New Orleans & Early Jazz

This category groups together the various styles of jazz that predominated from its birth around the start of the twentieth century through the rise of Swing in the 1930s. Included here are the New Orleans- and Chicago-bred "hot jazz" group sounds pioneered by musicians such as cornetist King Oliver and pianist/composer Jelly Roll Morton; the Stride piano stylings developed in 1910s New York by the likes of James P. Johnson; and the classically influenced orchestral jazz of bandleader Paul Whiteman. Also included here are post-Swing musicians who sought to revive earlier styles (Dixieland artists such as clarinetist George Lewis, who was most popular in the '50s) or, in the case of more recent groups such as the Dirty Dozen, update those styles by merging early brass band traditions with modern Funk and R&B rhythms.