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In early 1917, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band made the first jazz recording. Over the next 100 years we have heard transcendent leaps of creativity and staggering virtuosity; we have experienced the music of crushing pain, breathless romance, anger, exhilaration and humor. “Jazz at 100” is that story – one hundred years of jazz recordings – in 100 one-hour programs that will present representative music from a century of recorded jazz history. The series will explore the broad sweep of that narrative; its representative and its idiosyncratic players; its durable movements and dead ends; its popular recordings and rarities.

To listen to the continuation of this series, focused on recent work from living artists, visit: Jazz at 100 Today!

Program List

Hour 1: Jazz Comes to Records – First Jazz Recordings and Precedents (1917)

Hour 2: New Orleans Diaspora – Kid Ory & King Oliver (1922 – 1927)

Hour 3: New Orleans Diaspora – Jelly Roll Morton & Sidney Bechet (1923 – 1928)

Hour 4: Chicago Jazz Roots (1922 – 1929)

Hour 5: Up in Harlem – The Bands (1924 – 1929)

Hour 6: Up in Harlem – Stride (1921 – 1939)

Hour 7: New Orleans Diaspora – Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Sevens (1926 – 1929)

Hour 8: Bix and the Boys (1924 – 1928)

Hour 9: Up in Harlem – Duke Ellington (1927 – 1930)

Hour 10: Birth of the Big Bands (1923 – 1936)

Hour 11: Kansas City and the Territory Bands (1927 – 1940)

Hour 12: The Ascent of the Tenor – Coleman Hawkins (1929 – 1939)

Hour 13: Count Basie – Dueling Tenors and the Great American Rhythm Section (1937 – 1940)

Hour 14: Beyond Category – Duke Ellington in the 1930s (1931 – 1940)

Hour 15: Chick Webb & Benny Goodman (1933 – 1938)

Hour 16: Billie Holiday & Ella Fitzgerald (1936 – 1945)

Hour 17: The Entertainers – Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway and Lionel Hampton (1929 – 1940)

Hour 18: The Entertainers – Fats Waller (1929 – 1943)

Hour 19: Small Groups of the 1930s – Chu Berry, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Hodges, Lester Young (1937 – 1940)

Hour 20: Small Groups – Benny Goodman, Django Reinhardt, John Kirby (1934 – 1941)

Hour 21: The Swing Era (1936 – 1941)

Hour 22: Bebop Big Bands (1940 – 1947)

Hour 23: The Birth of Bebop (1939 – 1945)

Hour 24: R&B – Bebop’s Twin (1939 – 1951)

Hour 25: Yardbird – The Savoy and Dial Recordings of Charlie Parker (1945 – 1948)

Hour 26: That Dizzy Cat – Dizzy Gillespie (1945 – 1948)

Hour 27: Un Poco Loco – The Intensity of Bud Powell (1946 – 1953)

Hour 28: The Genius of Modern Music – Thelonious Monk on Blue Note (1947 – 1950)

Hour 29: Tadd Dameron – Fats Navarro – Sonny Stitt – JJ Johnson (1946 – 1950)

Hour 30: Jazz on Central Avenue – Bebop in Los Angeles (1945 – 1948)

Hour 31: My Brainwaves in His Head, and His in Mine – Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn (1941 – 1967)

Hour 32: Dixieland Revival – A Sense of History (1939 – 1955)

Hour 33: Proto-Cool – Lennie Tristano and Lee Konitz (1946 – 1955)

Hour 34: Miles and Friends – The “Birth” of the Cool (1947 – 1950)

Hour 35: Big Bands of the 1950s (1950 – 1957)

Hour 36: Bebop Pioneers in the 1950s (1949 – 1960)

Hour 37: Cool – Four Brothers After Woody Herman (1946 – 1961)

Hour 38: Stan Kenton & West Coast Jazz (1950 – 1958)

Hour 39: The Birth of Hard Bop (1954 – 1958)

Hour 40: Sons of the Jazz Messengers (1956 – 1964)

Special Edition: Porgy and Bess

Hour 41: The Lyricists – Benny Golson, Gigi Gryce, Art Farmer (1953 – 1962)

Hour 42: The Chicago Sound (1956 – 1961)

Hour 43: Monk and Friends: Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, & Elmo Hope in the 1950s (1953 – 1957)

Hour 44: West Coast Piano – Dave Brubeck, Hampton Hawes, Nat King Cole (1944 – 1959)

Hour 45: Norman Granz and Verve Records (1944 – 1962)

Hour 46: The Songbooks (1950 – 1959)

Hour 47: The Experimentalists – Mingus, Rollins & Coltrane (1956 – 1959)

Hour 48: The Experimentalists – George Russell, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy (1956 – 1960)

Hour 49: Jazz Singers in the 1950s – Sarah Vaughan, Helen Merrill, Dinah Washington and Abbey Lincoln (1954 – 1962)

Hour 50: Vocalese (1952 – 1961)

Hour 51: The Alto After Bird – Art Pepper, Phil Woods, Jackie McLean, Cannonball Adderley (1957 – 1960)

Hour 52: Miles Davis & the First Great Quintet (Sextet) (1956 – 1959)

Hour 53: The Piano Trios – Erroll Garner, Ahmad Jamal, & Bill Evans (1955 – 1961)

Hour 54: The Return of Dexter Gordon (1961 – 1963)

Hour 55: The Modern Jazz Quartet and the Third Stream (1956 – 1961)

Hour 56: Bebop Lives (1961 – 1971)

Hour 57: Jazz Singers in the 1960s (1961 – 1969)

Hour 58: Still Swinging – Ellington, Hodges, Gonsalves, Carter in the 1960s (1960 – 1966)

Hour 59: Jazz and Bossa Nova (1958 – 1963)

Hour 60: The Jazz Messengers Continued (1960 – 1964)

Hour 61: Horace Silver Continued (1959 – 1965)

Hour 62: Hard Bop Tenor, Part 1 (1956 – 1963)

Hour 63: Hard Bop Tenor, Part 2 (1959 – 1964)

Hour 64: Hard Bop Trumpet, Part 1 (1960 – 1967)

Hour 65: Hard Bop Trumpet, Part 2 (1962 – 1964)

Hour 66: Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (1966 – 1969)

Hour 67: The Legacy of Jimmy Giuffre and Lennie Tristano (1961 – 1969)

Hour 68: John Coltrane – The Final Act (1961 – 1967)

Hour 69: School of Trane – Wayne Shorter, Archie Shepp, Charles Lloyd, & Pharoah Sanders (1964 – 1969)

Hour 70: Charles Mingus in the 1960s (1959 – 1963)

Hour 71: Silenced in Their Prime – Eric Dolphy & Booker Little (1961 – 1964)

Hour 72: Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1961 – 1972)

Hour 73: Jackie McLean & Tina Brooks (1960 – 1963)

Hour 74: The Jazz Avant-Garde (1960 – 1966)

Hour 75: The Hard Bop / Avant-Garde Synergy of Andrew Hill (1963 – 1965)

Hour 76: The Arrival of Joe Henderson (1963 – 1967)

Hour 77: Miles Davis and the Second Great Quintet (1963 – 1968)

Hour 78: Sons of Miles – Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Tony Williams (1964 – 1968)

Hour 79: Soul Jazz – Guitar (1960 – 1965)

Hour 80: Soul Jazz – Organ Trios and Quartets (1957 – 1965)

Hour 81: Soul Jazz – Saxophonists and Pianists (1958 – 1969)

Hour 82: Jazz From South Africa (1960 – 1978)

