<P> The birth of jazz music is credited to African Americans, but expanded and over time became modified to become socially acceptable to middle - class white Americans . Those critical of jazz saw it as music from people with no training or skill . White performers were used as a vehicle for the popularization of jazz music in America . Even though the jazz movement was taken over by the middle - class white population, it facilitated the mesh of African American traditions and ideals with white middle - class society . Cities like New York and Chicago were cultural centers for jazz, and especially for African - American artists . People who were not familiar with jazz music could not recognize it by the way Africans Americans wrote it . Furthermore, the way African - American writers wrote about jazz music made it seem as though it was not a cultural achievement of the race . </P> <P> From 1920 to 1933 Prohibition in the United States banned the sale of alcoholic drinks, resulting in illicit speakeasies which became lively venues of the "Jazz Age", hosting popular music including current dance songs, novelty songs and show tunes . Jazz began to get a reputation as being immoral, and many members of the older generations saw it as threatening the old cultural values and promoting the new decadent values of the Roaring Twenties . Professor Henry van Dyke of Princeton University wrote: "...it is not music at all . It's merely an irritation of the nerves of hearing, a sensual teasing of the strings of physical passion ." The media too began to denigrate jazz . The New York Times used stories and headlines to pick at jazz: Siberian villagers were said by the paper to have used jazz to scare off bears, when in fact they had used pots and pans; another story claimed that the fatal heart attack of a celebrated conductor was caused by jazz . </P> <P> From 1919, Kid Ory's Original Creole Jazz Band of musicians from New Orleans played in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where in 1922 they became the first black jazz band of New Orleans origin to make recordings . That year also saw the first recording by Bessie Smith, the most famous of the 1920s blues singers . Chicago, meanwhile, was the main center developing the new "Hot Jazz", where King Oliver joined Bill Johnson . Bix Beiderbecke formed The Wolverines in 1924 . </P> <P> That same year, Louis Armstrong joined the Fletcher Henderson dance band as featured soloist, leaving in 1925 . The original New Orleans style was polyphonic, with theme variation and simultaneous collective improvisation . Armstrong was a master of his hometown style, but by the time he joined Henderson's band, he was already a trailblazer in a new phase of jazz, with its emphasis on arrangements and soloists . Armstrong's solos went well beyond the theme - improvisation concept, and extemporized on chords, rather than melodies . According to Schuller, by comparison, the solos by Armstrong's bandmates (including a young Coleman Hawkins), sounded "stiff, stodgy," with "jerky rhythms and a grey undistinguished tone quality ." The following example shows a short excerpt of the straight melody of "Mandy, Make Up Your Mind" by George W. Meyer and Arthur Johnston (top), compared with Armstrong's solo improvisations (below) (recorded 1924). (The example approximates Armstrong's solo, as it does not convey his use of swing .) </P>

Who became famous by singing the blues during the jazz age