Jazz: A Regional Exploration

Many describe jazz asa the one true form of American music. Arising out of the syncopated rhythms of African music, Cajun songs, and Ragtime, jazz evolved in many 'scenes' throughout the country. The "Young Lions" jazz movement in New Orleans spread up the Mississippi in the northern Migration. Communities such as St. Louis and Sedalia became jazz centers, while Count Bassie led a revolution in Kansas City. Chicago became a center of freewheeling jazz in the 1920s with the efforts of Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, and Louis Armstrong, while classic jazz and swing took root in New York City in the '30s and '40s behind Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and Benny Goodman. And while 'boogie woogie' and 'hot jazz' grew out of the Big Apple, a generation of experimental musicians such as Chet Baker and Stan Kenton stood at the forefront of West Coast jazz. Yankow carefully traces the evolution of jazz from regional manifestations to an increasingly national language at the turn of the 20th century.

Scott Yanow has written several books on jazz, including Jazz on Record: The First Sixty Years andJazz on Film.