Hour 83: The Road To Fusion (1967 – 1972)

Hour 84: John McLaughlin & The Mahavishnu Orchestra (1969 – 1972)

Hour 85: Chick Corea Acoustic and Electric (1966 – 1973)

Hour 86: Weather Report (1971 – 1976)

Hour 87: Jazz From Europe on ECM (1972 – 1976)

Hour 88: Acoustic Jazz Lives (1972 – 1978)

Hour 89: The Second Acts of Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon, & Johnny Griffin (1975 – 1985)

Hour 90: Art Blakey and the Young Lions (1981 – 1991)

Hour 91: Whither Freedom? (1978 – 1990)

Hour 92: David Murray & the World Saxophone Quartet (1979 – 1996)

Hour 93: Music from the Black Saint Label (1975 – 1989)

Hour 94: John Zorn and The Downtown Scene (1983 – 1995)

Hour 95: Highlights of Jazz in the Early 1990s (1987 – 1994)

Hour 96: Highlights of Jazz in the Late 1990s (1995 – 1999)

Hour 97: Highlights of Jazz in the Early 2000s (1999 – 2003)

Hour 98: Highlights of Jazz in the Late 2000s (2004 – 2010)

Hour 99: Highlights of the Current Decade (2011 – 2018)

Hour 100: All Jazz Is Local (2011 – 2018)

Hour 1: Jazz Comes to Records – First Jazz Recordings and Precedents

On February 26, 1917, five musicians from New Orleans recorded for Victor Records in New York as the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, bringing a new syncopated music to the broader world – jazz. The new music form had developed and evolved in New Orleans and Chicago, primarily, from a rich mix of sources. In this hour, we’ll be exploring these first recordings and their antecedents – African rhythms, sanctified singing, vaudeville, minstrelsy, blues and ragtime.

Annotated Playlist and Resources available at: Hour 1: Jazz Comes to Records – First Jazz Recordings and Precedents

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Hour 2:  New Orleans Diaspora – Kid Ory & King Oliver

As New Orleans lost its commercial position as a major port and blacks fled the oppression of the American south, the cream of NOLA musicians hit the road. Many would play a significant role in the development of jazz.  In this hour we will explore the music of two of these pioneers – trombonist Kid Ory and cornetist King Oliver.

Annotated Playlist and Resources available at: Hour 2: New Orleans Diaspora – Kid Ory & King Oliver

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Hour 3: New Orleans Diaspora – Jelly Roll Morton & Sidney Bechet

In this hour, we’ll explore the music of two more giants of the New Orleans diaspora, pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton, who left Louisiana in 1908 and clarinetist and soprano saxophone player Sidney Bechet, who hit the road in 1916. In the complex racial landscape of New Orleans, both Jelly Roll Morton, born Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, and Sidney Bechet, like Kid Ory, were creoles. Creoles were lighter skinned mixed-race people, who brought conservatory musical training to the mélange that became jazz.

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Hour 4: Chicago Jazz Roots

In addition to King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong, The Chicago scene bristled with black and white bands, initially dominated by more New Orleans musicians, but in time a home grown group of Chicago players emerged. In this hour, we’ll return to the Chicago of King Oliver. As the 1920s progressed the Chicago music scene attracted such early jazz luminaries as Louisiana born clarinetists Jimmie Noone, Johnny Dodds and Leon Roppolo, Earl Hines from Pittsburgh, pianist Lovie Austin from Chattanooga, and Georgia-born trumpeter Jabbo Smith. We will also explore the scant recorded legacy of Freddie Keppard, who reigned in New Orleans as Cornet King after Buddy Bolden, until unseated by Joe “King” Oliver.

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Hour 5:  Up in Harlem – The Bands

Now we move from Chicago to the other emerging center of the music in the 1920s, New York. While New York hosted small combos similar to Chicago, it also grew a number of significant larger groups and orchestras. We’ll hear from orchestras led by Fletcher Henderson, Paul Whiteman, Don Redman and Red Allen. Within these bands, we’ll find some of the greatest soloists of the period – Bix Beiderbecke, Coleman Hawkins, Miff Mole, and Louis Armstrong, who spent a little more than a year in Harlem in 1924 and 1925.

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Hour 6: Up in Harlem – Stride

In the last hour, we listened to several of the bands associated with New York, with an emphasis on the new large ensemble form, the jazz orchestra. In this hour we’ll stick with New York, but focus in on the piano music of Harlem – “Stride.” We are joined in this hour by Art Wheeler, pianist, producer, composer and educator.

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Hour 7: New Orleans Diaspora – Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Sevens

In the past two hours, we’ve heard the music of the newly conceived jazz orchestras of New York and the Harlem-style or “Stride” pianists. We touched on Louis Armstrong’s contributions to the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and the invention of the big band soloist. In this hour, we return with Louis Armstrong to Chicago and listen to his seminal small group recordings. We are joined in this hour by John D’earth – trumpet player, composer educator and member of the jazz performance faculty at the McIntyre Department of Music at UVa.

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Hour 8: Bix and the Boys

In the last hour we heard the most important jazz recordings of the 1920s – the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens led by cornetist Louis Armstrong. Perhaps the other most influential cornet player of the era was a young white player from Davenport Iowa, Bix Beiderbecke. In this hour we will listen to his music often in the company of C-melody saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer. We’ll also listen to several bands featuring cornetist Red Nichols and ground-breaking trombonist Miff Mole. We are joined in this hour by Brendan Wolfe, the author of “Finding Bix – The Life and Afterlife of a Jazz Legend”. He is the managing editor of the Encyclopedia of Virginia, a project of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.

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Hour 9: Up in Harlem – Duke Ellington

In previous programs in this series, we have listened to Stride pianists and jazz orchestras from New York. In this hour, we’ll return to Harlem to listen to maybe the most important band leader in jazz history and one of the most significant composers of the music – Duke Ellington. We are joined in this hour by John D’earth – trumpet player, composer, educator and member of the music performance faculty of the McIntyre Department of Music at the University of Virginia.

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Hour 10: Birth of the Big Bands

In the last hour, we listened to the pioneering jazz orchestra of Duke Ellington. Large jazz ensembles, such as Ellington’s, soon to be known as “Big Bands”, evolved through the 1920s with significant innovations led by bandleaders Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter, Jimmy Lunceford and Don Redman, and arrangers Carter, Redman, Edgar Sampson and Sy Oliver. By the mid-1930s Big Bands dominated popular music.

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Hour 11: Kansas City and the Territory Bands

Outside of the Chicago – New York nexus, jazz thrived during the late 1920’s and 1930’s in Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, with its center in Kansas City. Under the careful control of Boss Pendergast, Kansas City was a wide open town with a thriving night club music scene, nurturing musicians like Joe Turner, Count Basie, Ben Webster, Lester Young and Charlie Parker. Working the urban centers and roadhouses in the region were a slew of “territory bands” only a handful of whom are preserved in the recorded legacy. In this hour, we’ll explore the early jazz of Kansas City and the Territory Bands. Our guest in this hour is Jeff Decker – saxophonist, composer, educator and member of the jazz performance faculty of the University of Virginia McIntyre Department of Music

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Hour 12: The Ascent of the Tenor – Coleman Hawkins

We have to remember that the clarinet dominated the reeds throughout the 1920s. Sidney Bechet made a stand with the soprano sax and Frankie Trumbauer celebrated the lightness of the C-melody sax. And then there was Coleman Hawkins. Our guest in this hour is Jeff Decker – saxophonist, composer, educator and member of the jazz performance faculty of the University of Virginia McIntyre Department of Music

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Hour 13: Count Basie – Dueling Tenors and the Great American Rhythm Section

In the eleventh hour of Jazz at 100, we followed Count Basie through the Benny Moten Band in Kansas City and heard his first recordings as a leader. In 1937, after Benny Moten’s death, he took the nation by storm with his driving band lead by the “All American Rhythm Section” and the dual tenor saxophones of Herschel Evans and Lester Young. We are joined in this hour by Robert Jospe – percussionist, composer, recording artist and member of the performance faculty at the McIntire Department of Music at the University of Virginia.

