ABSTRACT
The 1930s saw the change of jazz from a small group music to the music of the big bands that came to dominate the 'Swing Era'. The recording industry, which had done so much to spread jazz and blues in the 1920s, collapsed. Jazz in New York had always been different from that in New Orleans and Chicago. The white Original Dixieland Jazz Band had descended on New York in 1917. Fletcher Henderson's band was famous not only for being the first to adapt swinging jazz to a big band sound, but also for producing some great jazz soloists. The famous jazz tenor saxophone player, Coleman Hawkins, first became well known through playing in the Fletcher Henderson band in 1923. Ellington is one of the giants of jazz, and for many he will go down as one of the greatest musicians of this century.
