By lumping the music of all large jazz bands together marketers overlook the different kinds of jazz that large groups have performed: swing (Duke Ellington and Count Basie), bebop (Dizzy Gillespie), cool (Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, Shorty Rogers, Gil Evans), hard bop (Gerald Wilson, Charles Mingus), free jazz (some of Sun Ra's work after the l950s) and jazz-rock fusion (Don Ellis's and Maynard Ferguson's groups of the 1970s). Not all of them are swing bands.

One of the defining elements of cool jazz was the different tone qualities that musicians aimed for. The tonal qualities of cool jazz can be described as calm, subdued, soft, or light. One of the most obvious tonal differences in this era from the eras preceeding it was the use of a much more delicate attack. Cool players also played with little or no vibrato. Unlike bop musicians who utilized the whole range of the instrument and often focused on the extremes fo the instrument, cool jazz musicians tended to use the middle registers.

Cool jazz ensembles were usually composed of three to eight players. These ensembles often utilized instruments that had not previously been used in jazz ensembles. These instruments included the flute, the French horn, the oboe, and the cello. Another important instrument that worked its way into jazz was the flugelhorn. The flugelhorn was used quite often by Miles Davis, one of the leaders of the swing movement. In addition to introducing new instruments to jazz, the cool era also introduced new formats for compositions and new meter signatures. Musicians no longer only played in 4/4 or 2/4 time. Meters such as 3/4, 5/4, and 9/4 became more common. Some musicians even adopted some classical forms such as rondos and fugues. These musicians moved even closer to traditional classical music and their type of jazz has been categorized as "third-stream music."

Jazz functions as popular art and has enjoyed periods of fairly widespread public response, in the "jazz age" of the 1920s, in the swing era of the late 1930s and in the peak popularity of modern jazz in the late 1950s. Beginning in the 20s and continuing well into the 30s, it was common to apply the word "jazz" rather indiscriminately, melodically or tonally. Thus George Gershwin was called a jazz composer. For Gershwin's concert work he was acclaimed to have made a respectable art form out of jazz. Somewhat similarly, Paul Whiteman, playing jazz-influenced dance music, was billed as the King of Jazz. Perhaps the broader definition of jazz, such as the one that would include the blues influence as well as those who shared our understanding of the art form, even if they did not perform it, would be the most useful historical approach.

There is no defining moment when bop was born. Rather, many unrelated events helped with the birth of bop. Bop developed in many locals including Kansas City and St. Louis. It solidified as a jazz form in New York in the early 1940's. Bop first made its appearances in the playing of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk. These three musicians played together and refined a very complex kind of music.

The swing era is dominated by the big bands that played to huge audiences during this period. Two of the largest big bands were Count Basie's and Duke Ellington's. Benny Goodman also led several influential swing bands. Within the big bands there were also many individuals who distinguished themselves. Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins were two extremely talented saxophone players who became well renowned for their improvisational prowess. Ella Fitzgerald wowed crowds with her silky smooth voice and upbeat scat singing. http://library.thinkquest.org/18602/history/swing/swingstart.html

The beginnings of the swing era can be traced to developments of larger bands by Fletcher Henderson in New York, and Bennie Moten in Kansas City. Fletcher Henderson along with his brother Horace and with Don Redman created the pattern for swing arrangments. Henderson helped establish the independent use of trumpet, trombone, saxophone, and rhythm sections with the use of soloists. A swing score generally has specific notes for each instrument to play in every measure. Then the music arranger decides which measures will be used for solo improvisation. The score is then taken to a music copyist who extracts the individual parts for the various instruments.

Just as bebop was a response to the limits of the swing

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