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Hour 14: Beyond Category – Duke Ellington in the 1930s

In the last hour, we heard Count Basie emerge as an exciting new voice from Kansas City. In this hour, we return to New York to follow Duke Ellington’s innovative path through the 1930s as he experiments with longer musical forms while building one of his greatest bands featuring tenor player Ben Webster and bassist Jimmy Blanton. We are joined in this hour by Peter Spaar – bassist, composer, educator and member of the performance faculty of the McIntyre Department of Music at the University of Virginia.

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Hour 15: Chick Webb & Benny Goodman

In the mid-1930s, jazz orchestras led by drummer Chick Webb and clarinetist Benny Goodman rose to prominence with the arrangements of Edgar Sampson and Fletcher Henderson. After launching the careers of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan, Webb succumbed to spinal tuberculosis in 1939, at age 34. Goodman launched the careers of Gene Krupa, Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, Harry James and Charlie Christian over a storied run that earned him the controversial sobriquet “King of Swing”.

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Hour 16: Billie Holiday & Ella Fitzgerald

Billie Holiday began recording at 18 years old in 1933 in a session with Bennie Goodman and was musically active until her death at 44 in 1959. Ella Fitzgerald also began recording at 18 (in 1935 as the singer with Chick Webb), but in her case, her career surged again in the mid-1950’s with the songbook series on Verve. They are perhaps the two most important female singers to come out of the Swing Era.

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Hour 17: The Entertainers – Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway and Lionel Hampton

Jazz has often been understood through the lens of the conflict between art and commerce. In the 1930s, several artists successfully blurred these distinctions. Louis Armstrong adopted popular song as his vehicle foe a successful career shift into the mainstream. Cab Calloway defined his popular hipster persona while fronting one of the most professional big bands of the era and providing an incubator for numerous future jazz starts including Dizzy Gillespie, Chu Berry and Milt Hinton. Lionel Hampton, a key member of Benny Goodman’s courageous color-blind quartet and the leading vibraphone player of his generation, created a series of high-energy recordings that were foundational in the development of Rhythm and Blues.

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Hour 18: The Entertainers – Fats Waller

In this hour, we continue to explore the intersection of art and commerce. In the 1930s, Fats Waller was one of the artists that successfully blurred this distinction. By far the most commercially successful of the stride pianists, he made his reputation (and his living) through comedy. One of the most recorded jazz composers, Waller also has to make anyone’s shortlist of the most entertaining jazz performers.

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Hour 19: Small Groups of the 1930s – Chu Berry, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Hodges, Lester Young

While the jazz of the thirties was predominantly remembered as coming from orchestras and big bands, seminal soloists continued to record memorable music in small group settings, setting the stage for disruptive industry transitions to come in the 1940s.

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Hour 20: Small Groups – Benny Goodman, Django Reinhardt, John Kirby

In the last hour we heard from prominent Swing Era soloists Chu Berry, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Hodges and Lester Young, featured in small group settings. Continuing in the small group vein, in this hour we’ll hear from the Benny Goodman Trio, Quartet and sextet, Django Reinhardt and le Quintette Du Hot Club de France avec Stephane Grappelli and the influential, but less well known sextet led by bassist John Kirby.

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Hour 21: The Swing Era

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the very dance-oriented swinging music of the Big Bands was the most popular music around. Never had jazz been more central to mass culture. Just over the horizon were the draft of 1940 that eventually conscripted 10 million men, making it increasingly difficult to field top notch bands; war shortages of gasoline and shellac limiting both touring and recording; the economic infeasibility of touring with 16-member orchestras; the musicians strike and recording ban of 1942 – 1944 and the resulting decline in the major labels and the rise of independent labels; the decline of dance halls in the aftermath of the war; and the rise of juke boxes and radio as primary entertainment media.

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Hour 22: Bebop Big Bands

Although Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Woody Herman soldiered on, mostly keeping bands on the road into the 1970s (Ellington) and 1980s (Basie and Herman), the era of the big band effectively ended with the AFM strike and World War Two shortages of gas, rubber and players. A leaner combo-oriented music emerged in night clubs after the war. Several band leaders sought to find common ground with the new music and the big band format, but as dance halls faded, the economics of the large ensemble no longer worked.

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Hour 23: The Birth of Bebop

Bebop! The fast and harmonically-challenging music born in jam sessions in the early 1940s, burst on the scene in the work of Dizzy Gillespie, Charley Parker, and Thelonious Monk. “By the early 1940s … a new approach to small-combo jazz playing was developing, characterized by a more flexible approach to rhythm, a more aggressive pursuit of instrumental virtuosity, and an increasingly adventurous harmonic language.” – Scott Deveaux

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Hour 24: R&B – Bebop’s Twin

Some of the same forces that launched Bebop as a break from Big Band Swing, also fueled the birth of Rhythm and Blues – the rise of independent labels in the wake of the recording ban of 1942 – 1944, the economic infeasibility of touring with 16-member orchestras, the decline of dance halls in the aftermath of the war, and the rise of juke boxes and radio as primary entertainment media. Bebop and R&B also shared the big bands as a common pool of musicians who used that platform to explore the harmonically-rich alternative to swing in bebop and the rhythmically propelled alternative in R&B.

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Hour 25: Yardbird – The Savoy and Dial Recordings of Charlie Parker

Emerging from the Jay McShann Orchestra from Kansas City and relentlessly curious about how to play the new music he heard in his head, Charlie Parker found sympathetic players in New York, especially Dizzy Gillespie. In November of 1945, Bird, as he was universally known, began to record with his own quintets and sextets in a legendary series of recordings for Dial in Hollywood and Savoy in Newark. By the end of 1948, when he began to record for Normal Granz and his Clef, Mercury and Verve labels, Bird’s reputation was forever secure

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Hour 26: That Dizzy Cat – Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie grew up professionally playing in the big bands of Teddy Hill, Cab Calloway, Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine and writing for Woody Herman and Jimmy Dorsey. The wartime economy with its shortages and the musician’s strike of the early 1940s led Gillespie to focus on small combos for his own projects, including his seminal collaborations with Charlie Parker in 1945 – 1946. However Dizzy returned whenever he could to the big band format and by mid-1946, he was fronting the first of several financially challenging but musically groundbreaking big bands.

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Hour 27: Un Poco Loco – The Intensity of Bud Powell

Mentored by Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell became the first great piano innovator of bebop. “It would be hard to overstate Powell’s impact. His ingenious technique and originality as an improviser and composer established the foundation for all pianists to follow. Long after bop had faded, Powell remained a source of inspiration for pianists as varied as the harmonically engrossed Bill Evans and the rhythmically unfettered Cecil Taylor. In other words there is jazz piano Before Powell and After Powell.” – Gary Giddens & Scott DeVeaux

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Hour 28: The Genius of Modern Music – Thelonious Monk on Blue Note

In 1940, Minton’s Playhouse on West 118th Street hired drummer Kenny Clarke as a bandleader. For the house band, Clarke hired trumpeter Joe Guy, bassist Nick Fenton, and an eccentric pianist named Thelonious Monk. Although Monk recorded with Coleman Hawkins in 1944, he didn’t record with his own group until 1947. Despite these kind of gaps that occur throughout his discography, he is competitive with Duke Ellington for the most recorded composer in jazz. The Blue Note recordings of 1947 – 1952 include many of the most recognized of his compositions.

