page_591 < previous page page_591 next page > Page 591 Joe "King" Oliver and Louis Armstrong had migrated from New Orleans to Chicago. Their music was captured on the early "race records," which were marketed to a black audience, and by the late 1920s jazz could be heard anywhere in the United States. The Gennet recordings by King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band and the OKeh sessions of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven are acknowledged masterpieces of early jazz. These and similar bands often accompanied the "classic" blues singers like Gertrude ''Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Ida Cox on their live stage shows and recordings. In 1927 Edward "Duke" Ellington moved from Washington, D.C., to New York City and shortly thereafter began his famous stand at Harlem's Cotton Club. He quickly emerged as a major innovator in jazz, and his large ensembles of twelve to fourteen pieces foreshadowed the swing craze of the middle 1930s. Ellington was distinguished by his ability to compose creative pieces, such as "East St. Louis Toodle-oo," "Black and Tan Fantasy," and "Take the A Train," with individual members of his orchestra in mind. Many of these compositions have become jazz standards that are performed all over the world. Other important orchestras, including those organized by Fletcher Henderson and Cab Calloway, emerged in the light of Ellington's work and performed in the sophisticated clubs of northern cities. From the Southwest came the rowdier, bluesier territory bands of Benny Moten and Count Basie. In the middle 1930s jazz began to reach the masses as a result of the swing craze that made the Casa Loma Orchestra and the bands of Glenn Miller and Jimmy Dorsey household favorites. These white bands reduced the music of the more innovative black bandleaders to a formula that appealed to millions because of its swinging 4/4 beat, well-blended saxophone sections, and pleasant singers. The popularity of swing helped boost the careers of black bandleaders, too, but it also led to a creative slump that disheartened many of the musicians who were tiring of swing's predictability. During the early 1940s a new style of jazz, called bop, was fermenting in the New York City clubs, and by the close of World War II many of the younger black musicians had embraced its vitality. This jazz was rhythmically vigorous and explored new melodic possibilities based on familiar harmonic changes. Small ensembles came back into vogue, led by young rebels like Charlie Parker (alto sax), Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet), and Thelonious Monk (piano) who had fled the stifling big bands. Singers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter, and Eddie Jefferson soon began emulating the new ideas of the bebop stylists. They were also notable for their instrumental-like vocal phrasing. By the late 1940s even veteran swing artists had begun to accept bop as legitimate music, though it also triggered a revival of New Orleans jazz that led to renewed interest in veterans like clarinetist George Lewis and trombone-playing Kid Ory. During the 1950s jazz all but slipped out of the commercial mainstream. Most of the big bands folded for lack of work, and bop evolved into new permutations. First came the cool school, a relaxed approach to small-group improvisation that gained favor on the West Coast. Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax) and Dave Brubeck (piano) are two of the best-known practitioners. In the late 1950s a fusion of jazz and classical music known as third stream, pioneered by composer and French horn player Gunther Schuller and the Modern Jazz Quartet, carved out a small following but never gained wide popularity. Finally, there was hard bop or soul jazz featuring short, concise blues themes. Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and the Horace Silver Quintet emerged at the forefront of hard bop. Another approach began to be heard in the very late 1950s in the groups fronted by Miles Davis (trumpet), Ornette Coleman (saxophone, trumpet, and violin), and John Coltrane (saxophone). Some of the music's standard notions of harmony and melodic improvisations were downplayed in favor of sound textures and modes. Within six years both the United States and jazz were embracing radical new ideas, including black nationalism and protesting American military action in Vietnam. Saxophone players Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, and Sam Rivers were playing fierce, sometimes angry music that  < previous page page_591 next page >