A six-part series in which Max Easterman looks at developments that took place in jazz up to the 1940s, often triggered by non-musical events.

The Wall Street Crash knocked the bottom out of the gramophone business, and it was mainly the white society bands who continued to record, like Bert Lown's Hotel Biltmore Orchestra. Black musicians who did find work included Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. Then there was McKinney's Cotton Pickers, now using arranger Don Redman.