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Baltimore-born Chick Webb was a sensation as a jazz drummer in the 1930s.

Modern Drummer Magazine A Profile in Courage For this month’s From the Past article, my focus is on the great Chick Webb, an astoundingly fine player and bandleader from the mid 1920s and ’30s. Chick was a special person who had to overcome significant adversity in his life, namely a severe physical handicap. Yet he managed to forge on to not only drive what was arguably the best band of the era, but he also discovered world-class jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, and he was a source of inspiration for subsequent drumming superstars, including Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. As I was gathering da...

Jazz is uniquely American, and Black musicians invented it | Opinion Updated Feb 23, 2021; Jazz is the only true American art form. Jazz grew out of the great mix in and around New Orleans around the beginning of the 20th Century. Most of these early, often nameless, musicians were Black. The inventive musicians would take a piece of metal or glass and massaged their guitar strings bending the notes, flattening the thirds, which evolved into the Blues. In fact, the Blues, in turn, served as the foundation for Jazz. Louis Armstrong didn’t invent Jazz. But he is credited with being a pioneer...

The Royal Theater on Baltimore's Pennsylvania Avenue was a magnet for the top Black performing artists of the 20th century.

Todd A. Price, The American South Published 8:23 pm UTC Feb. 8, 2021 New Orleans jazz legend Donald Harrison plays his jazz version of "When the Saints Go Marching In." Photo: Dinah Rogers, For The Tennessean, Illustration: Andrea Brunty, USA TODAY Network As the National Museum of African American Music opens its doors, journalists from the USA TODAY Network explore the stories, places and people who helped make music what it is today in our expansive series, Hallowed Sound. Jazz is a genre of performances, not songs. Created in the moment through improvisation, every time a song is played i...