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Hour 29: Tadd Dameron – Fats Navarro – Sonny Stitt – JJ Johnson

In the past several hours of Jazz at 100, we have featured the music of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, and Max Roach. In this hour, we will continue to present bebop innovators – pianist/composer Tadd Dameron and his frequent (but short-lived) collaborator Fats Navarro, the next great bebop trumpeter after Dizzy Gillespie, and two of the greatest and longest-lived bebop soloists, Bird’s rival – alto saxophonist Sonny Stitt who recorded until 1982 and the first significant bebop trombonist JJ Johnson, who was active in music until 1996.

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Hour 30: Jazz on Central Avenue – Bebop in Los Angeles

Most of the pioneering bebop musicians we have featured in the past several programs were centered in New York – Bird, Dizzy, Monk, Bud Powell, Coleman Hawkins, Fats Navarro, JJ Johnson, Max Roach. While New York may have dominated the modern music scene, it wasn’t the only scene. The wartime economy in southern California brought an influx of African-American workers, not dissimilar to Chicago in the 1920s, and with them musicians, nightclubs and dance halls.

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Hour 31: My Brainwaves in His Head, and His in Mine – Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn

Duke Ellington was the well-spring that flowed through many decades of jazz. In 1938, Ellington found his soul-mate in composer/arranger Billy Strayhorn. By the early 1940s, Strayhorn combined with bassist Jimmy Blanton and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster to reinvigorate both Ellington and his band. In the next hour, we will feature the compositions and arrangements of Ellington’s most important collaborator, Billy Strayhorn, from Take the A Train and Chelsea Bridge through Satin Doll and Lush Life to his dying lament – Blood Count – from 1967.

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Hour 32: Dixieland Revival – A Sense of History

In the 1940’s, some twenty-five to thirty years into the history of recorded jazz, the sometimes violent reaction against the bebop revolution caused a hard look into the rear view and the jazz world focused on its own history. Many of the players who led the first jazz revolution were still alive, ready for prime time, and welcoming of another chance at center stage. The outside forces that led the small ensembles of bebop and R&B into prominence, also supported the resurgence of quintets and sextets playing New Orleans-style jazz.

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Hour 33: Proto-Cool – Lennie Tristano and Lee Konitz

Pianist Lennie Tristano was a very visible participant in the modern jazz innovations of the mid-1940s through the early 1950s, winning polls and participating in all-star jam sessions. Yet his music was always a little outside the mainstream and was increasingly so as he began to experiment with fully improvised performances by 1947. While his focus on low dynamics and long flowing lines has been seen as a precursor of the cool school that arose early in the 1950s, the better argument may be made that Tristano created an intellectual setting for the free jazz to come.

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Hour 34: Miles and Friends – The “Birth” of the Cool

The torrid pace of bebop improvisations reached a point in the late 1940s that prompted a musical reconsideration and Miles Davis was there at the conception. Davis had been with the Charlie Parker Quintet since 1945, when he began to woodshed with composer/arrangers John Lewis, Gerry Mulligan and Gil Evans, all of whom would become major long-time contributors to the music. In three recording sessions starting in January 1949, this arrangers’ super-group created a body of music which, when rereleased at the beginning of the LP era, was known as the “Birth of the Cool.”

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Hour 35: Big Bands in the 1950s

Woody Herman disbanded the Second Herd in 1949 and, while Stan Kenton and Duke Ellington managed to keep a big band on the road through the 1950s, Count Basie disbanded his band at the start of the decade but assembled a new one in a few years. Generally this was a tough period for large ensembles. This, however, didn’t dampen the urge for musicians and composers to hear music in large forms and find ways to make it real. In this hour we will survey the 1950s contributions of Stan Kenton and his orchestra, Count Basie and his New Testament Band, Duke Ellington at Newport, Gil Evans studio band, Quincy Jones and the adventurous Dectet of Teddy Charles.

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Hour 36: Bebop Pioneers in the 1950s

Bebop had its roots in the big bands of the late 1930s and was nurtured in jam sessions during the war and the musician’s strike of the 1940s. By 1950, the prescient Coleman Hawkins, and the pioneers – Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, and Max Roach were well-established stars at risk of the music moving on and leaving them behind. Yet, they all had much more to offer in the 1950s.

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Hour 37: Cool – Four Brothers After Woody Herman

Bandleader Woody Herman created a distinctive sound around The Four Brothers – the three tenor plus baritone sax front line of Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Herbie Stewart (later Al Cohn) and Serge Chaloff – and the writing of clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre. In time, Getz, Sims, Chaloff, Cohn and Giuffre would all become distinctive soloists and all had a role in defining West Coast Jazz in the 1950s.

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Hour 38: Stan Kenton & West Coast Jazz

In the last hour, we heard evidence of Woody Herman’s capacity for talent development in the form of further work by reed players Stan Getz, Serge Chaloff, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims and Jimmy Giuffre. In this hour we turn the spotlight on alumni of the Stan Kenton Orchestra which produced several significant players in the West Coast cool tradition (Art Pepper, Shorty Rogers, Gerry Mulligan, Frank Rosolino) and a number of prominent vocalists (Anita O’Day, June Christy and Chris Connor).

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Hour 39: The Birth of Hard Bop

While the “Cool School” was emerging on the West Coast from its roots in Bix and Pres as codified by Miles in “The Birth of the Cool” sessions of 1949 – 1950, what became known as Hard Bop, a gospel- and blues-influenced variant was growing from Bebop in the east. “If cool jazz aimed for a light timbre, hard bop preferred a sound that was heavy, dark, impassioned. The tenor replaced the alto as the saxophone of choice, and drummers worked in an assertive style that drove the soloists.” – Gary Giddens & Scott DeVeaux

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Hour 40: Sons of the Jazz Messengers

In 1956, with Horace Silver’s departure, Art Blakey inherited the Jazz Messengers. Over the next five years, the Jazz Messengers took part in recording sessions that have resulted in almost 40 live and studio recordings. Also in this period, Blakey collaborated with players who became the stars of Hard Bop. In this hour, we will hear from just some of these players – trumpeters Kenny Dorham and Lee Morgan, pianist Bobby Timmons and tenor saxophonists Hank Mobley and Wayne Shorter.

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Special Edition: Porgy and Bess

In the mid-1930’s, George Gershwin acquired the rights to the play Porgy by DuBose Heyward, based on his own novel of 1925. Gershwin’s great American opera, Porgy and Bess debuted in 1935 with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. For some period of time, the themes of domestic violence, drug addiction, and gambling led many in both the white and black communities to see the opera as an unfortunate caricature of African Americans. MGM even had difficulty recruiting top-tier black talent to star in the 1958 film adaptation. Yet the interest generated by the film led to a renewed focus on the music and the late-1950s saw many recordings of the songs by popular and jazz artists of stature. Over the intervening sixty years, the opera has become understood as a powerful statement about community, loss and hope. This Special Edition of Jazz at 100 is a recreation of the opera using great performances by jazz artists, presented in performance order with plot summaries to create context for the music and lyrics. George Gershwin saw his work as a “folk opera”; in this version, it can be heard as a “jazz opera.” This is a version of a broadcast that was originally presented during the 2017 Classical Marathon on WTJU 91.1 FM Charlottesville as the contribution of Russell Perry and Brian Keena, hosts of the jazz programs “Jazz at 100” and “The Jazz Messenger.”.

