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Episodes 1-3 in the twelve episode series.
Episode One – Gumbo, Beginnings to 1917:
Jazz begins in New Orleans, a city with a richly diverse musical culture. Here in the 1890s, African-American musicians create a new music by mixing ragtime syncopations and the soulful feeling of the blues. Soon after the start of the new century, people are calling it jazz. Meet the pioneers of this revolutionary art form: Buddy Bolden, Sidney Bechet and Freddie Keppard.
Early jazz players travel the country in the years before World War 1 but few people have a chance to hear this new music until 1917, when a group of white musicians – the Original Dixieland Jazz Band – make their first recording. Americans are suddenly jazz crazy.
Episode Two – The Gift, 1917 – 1924:
Speakeasies, flappers and easy money: it’s the Jazz Age, the tale of two great cities, Chicago and New York, and of two extraordinary artists whose lives and music will span almost three quarters of a century – Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Other musicians to inspire the world of jazz include trumpet player Bubber Miley and bandleaders, Paul Whiteman and Fletcher Henderson.
Episode Three – Our Language, 1924 – 1929:
As the stock market continues to soar, jazz is everywhere in America. Now for the first time, soloists and singers take centre stage, transforming the music with their distinctive voices and the unique stories they have to tell. Meet the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith; Bix Beiderbecke, the first great white jazz star; and a bandleader Benny Goodman for whom jazz offers an escape from the ghetto.
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