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This is the first in a series of programs that will play representative music from 100 years of jazz history. We will explore the broad sweep of that narrative; its representative and its idiosyncratic players; its durable movements and dead ends; its popular recordings and rarities. We hope you will join us over the next 100 hours to celebrate Jazz at 100.

On February 26, 1917, five musicians from New Orleans recorded for Victor in New York as the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, bringing a new syncopated music to the broader world—jazz. The new music form had developed and evolved in New Orleans and Chicago, primarily, from a rich mix of sources. In this hour, we'll be exploring these first recordings and their antecedents—African rhythms, sanctified singing, vaudeville, minstrelsy, blues and ragtime.

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