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Two years earlier, trombonist Kid Ory (1886-1973) and his Sunshine

Orchestra captured the honor of being the first recorded artists in this category. However, they recorded for an obscure California company which soon went out of business and their records were heard by very few.

Also in 1923, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, a white group active in

Chicago, began to make records. This was a much more sophisticated group than the old Dixieland Jass Band, and on one of its recording dates, it used the great New Orleans pianist-composer Ferdinand (Jelly Roll)

Morton (1890-1941). The same year, Jelly Roll also made his own initial records.

JELLY ROLL MORTON

Morton, whose fabulous series of 1938 recordings for the Library of

Congress are a goldmine of information about early Jazz, was a complex man. Vain, ambitious, and given to exaggeration, he was a pool shark, hustler and gambler a well as a brilliant pianist and composer. His greatest talent, perhaps was for organizing and arranging. The series of records he made with his Red Hot Peppers between 1926 and 1928 stands, alongside

Oliver's as the crowning glory of the New Orleans tradition and one of the great achievements in Jazz.

LOUIS IN NEW YORK AND BIG BANDS ARE BORN

That tradition, however, was too restricting for a creative genius like Louis

Armstrong. He left Oliver in late 1924, accepting an offer from New

York's most prestigious black bandleader, Fletcher Henderson

(1897-1952). Henderson's band played at Roseland Ballroom on

Broadway and was the first significant big band in Jazz history.

Evolved from the standard dance band of the era, the first big Jazz bands consisted of three trumpets, one trombone, three saxophones (doubling all kinds of reed instruments), and rhythm section of piano, banjo, bass
(string or brass) and drums. These bands played from written scores

(arrangements or "charts"), but allowed freedom of invention for the featured soloists and often took liberties in departing from the written notes.

Though it was the best of the day, Henderson's band lacked rhythmic smoothness and flexibility when Louis joined up. The flow and grace of his short solos on records with the band make them stand out like diamonds in a tin setting.

The elements of Louis' style, already then in perfect balance, included a sound that was the most musical and appealing yet heard from a trumpet; a gift for melodic invention that was as logical as it was new and startling, and a rhythmic poise (jazzmen called it "time") that made other players sound stiff and clumsy in comparison.

His impact on musicians was tremendous. Nevertheless, Henderson didn't feature him regularly, perhaps because he felt that the white dancers for whom his band performed were not ready for Louis' innovations. During his year with the band, however, Louis caused a transformation in its style and, eventually, in the whole big band field. Henderson's chief arranger,

Don Redman, (1900-1964) grasped what Louis was doing and got some of it on paper. After working with Louis, tenor saxophonist Coleman

Hawkins (1904-1969) developed a style for his instrument that became the guidepost for the next decade.

While in New York, Louis also made records with Sidney Bechet, and with Bessie Smith (1894-1937), the greatest of all blues singers. In
1925, he returned to Chicago and began to make records under his own name with a small group, the Hot Five. Included were his wife Lil Hardin

Armstrong (1899-1971) on piano, Kid Ory, Johnny Dodds, and guitarist

Johnny St. Cyr. The records, first to feature Louis extensively, became a sensation among musicians, first all over the United States and later all over the world. The dissemination of jazz, and in a very real sense its whole development, would have been impossible without the phonograph.

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