Concerts That Changed Jazz
1/4. From Spiritual to Swing. In 1938 at
Carnegie Hall, New York, John Hammond presented the first jazz concert given in a prestigious concert venue, thus moving the music out of the speakeasy and blazing a trail for the Jazz at the Phil and Ellington Carnegie Hall concerts. It was also the first to acknowledge the importance of the black history of jazz and one of the first to feature black and white performers on the same stage, at that time a very radical move. And it was one of the first to be recorded. John Fordham introduces a guide to some of the most important jazz concerts. Producer Dave Batchelor