Great singers celebrate the essential contribution of vocalists to the development of jazz. The avant-garde movement creates innovative music but appeals to an increasingly limited audience. By the late l960s, jazz is struggling to find its way. In the early l970s, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington pass away. Miles Davis , after forming his most innovative acoustic jazz group, leads a movement of jazz musicians who incorporate elements of rock and soul into their music in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience.
Jazz musicians continue to practice, perform, record, disagree, improvise and jam.
Features comments from Wynton Marsalis, Abbey Lincoln, Arvell Shaw, Jackie McLean, Lester Bowie, Branford Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Herbie Hancock, Matt Glaser, Joe Lovano, and others.