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Hour 41: The Lyricists – Benny Golson, Gigi Gryce, Art Farmer

David Rosenthal writes, “Musicians of a gentler, more lyrical bent … found in hard bop a more congenial climate than bebop had offered: for instance, trumpeter Art Farmer, [and] composers Benny Golson and Gigi Gryce…. In a sense, such musicians were not hard boppers at all. They are, however, partially associated with the movement for two reasons. First, they often performed and recorded with hard boppers. Art Farmer, for example, played in Horace Silver’s quintet and with saxophonists Jackie McLean and Jimmy Heath. And second, the very latitude and diversity of hard bop allowed room for their more meditative styles to evolve. Hard bop’s slower tempos and simpler melodies also helped, as did the school’s overall aesthetic, which favored “saying something” over technical bravado… But the decisive quality they share with each other is their gentle, thoughtful elegance.” Rosenthal describes Art Farmer, Benny Golson and Gigi Gryce as “The Lyricists.”

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Hour 42: The Chicago Sound

Because it acted as a safe harbor for the New Orleans diaspora of the teens and twenties, Chicago played a key role in early jazz. By the 1950s, much of jazz was understood in the dialog between cool jazz and hard bop, aka West Coast and East Coast, with Los Angeles and New York playing inordinately important roles. But the Chicago scene was as vital as ever. In this hour, we will return to the “City with Broad Shoulders” and hear from Chicago-based musicians in the 1950s, with a focus on big-toned tenor players – Clifford Jordan, John Gilmore, Johnny Griffin and Gene Ammons. These musicians played hardbop with a bluesy, brawny edge, suffused with what Chicago native and jazz critic Larry Kart calls “an air of downhome experimentation.” And speaking of experimentation, first we turn to one of the singular individuals in jazz – Sun Ra, who was also based in Chicago.

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Hour 43: Monk and Friends: Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, & Elmo Hope in the 1950s

The 1950s were a very productive decade for Thelonious Monk, perhaps his most productive as a composer. During the fifties his reputation and impact grew tremendously. His influence on other pianists can be seen in the work of Elmo Hope and Herbie Nichols, among others. Although neither had the longevity or enjoyed the popularity that Monk did, as the years go by their reputations have grown. In this hour, we will turn to idiosyncratic pianist/composers Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols and Elmo Hope in the 1950s.

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Hour 44: West Coast Piano – Dave Brubeck, Hampton Hawes, Nat King Cole

In the last hour, we heard from Thelonious Monk, Elmo Hope and Herbie Nichols – three closely associated New York pianists in the 1950s. In this hour, we’ll return to the West Coast and another trio of pianists representing some of the widely divergent strains of jazz in the 1950s. Nat “King” Cole was famous first as a swinging pianist, who then developed into a hugely popular ballad singer. Hampton Hawes, a former Charlie Parker band mate, developed bebop into a highly personal style. Dave Brubeck took his classical training and created a body of idiosyncratic work that made his quartet one of the highest selling jazz combos of all time.

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Hour 45: Norman Granz and Verve Records

In July 2, 1944, Norman Granz, a jazz fan and small-time LA promoter staged a concert in the Philharmonic Auditorium with $300 of borrowed money. His “Jazz at the Philharmonic” concerts were hugely successful and became tours that ran until 1957. These tours and the record labels they spawned – Clef, Norgran and especially Verve – became home to many of the great players of the 1950s, often mainstream players who had a lot of music left to play, but were not necessarily at the cutting edge of the rapidly evolving music. The availability of this music played a key role in building a market for the continued appreciation of mainstream players like Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster and Art Tatum.

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Hour 46: The Songbooks

Songs from what came to be known as the Great American Songbook, have been part of jazz perhaps since The Original Dixieland Jazz Band began recording Irving Berlin compositions. In the 1940s, singer Lee Wiley recorded several collections of 78s, known as “albums” – a name that stuck into the LP era, focused on the work of individual composers like George Gershwin or Cole Porter. With the advent of the Long Playing record, the idea of recording whole LPs dedicated to the work of a specific songwriter or songwriting team took off, initiated by Ella Fitzgerald.

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Hour 47: The Experimentalists – Mingus, Rollins & Coltrane

In his book Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music 1955-1965, David Rosenthal outlines a group of musicians within the hard bop idiom that he identifies as “experimentalists”, describing them as “…consciously trying to expand jazz’s structural and technical boundaries: for instance, pianist Andrew Hill, Sonny Rollins, and John Coltrane prior to his 1965 record Ascension. This category would also include Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus, whose playing and compositions were at once experimental and reminiscent of the moods and forms of earlier black music, including jazz of the 1920s and 1930s.” The late 1950s music of Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 48: The Experimentalists – George Russell, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy

In the wake of Charles Mingus, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins came a wave of players eager to experiment further within the broadening definition of jazz. Among the most durable of this next generation are composer George Russell, pianist Cecil Taylor, alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman and multi-reed player Eric Dolphy. The late 1950s recordings of Russell, Taylor, Coleman and Dolphy in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 49: Jazz Singers in the 1950s – Sarah Vaughan, Helen Merrill, Dinah Washington and Abbey Lincoln

Many jazz singers of the 1950s continued the tradition of recording with major instrumentalists who were given the space to improvise, feeding off the collaboration. In 1954, EmArCy records matched three of their singers, representing the wide range of their offerings – Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and Helen Merrill – with jazz ensembles featuring their rising star, trumpeter Clifford Brown. Brown’s quintet partner, Max Roach anchored several outings that featured his wife, Abbey Lincoln with the all-star ensembles including trumpeter Booker Little, trombonist Julian Priester, pianist Mal Waldron, and reed heroes Coleman Hawkins and Eric Dolphy.

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Hour 50: Vocalese

Arising out of bebop vocals, a number of singers in the 1950s began to replicate famous instrumental solos with the human voice. The practice, initiated by Eddie Jefferson, King Pleasure and Annie Ross was known as vocalese and reached its peak in the extraordinary recordings of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross.

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Hour 51: The Alto After Bird – Art Pepper, Phil Woods, Jackie McLean, Cannonball Adderley

When Charlie Parker died at 34 in 1955, it was as if an ancient tree fell in the forest with the resulting sunlight promoting the growth of numerous alto saxophone progeny. From the West Coast Jazz scene came Art Pepper; Phil Woods kept the bebop alto sound alive; Jackie McLean became the standard against which hard bop altoists were measured; and Cannonball Adderley brought a lyricism and drive that anchored soul jazz in the 1960s.

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Hour 52: Miles Davis & the First Great Quintet (Sextet)

Miles Davis was more than a trumpet player, composer and taste-maker – he led some of the greatest bands in the history of jazz. In this hour, we will feature his first great quintet of John Coltrane on tenor, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums.

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Hour 53: The Piano Trios – Erroll Garner, Ahmad Jamal, & Bill Evans (Sextet)

While there were influential piano trios in the 1940s (Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Lennie Tristano, or Nat King Cole, for example), the format reached new peaks in the 1950s. In particular, Ahmad Jamal and Bill Evans reconceived the format to stress the interplay of three artists, rather than a primary piano soloist with rhythm support. In this hour, we will hear from these pianists and from Erroll Garner, the work of each represented by a legendary live recording – Garner’s 1955 Concert By the Sea, Jamal’s 1958 At The Pershing – But Not For Me and Evans’s 1961 Waltz For Debbie/A Sunday At The Village Vanguard. The three recordings can be heard as a progression.

