Timeline

Year	Developments in Jazz	Historical Events
1960	Trumpeter Miles Davis records Sketches of Spain, which uses Flamenco music, and then tours Europe. The Modern Jazz Quartet records an album with orchestral accompaniment. Crowd disturbances disrupt the 7th Newport Jazz Festival. Saxophonist John Coltrane and trumpeter Don Cherry collaborate on the album Avant-Garde, influenced by saxophonist Ornette Coleman. John Coltrane records My Favorite Things, as well as Giant Steps. Drummer Max Roach records We Insist!: Freedom Now Suite. The album has an explicit civil rights message. Pianist Cecil Taylor and saxophonist Archie Shepp record The World of Cecil Taylor. Bassist Charles Mingus and saxophonist/clarinetist Eric Dolphy record What Love and Fables of Faubus, the latter written about the Arkansas governor who opposed desegregation. Drummer Shelly Manne opens the club "Shelly's Manne-Hole" in Los Angeles. Ornette Coleman records Free Jazz.	Writer Albert Camus is killed in a car crash. John F. Kennedy is elected president of the U.S. The first laser beam is demonstrated. African-American students stage sit-ins in North Carolina.
1961	Drummer Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers tour Japan. Miles Davis records live at San Francisco's Black Hawk. Miles Davis and arranger Gil Evans appear at Carnegie Hall. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie appears at Carnegie Hall. Pianist Thelonious Monk tours Europe. Ornette Coleman's avant-garde quartet disbands. Down Beat magazine prints several articles attacking Ornette Coleman's music and the current (free jazz) music of John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. The Newport Jazz Festival relocates to New York after rioting in its original location. Saxophonist Oliver Nelson records Blues and the Abstract Truth.	Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is the first man in space. Writer Ernest Hemingway dies. The Berlin Wall is completed. The birth-control pill is introduced. Writer Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 is published. Cuban exiles attempt to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs invasion. John F. Kennedy is inaugerated, becoming the first Catholic President.
1962	Saxophonist Stan Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd record Desafinado, which sparks renewed interest in bossa nova. Pianist Herbie Hancock records his first album as a leader, Takin' Off. Trumpeter Cootie Williams rejoins Duke Ellington's band. Ellington records an album with Charles Mingus and drummer Max Roach, and an album with John Coltrane. Carnegie Hall hosts a bossa nova concert. Guitarist Joe Pass makes his first album. Cecil Taylor records live in Copenhagen.	Actress Marilyn Monroe dies. Writer William Faulkner dies. The Cuban Missile Crisis occurs. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts opens in New York City. The Beatles become a sensation with their first single Love Me Do.
1963	Charles Mingus records The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady, a landmark in extended structure and free improvisation. Bill Evans records Conversations with Myself, which uses overdubbing. Miles Davis performs and records with his new group with Herbie Hancock, saxophonist George Coleman, bassist Ron Carter, and 17-year-old drummer Tony Williams. Count Basie tours Japan. Trumpeter Lee Morgan records the best-selling The Sidewinder. Astrud Gilberto's Girl from Ipanema becomes a huge hit featuring Stan Getz.	Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. addresses a rally in Washington, D.C. Twelve-year-old singer Stevie Wonder releases his first album. U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president of U.S. Four black girls are killed in an Alabama church bombing.
1964	The Miles Davis Quintet records the classic live album My Funny Valentine, and soon after saxophonist Wayne Shorter replaces George Coleman. Clarinetist and flutist Eric Dolphy records Out To Lunch with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and Tony Williams. Pianist Horace Silver records Song for My Father. John Coltrane records A Love Supreme, which sells hundreds of thousands of copies. Blind multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk performs at the Newport in Europe festival. Avant-garde tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler records the album Ghosts.	South African political activist Nelson Mandela begins his life sentence. Composer Cole Porter dies. Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick releases Dr. Strangelove. The Beatles appear in A Hard Day's Night and tour the U.S. for the first time. The U.S. Civil Rights Bill is passed. France and Britain agree to construct a Channel Tunnel connecting the two countries. The soldier doll G.I. Joe is introduced.
