Jazz Musicians, 1945 to the Present

From its very beginnings, the nature of jazz has been to reinvent itself. As the musical genre evolved from its roots—blues, European music, Voodoo ceremonies, and brass bands that played at funerals, parades and celebrations—the sound reflected the tenor of the times, from the citified strains of the Roaring '20s to the Big Band swing of pre-World War II to the bop revolution that grew out of the minimalist sound the war forced upon the art form. That the music continued to develop and evo...