Jazz history, legends, and the jazz sound.
Test your knowledge with these top questions!
Which saxophonist recorded the 1960 album Giant Steps with its rapid chord changes?
John Coltrane released Giant Steps in 1960 and pioneered rapid chord changes on its demanding title track.
Which pianist's quartet released the 1959 single Take Five written in 5/4 time?
The Dave Brubeck Quartet released Take Five in 1959 as the first jazz single to sell over one million copies.
Which label released Miles Davis album Kind of Blue in 1959?
Columbia recorded Kind of Blue in two 1959 sessions with Davis, Coltrane, Adderley and Evans.
Which trumpeter and singer knocked The Beatles off number one in 1964 with a Broadway title song?
Louis Armstrong took a Broadway title song to number one in May 1964 and ended a 14-week Beatles run.
Which bandleader led the orchestra Ella Fitzgerald joined as a teenage singer?
Webb's orchestra gave Fitzgerald her first major hit with "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," recorded in 1938.
Billie Holiday made her first commercial recording in 1933 with the orchestra of which bandleader?
Producer John Hammond arranged the session after hearing her sing in a Harlem club.
Billie Holiday was born in which U.S. city?
She grew up in Baltimore, where she first heard Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" and cited its scat duet as an early influence.
Which 1939 Billie Holiday song confronted lynching in the American South?
The lyric began as a poem by Abel Meeropol, a Bronx schoolteacher who wrote it after seeing a photograph of a lynching.
Which 1947 arrest stripped Billie Holiday of her New York City Cabaret Card and barred her from city clubs?
She served nearly a year in the federal prison at Alderson, West Virginia, and returned to a sold-out Carnegie Hall concert in March 1948.
Which Harlem club hosted Duke Ellington's nationally broadcast residency?
Nightly radio broadcasts from the Cotton Club carried Ellington's band beyond Harlem and boosted its national profile.