1965	Miles Davis records ESP with his new quintet. Pianist Nat King Cole dies of cancer. Herbie Hancock records Maiden Voyage, a classic modal tune, with the other members of Miles Davis' group plus trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. Trumpeter Thad Jones and drummer Mel Lewis form a rehearsal orchestra that is to last for years. John Coltrane records Ascension, a free jazz experiment influenced by Ornette Coleman.	Writer T.S. Eliot dies. The U.S. intensifies its involvement in Vietnam. The first spacewalk occurs. Thirty-four people are killed in Los Angeles race riots. The film The Sound of Music receives an Oscar for Best Picture. Political activist Malcolm X is assassinated.
1966	Duke Ellington receives the President's Gold Medal of Honor. Thad Jones and Mel Lewis debut with their big band at the Village Vanguard in New York. Cecil Taylor records Unit Structures, which is an experimental album that resembles contemporary classical music. The Miles Davis Quintet records Miles Smiles, a historic work that explores structural freedom.	Race riots break out in New York, Cleveland, and Chicago. Cultural Revolution occurs in China. Star Trek appears on TV. Barbara Jordan becomes the first African American woman to win a seat in the Texas Senate. Rise of the "Black Power" movement; Huey Newton and Bobby Seale form the Black Panthers Party.
1967	John Coltrane makes his last recordings and dies soon after of liver disease. The Miles Davis Quintet records Sorcerer and Nefertiti, featuring mostly compositions by Wayne Shorter. The Dave Brubeck Quarter disbands. Bandleader Paul Whiteman dies. The first Montreux Jazz Festival is held in Switzerland. Down Beat announces it will cover rock music as well as jazz. Trumpeter Lester Bowie forms the Art Ensemble of Chicago, an important avant-garde jazz group. Herbie Hancock introduces electric piano to popular jazz in Miles Davis' group.	The first heart-transplant operation is performed. The Six-Day War occurs in the Middle East. The Apollo space crew is killed in a launchpad fire. Singer Aretha Franklin has four top-10 hits. President Lyndon Johnson orders a commission to report on rising racial violence.
1968	Vibraphonist Gary Burton appears at Carnegie Hall. Herbie Hancock records the album Speak Like a Child with trumpeter Thad Jones and bassist Ron Carter. Herbie Hancock quits the Miles Davis Quartet. Guitarist Wes Montgomery, whose album A Day in the Life is the best selling jazz album of the year, dies. Pianist Chick Corea and bassist Dave Holland join Miles Davis' band. Avant-garde saxophonist Anthony Braxton, a member of the Chicago Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, records For Alto Saxophone and Three Compositions of New Jazz. Composer Carla Bley's Jazz Composers Orchestra Association forms the New Music Distribution Service to disseminate its recordings.	Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated. Students protest in Paris. The U.S.S.R. invades Czechoslovakia. Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy is assassinated. Massive antiwar protests are staged in the U.S. Rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix soars up the charts with two albums. Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is released.
1969	Composer Gunther Schuller completes his book Early Jazz, the first critical study of the origins of the music. Bassist Paul Chambers dies from tuberculosis. Miles Davis records In a Silent Way. Later in the year, Davis records Bitches Brew, the first important fusion album. Tony Williams forms the group Lifetime with guitarist John McLaughlin and organist Larry Young. The Art Ensemble of Chicago records in Paris. Coleman Hawkins dies of pneumonia.	Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to land on the moon. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi seizes power in Libya. Golda Meir becomes Premier of Israel. The Woodstock pop music festival is held in New York. Writer Mario Puzo's The Godfather is published. The lottery system is established for the U.S. draft. Richard M. Nixon becomes president.