Jazz is an original American musical art form that developed around the start of the 20th century in New Orleans. Jazz has roots in a variety of American music traditions, including spirituals, blues, ragtime, religious hymns, hillbilly music, marching band music, and other popular musics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After originating in and around New Orleans, jazz styles spread in the 1920s, influencing other musical styles. The origins of the word jazz are uncertain. The word is rooted in American slang, and various derivations have been suggested. Jazz was not applied to jazz music until about 1915, in Chicago. Earl Hines, born in 1903 and later to become a celebrated "jazz" musician, used to claim that he was "playing piano before the word "Jazz" was even invented". For the origin and history of the word jazz, see Jazz (word).

The instruments used in marching bands and dance band music at the turn of century became the basic instruments of jazz: brass, reeds, and drums, using the Western 12-tone scale. Small bands of musicians, many of whom came from the jazz funeral procession tradition of New Orleans, played a seminal role in the articulation and dissemination of early jazz, traveling in the West, South, and to northern cities.

Musicians with formal music skills helped to preserve and disseminate the essentially improvisational musical styles of jazz.

While jazz may be difficult to define, improvisation is clearly one of its key elements.

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American jazz musician widely considered to be one of the most influential of the 20th century. A trumpeter, bandleader and composer, Davis was at the forefront of almost every major development in jazz from World War II to the 1990s. He played on various early bebop records and recorded one of the first cool jazz records. He was partially responsible for the development of modal jazz, and jazz fusion arose from his work with other musicians in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Arthur (Art) Blakey (October 11, 1919–October 16, 1990), also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. He is known as a powerful musician and a vital groover; his brand of bluesy, funky hard bop was (and remains) profoundly influential on mainstream jazz. Over more than 30 years his band the Jazz Messengers included many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz.

These all over print t shirt of Jazz clippings shows some of the stories and struggles of the Jazz Artists in the movement of Jazz against racism and equality. True Respects to all Jazz legends that have left us a legacy.

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