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Hour 54: The Return of Dexter Gordon

After spending most of the 1950s in jail for two different drug busts, Dexter Gordon was paroled in 1960 and preceded to record a legendary series of records for Blue Note Records. Several of these records included rhythm sections led by the light-fingered but short-lived pianist, Sonny Clark. Dexter Gordon and Sonny Clark in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 55: The Modern Jazz Quartet in the 1960s

As the Modern Jazz Quartet, members of which were once Dizzy Gillespie’s rhythm section in the 1940s, moved into the 1960s, they continued to swing in their own quiet way, even as their music director, pianist John Lewis, explored the third stream, a synthesis of jazz and classical music. Having been founded in 1952, the MJQ was active as a unit until 1974, then reunited periodically for another twenty years, until drummer Connie Kay’s death in 1994. The MJQ in the 1960s in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 56: Bebop Lives

Bebop was a revolutionary new music in the late 1930s, dominated jazz in the 1940s, and powerfully influenced all jazz that followed. By the 1960s it still had its adherents who were producing compelling music thirty years later. In this hour of Jazz at 100, we will hear bebop from trumpeter Howard McGhee, saxophonists Charles McPherson and Sonny Stitt, and pianist Barry Harris.

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Hour 57: Jazz Singers in the 1960s

The 1960s featured many recordings by highly musical singers in the company of great jazz instrumentalists. In this hour of Jazz at 100, we will survey the 1960’s recordings of jazz singers Betty Carter, Eddie Jefferson, Sheila Jordan, Nancy Wilson, Shirley Horn, Carmen McRae, Jon Hendricks and Johnny Hartman.

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Hour 58: Still Swinging

Duke Ellington and Benny Carter, whose careers stretched back to the 1920s, continued to be vital musical presences in the 1960s. In this hour we will hear examples of their late career work and that of two veteran Ellingtonians, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges and tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves. Swing giants in the 1960s in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 59: Jazz at Bossa Nova

Fueled by the 1959 international release of the movie Black Orpheus and through reports from US jazz players returning from South American tours, the Brazilian music Bossa Nova (Portugese for “new trend” or “new wave”) found its way into American jazz in the early 1960s, becoming a permanent part of the jazz fusion. Stan Getz, in particular, appreciated Bossa Nova as the interaction between cool jazz and samba and collaborated successfully with many of the pioneers of the new music, including Luis Bonfa, Antonio Carlos Jobim & João Gilberto.

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Hour 60: Jazz Messengers Continued

As the 1960s began Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers were fueled by the compositions of Wayne Shorter with the front line of Shorter and Lee Morgan. In 1961, this transitioned to the last great Messengers lineup of the 1960s – and it was one of the best ever – Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Wayne Shorter on tenor, Cedar Walton on piano and Jymie Merritt on bass, propelled by compositions by Shorter, Fuller, Walton. The 1960s edition of the Jazz Messengers in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 61: Horace Silver Continued

Despite revisionist history that suggests that the energy of hard bop was spent by the time the sixties came, in the last hour we heard from the great 1960s Freddie Hubbard – Wayne Shorter – Curtis Fuller – Cedar Walton edition of The Jazz Messengers. In this hour of Jazz at 100, we will turn to Horace Silver’s terrific 1960s quintets, featuring trumpeters Blue Mitchell, Carmel Jones and Woody Shaw; tenor players Junior Cook and Joe Henderson and guest trombonist – the veteran – JJ Johnson. The two flagship ensembles of hard bop were alive and well in the 1960s.

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Hour 62: Hard Bop Tenor, Part 1

Over the next four hours of Jazz at 100, we’ll be featuring tenor players and trumpeters who propelled hard bop into the 1960s. In this hour, we will start with tenor players JR Monterose, LA-based Harold Land and Teddy Edwards, and Blue Note’s most prolific player Hank Mobley.

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Hour 63: Hard Bop Tenor, Part 2

In this portion of Jazz at 100, we are featuring tenor players and trumpeters who propelled hard bop into the 1960s. In this hour, we will continue with the Tenor Players, Part 2, featuring Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson, and Sonny Rollins, three tenor players who have impacted the music over the past six decades.

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Hour 64: Hard Bop Trumpet, Part 1

In this portion of Jazz at 100, we are featuring tenor players and trumpeters who propelled hard bop into the 1960s. In this hour, we will continue with the Trumpet Players, Part 1, featuring three players who apprenticed in the Jazz Messengers: Lee Morgan – a Blue Note leader since 1956, Freddie Hubbard – who made his debut as a leader (also for Blue Note) in 1960 and Donald Byrd who recorded with everyone from Horace Silver to John Coltrane before becoming leader for Blue Note in 1958.

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Hour 65: Hard Bop Trumpet, Part 2

This is the final hour of a four-part sequence featuring important tenor players and trumpeters who propelled hard bop into the 1960s. In this hour, we will continue with the Trumpet Players, Part 2, featuring lesser-known players – unsung veteran Kenny Dorham who recorded with both Dizzy and Bird in the 1940s, London-based Jamaican trumpet player Dizzy Reece, and Blue Mitchell who got his start with Cannonball Adderley and had a long tenure in the Horace Silver Quintet in the early 1960s.

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Hour 66: Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM)

As hard bop was running out of steam and rock & roll was becoming the music of choice for the younger audience, many musicians were building on the innovations of Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane, creating a new approach to jazz – Free Jazz (after Coleman’s 1960 release of the same name) or, simply, the avant-garde. For solidarity in the face of limited venues for performance and indifferent audiences, creative musicians in Chicago banded together to found the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians or AACM in 1965. Early music from AACM in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 67: The Legacy of Jimmy Giuffre and Lennie Tristano

Clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre and pianist Lennie Tristano were heavily influential in the musical explorations of the 1960s. The Jimmy Giuffre Trio recorded a series of records in the early 1960s now seen as significant milestones in improvisational music, although they made no commercial impact at the time. His trio-mates – pianist Paul Bley and bassist Steve Swallow – have been major players in the decades since. Lennie Tristano dropped out of sight in 1960, but his protégés Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh carried his legacy forward. Jimmy Giuffre, Paul Bley, Lee Konitz and Warne March in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 68: John Coltrane – The Final Act

John Coltrane is undoubtedly one of the most influential players in the history of jazz, yet his important work fits within a brief twelve-year period (1955 – 1967). Previously in this series we have covered his work in the 1950s with Miles Davis for Prestige and Columbia, his blowing sessions on Prestige, his solo work with Blue Note (Blue Train), his breakout recordings for Atlantic (Giant Steps) and his collaborations with Duke Ellington and Johnny Hartman. In this hour, we will summarize the Impulse years, the last chapter in the works of John Coltrane.

