Jazz emerged as blues and Dixieland musicians refined their instrumental styles. One of jazz's central features is improvisation. While the basic harmonic structure of jazz music is usually written out by musicians, other parts of jazz are created spontaneously, based
on the music the rest of the group is playing. By 1920, jazz had spread from the South as black musicians moved to Chicago and New York City. The most influential of the early jazz musicians was Louis Armstrong (1900-1971), a trumpeter. Born in New Orleans, one of the early centers of jazz, Armstrong was also the first well-known male jazz singer and the originator of "scat" singing — in which nonsense syllables instead of words are sung much like an instrumental solo. Another major jazz leader of the same generation was Duke Ellington (1899-1974). A pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger, Ellington had a major impact on jazz composition and playing.
Each new jazz generation, however, has explored new directions. The early 1940s saw the rise of a complicated style known as "bebop", championed by trumpeter "Dizzy" Gillespie (1917) and saxophonist Charlie Parker (19201955) rated by many as jazz's greatest improviser. In the 1960s, jazz musicians such as trumpeter Miles Davis (1926-1991) and saxophonist John Coltrane (1926-1967) were experimenting with a wide array of musical influences. Younger jazz musicians began to include the rhythms of rock and roll. Later, in the 1970s, many well-known jazz musicians experimented with electronic instruments and created a blend of rock and jazz called fusion.
Jazz has had an enormous influence on the entire range of American music. Nowhere can that influence be seen more clearly than in the work of George Gershwin (1898-1937), widely considered America's most influential composer in the 20th century. A writer of popular songs, Gershwin also composed a series of musical comedies for the Broadway stage. His most famous works have become modern American classics, the first successfully to incorporate jazz into forms borrowed from the European tradition. They include the concerto "Rhapsody in Blue" (1924) and the opera "Porgy and Bess" (1935). Few composers have identified their work so much with American themes and rhythms as Aaron Copland (1900-1991). His work exemplifies the trend of many modem American composers to write music for a wide range of uses orchestra, movies, radio, recording sessions, schools, colleges. Some of Copland's most widely played concert pieces were written for ballet, such as the suite "Billy the Kid" (1938) and "Appalachian Spring" (1945).
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