Jazz: The gift

Speakeasies, flappers, and easy money -- it's the Jazz Age, when the story of jazz becomes a tale of two great cities, Chicago and New York, and of two extraordinary artists whose lives and music will span almost three- quarters of a century -- Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. As the Roaring Twenties accelerate, Paul Whiteman, a white bandleader, sells millions of records playing a sweet, symphonic jazz, while Fletcher Henderson, a black bandleader, packs the dance floor at the whites-only Roseland Ballroom with his innovative big band arrangements. Then, in 1924, the year Whiteman introduces George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue, " Henderson brings Louis Armstrong to New York, adding his improvisational brilliance to the band's new sound -- and soon Armstrong is showing the whole world how to swing.