Timeline

Year	Developments in Jazz	Historical Events
1921	The town of Zion, Illinois bans jazz performances, labeling them "sinful." Pianist James P. Johnson records The Harlem Strut and Carolina Shout, the earliest stride piano recordings, in New York.	A crisis occurs surrounding German war reparations. Adolf Hitler is elected leader of the Nazi Party. Russia is refused entry to the League of Nations. The first Miss America contest is held. Warren G. Hardin becomes president.
1922	Trombonist Kid Ory's band, based in Los Angeles, makes the first recordings by a black ensemble playing in the New Orleans style. Pianist Fats Waller makes his first recordings. Pianist William "Count" Basie makes his first recordings. Blues singer Mamie Smith continues to grow in popularity, recording twenty songs with her band The Jazz Hounds, which features saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. Ragtime publisher John Stark goes out of business signifying the end of ragtime. Race records are created, marketing and categorizing music by the race of the performers. Louis Armstrong moves to Chicago to join King Oliver's Band.	Mahatma Ghandi is imprisoned. The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is founded. Isadora Duncan's suggestive dancing is banned. Mussolini seizes power in Rome. Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen's tomb is discovered. Writer James Joyce publishes Ulysses.
1923	Blues singer Bessie Smith makes her first recording, Down-hearted Blues, which sells a million copies in six months and leads to her signing a nine-year contract with Columbia Records. Cornetist King Oliver's band, which includes Louis Armstrong on trumpet and Armstrong's wife Lil Hardin on piano, makes its first recordings, including Dippermouth Blues. Pianist and arranger Fletcher Henderson forms the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and begins performing at Club Alabama in New York. Pianist Jelly Roll Morton, now based in Chicago, makes several recordings including solo pieces such as King Porter Stomp and performances with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. Clarinetist Sidney Bechet makes his first recordings. Bandleader Elmer Snowden's Washingtonians performs in New York with Duke Ellington on piano.	The first network radio broadcast occurs in the U.S. Earthquake in Tokyo kills 100,000. Congress approves a law making all Native Americans citizens of the U.S. Calvin Coolidge becomes President.
1924	Duke Ellington makes his first recordings as leader of the Washingtonians. George Gershwin debuts Rhapsody in Blue along with Paul Whiteman's band. Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke and his band, The Wolverines, make their first recordings. Louis Armstrong moves to New York City to work with Fletcher Henderson. Coleman Hawkins plays alongside Louis Armstrong in the Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra, and his sax playing significantly evolves.	Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, leader of the Communist Revolution, dies. Stalin becomes dictator of Russia. The Fascist Party wins the Italian elections.
1925	Blues singer Bessie Smith and trumpeter Louis Armstrong record the classic version of W.C. Handy's St. Louis Blues for Columbia Records. Louis Armstrong makes his first recordings with his group, the Hot Five. James P. Johnson records Charleston, which becomes a huge hit and gives rise to a dance of the same name. Electrical recordings are introduced. The Original Dixieland Jass Band disbands. Pianist Fats Waller gives lessons to pianist Count Basie.	Italian leader Benito Mussolini commences his dictatorship. The first electrical recording of classical music is made in the U.S. F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is published; Fitzgerald christens the decade "The Jazz Age." The Ku Klux Klan marches in Washington, D.C. Tennessee teacher John Thomas Scopes is convicted for teaching Darwin's theories of evolution to high school students. American labor leader A. Philip Randolph organizes the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters to help bring American Blacks into the mainstream of the American labor movement. Frisbee is played for the first time by a group of students using empty Frisbie Baking Company pie plates.
1926	Trumpeter Louis Armstrong has a huge hit and pioneers scat singing with his first recorded original composition, Heebie Jeebies, featuring his Hot Five. Pianist Jelly Roll Morton's group the Red Hot Peppers records in Chicago. Bandleader Fletcher Henderson's group records with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. John Coltrane and Miles Davis are born.	The first television is introduced. The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) begins transmitting nationally. Painter Claude Monet dies. The Harlem Globetrotters basketball team is organized by Abe Saperstein in Chicago.
1927	Louis Armstrong makes his first recordings with his Hot Seven, which was the Hot Five plus drums and tuba. Jean Goldkette's Orchestra is dissolved. Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke joins Paul Whiteman's band. Pianist and bandleader Duke Ellington begins his residency at the Cotton Club in Harlem, increasing the band from six to eleven members.	The U.S. and Britain use military force in China. Charles Lindbergh makes the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Columbia Broadcast System (CBS) is inaugurated. The first "talkie" film is released, The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson.
1928	Clarinetist Benny Goodman makes his first recordings.	Japanese troops enter China.
1929	Pianist Fats Waller participates in a mixed-race recording session in which he is forced to play behind a screen to separate him from the white musicians. The film St. Louis Blues about the life of pianist W.C. Handy is released, featuring blues singer Bessie Smith, Handy as musical director, and pianist James P. Johnson's band.	Yugoslavia is formed under King Alexander. The U.S. stock market crashes. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre occurs in Chicago. The first Academy Awards are held in Hollywood. Herbert Hoover becomes president.