page_title: 1920s
section_title: Musicians
hierarchical_section_title: 1920s / People / Entertainers / Musicians
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Al Jolson with Irving Berlin
context_page_description: The 1920s was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1920, and ended on December 31, 1929. In North America, it is frequently referred to as the "Roaring Twenties" or the "Jazz Age", while in Europe the period is sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age Twenties" because of the economic boom following World War I. French speakers refer to the period as the "Années folles", emphasizing the era's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism.
  The economic prosperity experienced by many countries during the 1920s was similar in nature to that experienced in the 1950s and 1990s. Each period of prosperity was the result of a paradigm shift in global affairs. These shifts in the 1920s, 1950s, and 1990s, occurred in part as the result of the conclusion of World War I and Spanish flu, World War II, and the Cold War, respectively.
  The 1920s saw foreign oil companies begin operations throughout South America. Venezuela became the world's second largest oil producing nation.
  In some countries the 1920s saw the rise of radical political movements, especially in regions that were once part of empires.
context_section_description: George Gershwin
  Al Jolson
  Louis Armstrong
  Richard Tauber
  Irving Berlin
  Eddie Cantor
  Duke Ellington
  Kelly Harrell
  Jimmy Rodgers
  Jelly Roll Morton
  Cole Porter
  Rudy Vallée
  Paul Whiteman
   
  Fats Waller
  Fletcher Henderson
  Eddie Lang
  Joe Venuti
  Bix Beiderbecke
  Art Tatum
  Béla Bartók
  Lonnie Johnson
  Joe "King" Oliver
  Bessie Smith
  Count Basie
  King Oliver
  Sidney Bechet
caption: Irving Berlin (left) and Al Jolson, c. 1927
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