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Hour 69: School of Trane – Wayne Shorter, Archie Shepp, Charles Lloyd, & Pharoah Sanders

No tenor player cast a larger shadow over the 1960’s than John Coltrane. Arguably, that time frame could be expanded to include all decades since, as well. Several contemporary tenor players who emerged as singular and important voices in the 1960s were specifically in his debt: his friend and colleague – Wayne Shorter, his protégé – Archie Shepp, his bandmate – Pharoah Sanders, and his disciple – Charles Lloyd. Each in his own way, reflected Trane’s characteristic tenor sound, his spirituality, his harmonic adventurism and his perpetual searching. Tenor players from The School of Trane in the next hour of Jazz at 100

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Hour 70: Charles Mingus in the 1960s

Charles Mingus completed the 1950s with an astonishing series of releases in 1959 – Blues and Roots, followed by Mingus Ah Um and finally, Mingus Dynasty. He kept up this pace for several years culminating in 1963 with Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus and his masterwork, The Black Saint and The Sinner Woman. We have some live recordings from 1964 and 1965, but otherwise he went silent for the rest of the decade. The early 1960s recordings of Charles Mingus with Eric Dolphy and Rahsaan Roland Kirk in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 71: Silenced in Their Prime – Eric Dolphy & Booker Little

From his first recordings with Chico Hamilton in 1958 until his unnecessary death from misdiagnosed diabetic shock in 1964, Eric Dolphy was limited to only six years in which to record the music that has defined his extraordinary legacy. The final three years of this story includes recordings under the leadership of Oliver Nelson, Abbey Lincoln, Ron Carter, Mal Waldron, Max Roach, George Russell, Freddie Hubbard, and Andrew Hill; stints in bands led by John Coltrane and Charles Mingus; and a highly productive association with Booker Little, before the young trumpeter’s premature death at 23, in 1961. The last recordings of Eric Dolphy and Booker Little in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 72: Rahsaan Roland Kirk

Roland Kirk, who began recording in 1956, had been an ideal sideman for Charles Mingus, appearing on the 1961 release, Oh Yeah. In the 1960s, he established himself in the first tier of jazz players with a series of well-received records for Mercury and Limelight before settling into a decade-long relationship with Atlantic.

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Hour 73: Jackie McLean & Tina Brooks

Fate could not have treated Blue Note saxophonists Tina Brooks and Jackie McLean more differently. While McLean released nine LPs for Prestige and two dozen for Blue Note between 1956 and 1967, only one of Tina Brooks’s four Blue Note sessions was released in his lifetime. Yet their collaborations on McLean’s Jackie’s Bag and the unreleased Brooks session Back To The Tracks, are among the highlights of the hard bop era. McLean went on the record a series of avant garde leaning hard bop sessions with trombonist Grachan Moncur III in 1963. Tina Brooks, Jackie McLean and Grachan Moncur III in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 74: The Avant-Garde

Nurtured in the seminal recordings of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor in the mid to late 1950s, the jazz avant-garde came into its own in the 1960s with their continuing creations, those of John Coltrane already featured in this program and those of next generation players, Joe Harriott and Albert Ayler. Defining statements of the free jazz movement in the early 1960s by Coleman, Taylor, Harriott and Ayler in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 75: The Hard Bop / Avant-Garde Synergy of Andrew Hill

Blue Note Records in the 1960s released such iconoclastic projects as Cecil Taylor’s Unit Structures and Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch, but the label was best known for music on the Art Blakey – Horace Silver axis. As Ted Gioia has noted “…other, less radical Blue Note releases showed that there could be a meeting point between hard bop and the avant-garde. Important projects such as Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure [1964], [and] Bobby Hutcherson’s Dialogue [1965]… were anything but drab repetitions of old hard-bop formulas.” Pianist Andrew Hill played an important role in much of this music. The Hard Bop / Avant Garde Synergy of Andrew Hill, including his contributions to releases by Jimmy Woods and Bobby Hutcherson, this week on Jazz at 100.

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Hour 76: The Arrival of Joe Henderson

Joe Henderson may have been the most significant tenor saxophonist to emerge in the 1960s. Gary Giddins wrote that he is “…an irresistibly lucid player, whose adroitness in conjuring stark and swirling riffs contributed immeasurably to two of the most durable jazz hits of the ’60s, Horace Silver’s ‘Song for My Father’ and Lee Morgan’s ‘The Sidewinder.’” In addition to those tunes, in previous programs in this series, we have also heard Kenny Dorham’s ‘Blue Bossa’ from Henderson’s first release Page One, his own composition ‘Caribbean Fire Dance’ from his Mode For Joe release and two tunes from Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure. In this hour of Jazz at 100, we will continue to explore Henderson’s solo work and his role as a valued sideman, mining the seams between hard bop and the avant-garde as the 1960s progressed.

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Hour 77: Miles Davis and the Second Great Quintet

Miles Davis, through his adoption of modal music, participated in the gradual liberation that resulted in the free music of the jazz avant-garde – liberation from chord changes, from rhythm, from harmony, from melody, from structure. Yet, although he continued to explore broadly, he was public in his discomfort with free jazz. Despite this reluctance, the new quintet that he began to build in 1963 resulted in the freest music of his career and became legendary as his Second Great Quintet.

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Hour 78: Sons of Miles – Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Tony Williams

During the five-year tenure of Miles Davis’s Second Great Quintet (1963 – 1968), Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams were very active on their own projects, many of which included Ron Carter. Several of the resulting releases are classics of the period and laid the foundation for their significant careers after the Quintet broke up in 1968. The highly productive moonlighting of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams in this hour of Jazz at 100

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Hour 79: Soul Jazz – Guitar

Hard bop created a comfortable setting for a suite of great blues-influenced guitar players who led the way toward soul jazz. Several of these players were from the mid-west – Wes Montgomery from Indianapolis, Grant Green from St. Louis and Detroit’s Kenny Burrell. The next three hours of Jazz at 100 will present music from the 1960s that combined the heavy beat and blues-influenced phrasing of R&B with the harmonic discoveries of bebop to create a style loosely called Soul Jazz, starting with these guitar players. Wes Montgomery, Grant Green and Kenny Burrell in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 80: Soul Jazz – Organ Trios and Quartets

Rarely has a jazz instrument been so completely redefined as the organ was at the hands of Jimmy Smith. In his wake, the Hammond B3 organ gained wide-spread popularity and attracted a suite of talented adherents. B3 players Jimmy Smith, “Baby Face” Willette and Shirley Scott in this hour of Jazz at 100 as we continue to explore Soul Jazz in the 1960s

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Hour 81: Soul Jazz – Saxophonists and Pianists

Soul Jazz developed in the late 1950s and become a staple of ghetto jukeboxes. Its catchy lines, heavy beat and blues-influenced phasing became a popular alternative to other jazz forms evolving in the 1960s. In addition to the guitar and organ led ensembles that have been featured in the previous two hours of Jazz at 100, a number of saxophonists and pianists became best-selling soul jazz stars.

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Hour 82: Jazz From South Africa

The brutal repression of the subversive mixed-race jazz subculture in South Africa led to the emigration of several important musicians whose work in the United States and Europe helped focus the world’s attention on the apartheid regime in the 1960s and 1970’s. Prominent among the emigres are pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, who originally recorded as Dollar Brand, trumpeter Hugh Masekela and bassist Johnny Dyani.

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Hour 83: The Road To Fusion

Jazz-rock fusion or, often, simply “fusion” emerged in the late 60s as the child of many mothers. Characterized by electric instruments and rock rhythms, it could be loud and fast, but just as likely, could be melodic or lyrical or funky. The Charles Lloyd Quartet, the Gary Burton Quartet, Tony Williams Lifetime and the Joe Zawinul Group all showed elements of what became the best-selling strain of jazz in the 1970s. And once again, of course, Miles Davis was in the center of things.

