixieland Jazz Band", a white group, makes the first Jazz recording, "Livery Stable Blues." It sells a million copies, launching Jazz as popular music. Freddie Keppard, a black band leader, had rejected the chance to make the first Jazz record - he was afraid other musicians would copy his style.
c.1920: An older Morton (among others) introduces 'chord symbols' as alternative notation for professional musicians thus futhering the evolution of Jazz music.
April 6, 1923: King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band records Dippermouth Blues with Louis Armstrong, Honore Dutrey, Johnny Dodds, Lil Hardin, Baby Dodds & Bill Johnson showing strong influence of the Blues in early Jazz.
July 17, 1923: The first integrated recording session, Jelly Roll Morton records with The New Orleans Rhythm Kings.
1924: George Gershwin would compose the work which defined his career and elevate him to a level of greatness, all in less than 3 weeks. 'Rhapsody in Blue' performed at Aeolian Hall by Paul Whiteman's orchestra, arranged by Ferde Grofe, was originally scored for piano and Jazz band.
1925-1928: Take it away, Satchmo: With his Hot Fives and Hot Sevens recordings, Louis Armstrong revolutionizes the Jazz form, encouraging solo improvisation over ensemble playing.
1926: Louis Armstrong records the first Jazz scat vocal Heebie Jeebies.
December 4, 1927: Duke Ellington's band historic opening at New York's Cotton Club.
1929-1945: The swing era rises and falls. Jimmie Lunceford and Count Basie lead influential groups. Most of the big hits, though, are recorded by white band leaders like Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey.
1932: RCA Victor records Duke Ellington's band playing medley of Mood Indigo, Hot And Bothered & Creole Love Call in stereo using a pioneering set-up consisting of two microphones, two separate sets of wires, two separate disc lathes and two separate wax masters.
c.1935-1955: The jam session as art form: West 52d Street in Manhattan, packed with clubs, becomes the playground for Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and all their friends.
1936: Well before the rest of the country, Jazz becomes integrated. At the Congress Hotel in Chicago, Lionel Hampton and Teddy Wilson sit in with Benny Goodman's ensemble. Two years later, Billie Holiday joins Artie Shaw's big band.
July 6, 1937: The Benny Goodman orchestra records an extended (8 min 43 seconds) version of Louis Prima's Sing, Sing Sing featuring a drum solo by Gene Krupa, elevating the role of the drummer from an accompanying line to an important solo voice in the band.
1938: January 16th at Carnegie Hall in NYC. Originally a publicity stunt by Wynn Nathanson, Benny Goodman's monumental concert included "Twenty Years of Jazz", a thumbnail history of hot music which featured trumpeter Harry James and drummer Gene Krupa, playing arrangements by Fletcher Henderson. Later in the evening, a "jam session" gave the audience a feel for the impromtu character of Jazz, joined by pianist Count Basie, saxophonists Johnny Hodges, Lester Young, and Harry Carney, along with trumpeter Buck Clayton.
1939: While playing "Cherokee" during a Harlem jam session, Charlie Parker happens upon a harmonic discovery that leads to Bebop, a far more intricate style of Jazz, both harmonically and rhythmically.
1943: Jazz ascends to the concert hall: The first of Duke Ellington's annual Carnegie Hall programs and the premiere of "Black, Brown and Beige," his influential long-form work about the history of American blacks.
January 18, 1944: The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City hosts its first-ever Jazz concert, which raised money for the war effort. The concert was the result of a reader's poll for Esquire magazine.
1951: On the heels of Miles Davis' "Birth of the Cool," musicians like Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan form the so-called Cool School, turning down the volume and intensity. It happens, of course, in California.
... Sidney Bechet relocates to Paris, the first of many American Jazz expatriates including Kenny Clarke, Arthur Taylor and Bud Powell. Racial tension was less pronounced and European audiences were far more appreciative.
1953: The Birth of West Coast Bossa Nova: Los Angeles, California saw a collaboration between Harry Babasin, Laurindo Almeida, Roy Harte and Bud Shank that fused Brazilian 'Baiao' rhythms with modern Jazz for the first time.
1954: Clifford Brown wins the Downbeat critic's award for best new star on trumpet and forms the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet. Later that year he records live with Art Blakey on "A Night at Birdland."
...Jazz goes outdoors: George Wein, a pianist and singer, rewrites his Jazz resume by inviting musicians to Newport, R.I., for the first of many Newport Jazz Festivals.
1956: Jimmy Lyons envisions "a sylvan setting with the best Jazz people in the whole world" and creates the Monterey Jazz Festival as an alternative to East Coast festivals.
...A crossover dream: Ella Fitzgerald makes the first of several "Songbook" recordings for Verve, the impresario Norman Granz's new label. The Songbooks make Fitzgerald an international star.
1957-1965: W. Eugene Smith took nearly 40,000 photographs & made 4,000 hours of recordings of major Jazz musicians playing at a Manhattan loft shared by David X. Young, Dick Cary & Hall Overton later archived in the Jazz Loft Project.
December 8, 1957: The Sound of Jazz is broadcast live, setting a standard for Jazz television that has yet to be equaled.
1958: On an August morning in Harlem, 57 greats of Jazz gather for a photo for Esquire magazine which came to be known as A Great Day in Harlem (photo)
...Ray Charles made his debut appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island.
1959: A pivotal year, with several records that expand the very possibilities of improvisation: Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue," John Coltrane's "Giant Steps," Ornette Coleman's "Shape of Jazz to Come."
...Duke Ellington records soundtrack for Otto Preminger's film Anatomy of a Murder.