Episode Two: The Gift

Speakeasies, flappers, and easy money--it's the Jazz Age, when the story of jazz becomes a tale of two great cities, Chicago and New York, and of two extraordinary artists whose lives and music will span almost three-quarters of a century-- Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Armstrong, a fatherless waif who grew up on the mean streets of New Orleans, develops his great "gift"--his unparalleled musical genius--with the help of King Oliver, the city's top cornetist. In 1922, Armstrong follows Oliver to Chicago, where his transcendent sound and exhilarating rhythms inspire a new generation of musicians, white and black, to join the world of jazz. Meanwhile, Ellington, raised in middle-class comfort by parents who told him he was "blessed," outgrows the society music he learned to play in Washington, D.C., and heads for Harlem. There he absorbs the stride piano rhythms of Willie "The Lion" Smith and forms a band to create a music all his own--hot, blues-drenched, and infused with the gutbucket growls of his new trumpet player, Bubber Miley. As the Roaring Twenties accelerate, Paul Whiteman, a white bandleader, sells millions of records playing a sweet, symphonic jazz, while Fletcher Henderson, a black bandleader, packs the dance floor at the whites-only Roseland Ballroom with his innovative big-band arrangements. Then, in 1924, the year Whiteman introduces George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," Henderson brings Louis Armstrong to New York, adding his improvisational brilliance to the band's new sound--and soon Armstrong is showing the whole world how to swing. ©2001 Amazon.com