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Hour 84: John McLaughlin & The Mahavishnu Orchestra

British guitarist John McLaughlin contributed to creating the bold new sound of Miles Davis’s great proto-fusion works, In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew. He was a member of what could be the first great fusion band, Tony Williams Lifetime, and then founded what Ben Ratliff describes as “the ideal band for the time” – the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

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Hour 85: Chick Corea Acoustic and Electric

Chick Corea began recording as a sideman for artists like Mongo Santamaria, Blue Mitchell, Herbie Mann and Cal Tjader in 1962. In 1966, his began to record as a leader, while still touring with Stan Getz. Like many others, his studio work and touring with Miles Davis from 1968 – 1970 raised his profile, leading him to a career that split between the newly emerging electric fusion music and acoustic pursuits.

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Hour 86: Weather Report

By 1970, Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul were recognized as two of the finest hard bop composers and players having contributed the full range of their talents to The Jazz Messengers and Miles Davis Quintet (in Shorter’s case) and the Cannonball Adderley Quintet (in Zawinul’s). Both contributed to Davis’s Bitches Brew sessions and in 1971 formed the supergroup Weather Report, one of the most popular, influential and long-lived fusion bands.

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Hour 87: Jazz From Europe on ECM

Previously in this series we have surveyed record labels as representative of the jazz trends in their times – for example bebop on Dial in the 40s, mainstream jazz on Verve in the 50s, and hard bop on Blue Note in the 60s. The German label ECM can be seen as representative of a major trend of the 70s. Joachim-Ernst Behrendt writes that this is the decade when “European jazz found itself.” The early recordings on the ECM label in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 88: Acoustic Jazz Lives

Jazz-rock fusion was a powerful force in the music in the early seventies, but noticeably began to run out of steam mid-decade. European influences began to gain traction as the decade progressed as represented by the rise of ECM. American acoustic jazz musicians, who seemed to be taken for granted, continued to produce fine music and garnered renewed interest as the decade ended. In this hour we will listen to representative 1970s acoustic jazz from McCoy Tyner, Woody Shaw and Sonny Rollins followed by two 1977 releases that forecasted the robust return of mainstream jazz as the decade ended – Scott Hamilton’s debut and Herbie Hancock’s VSOP, a Miles Davis Quintet reunion of sorts

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Hour 89: The Second Acts of Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon, & Johnny Griffin

Perfectly timed to reinforce the value of acoustic mainstream jazz and provide an alternative to both fusion and free jazz, Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon and Johnny Griffin reappeared and reestablished themselves as key players at the end of the 1970s. Their excellent late career work paved the way for the resurgence of mainstream bebop and hard bop in the 1980s.

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Hour 90: Art Blakey and the Young Lions

As the 1970s came to a close, many musicians searching for alternatives to jazz-rock fusion or free jazz found a home in straight-ahead acoustic jazz. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, whose Blue Note contract was not renewed in 1964, had spent a decade in relative obscurity, when he came roaring back with a series of legendary ensembles that fueled this return to jazz classicism. The alumni of this revived band became the core of The Young Lions, as they were known – well-trained, well-behaved, well-dressed virtuoso players with a conservative approach to the jazz canon.

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Hour 91: Whither Freedom?

In the 1980s, the avant-garde, although still home to many fine free jazz players, increasingly adopted an ecumenical approach to historical styles. Freedom came to include freedom to be “in the tradition.” The broadly-influenced music of alto saxophonists Arthur Blythe and Henry Threadgill, clarinetist John Carter and pianist Don Pullen illustrate this trend – in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 92: David Murray & the World Saxophone Quartet

Perhaps no jazz musician recorded a more varied output in more diverse settings in the 1980s than tenor saxophone and bass clarinet player David Murray. Three of the best bands to emerge in the decade were his Octet, his Quartet and the collaborative – the World Saxophone Quartet. He may also have been the most recorded jazz artist of the decade, as well, and with consistently high quality.

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Hour 93: Music from the Black Saint Label

Ironically, the record label that most consistently offered an outlet for the American jazz avant-garde in the 1980s was the Italian Black Saint / Soul Note imprint. On the site All About Jazz, Jeff Stockton wrote, “…from 1984 to 1989 Black Saint won the Down Beat critics poll for “Best Label” and “Best Producer” and established itself as the Blue Note of its time, a label whose mark and reputation alone assured the listener that the music would be adventurous, exciting jazz of the highest order.” To capture some essential element of the decade, we have featured Dial in the 40s, Verve in the 50s, Blue Note in the 60s and ECM in the 70s. In this hour of Jazz at 100, the adventurous Black Saint / Soul Note releases of the 1980s.

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Hour 94: John Zorn and The Downtown Scene

Never far from the pulse of jazz innovation, New York in the 1980s incubated what has become known as the “downtown scene.” Radically multi-stylistic, the resulting music was unabashedly eclectic, celebrating influences from bebop to punk rock to cartoon music and eventually klezmer and Balkan music. John Zorn and the “downtown scene” in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 95: Highlights of Jazz in the Early 1990s

This is the 95th of 100 programs in the Jazz at 100 series. For 94 programs have moved on a roughly chronological path through the history of 100 years of jazz recordings, following trends, introducing major players and stylistic evolutions. As we approach the present, we face the historian’s dilemma – in more recent music, what performances will have lasting value? What players will be remembered for their contributions to advancing the music? What trends will turn into dominant themes? In the next five hours of the series we will survey the state of jazz in the 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium, as we conclude our narrative.

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Hour 96: Highlights of Jazz in the Late 1990s

This is the 96th of 100 programs in the Jazz at 100 series. As we present more recent music, we face the historian’s dilemma – what performances will have lasting value? What players will be remembered for their contributions to advancing the music? What trends will turn into dominant themes? We are following the lead of critic Gary Giddins who wrote an essay entitled “Postwar Jazz: An Arbitrary Roadmap (1945 – 2001)” where he told the story of post-war jazz through a discussion of one musical selection from each year. In these final few programs, we are exploring recent jazz through a presentation of (generally) one musical selection from each year in the 1990s and 2000s.

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Hour 97: Highlights of Jazz in the Early 2000s

This is the 97th of 100 programs in the Jazz at 100 series. We move now into the 21st century, presenting music from less than twenty years ago. In these final few programs, we are exploring recent jazz through a presentation of (generally) one musical selection from each year in the 1990s and 2000s. Jazz at the turn of the century, in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 98: Highlights of Jazz in the Late 2000s

This is the 98th of 100 programs in the Jazz at 100 series. We are in the midst of a five-program series featuring one selection per year, starting in 1990, in an attempt to forecast the answers to these questions. Our methodology owes much to a 2001 Gary Giddins essay, “Postwar Jazz: An Arbitrary Roadmap (1945 – 2001).” Jazz in the late 2000s, in this hour of Jazz at 100.

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Hour 99: Highlights of the Current Decade

This is the last of a series of five programs featuring jazz since 1990, presented as a single selection for each year to reflect trends, career highlights and new artists, at least as the narrative appears from the limited context of the last 25 years. In this hour, our 99th of 100, jazz since 2010.

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Hour 100: All Jazz is Local

So far, we have broadcast ninety-nine one-hour programs to tell the story of the first 100 years of recorded jazz. We have heard the creative work of hundreds of players, composers, arrangers, and bandleaders – famous and obscure. Each of the contributors to this rich history had colleagues and bandmates with whom they played as they grew up and matured; teachers formal and informal; and mentors. They played in basements, living rooms, classrooms, high school gyms, churches, clubs and theaters. They were part of a local scene. All jazz is local. In this, the final, hour of Jazz at 100, we will celebrate the local scene … our local scene … the wonderful jazz scene of Charlottesville, Virginia. Current jazz in Charlottesville in the final hour of Jazz at 100.

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