Timeline

Year	Developments in Jazz	Historical Events
1930	Trumpeter Louis Armstrong records Body and Soul. In a recording session with Armstrong, percussionist Lionel Hampton plays his first vibraphone solo and decides to make that his main instrument. Bandleader Paul Whiteman and his orchestra star in the movie The King of Jazz. Bandleader Cab Calloway becomes a regular at the Cotton Club.	The planet Pluto is discovered. The jet engine is invented.
1931	Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke dies of pneumonia at age 38. Cornetist Buddy Bolden dies. Pianist Lil Hardin separates from her husband Louis Armstrong and forms an all-female band. RCA demonstrates the first 33 1/3 rmp long-playing disc.	The Empire State Building opens in New York City. Spain becomes a Republic. Japan invades Manchuria. There is massive worldwide unemployment.
1932	Duke Ellington records It Don't Mean a Thing (If it Ain't' Got That Swing), the first jazz composition to use swing in the title.	John Cockcroft splits the atom in Cambridge, UK. Japan forms a Manchurian Republic and later attacks Shanghai. Radio City Music Hall opens in New York. Aviator Charles Lindbergh's son is kidnapped.
1933	With the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, Berlin radio station Funkstunde bans jazz broadcasts. Pianist Art Tatum records his first piano solo, Tiger Rag, which is thought by many to be a duet. Duke Ellington and his orchestra begin their first tour of Europe. Singer Bessie Smith makes her last recordings. Singer Billie Holiday makes her first recording.	Adolph Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany, followed by the creation of the Dachau concentration camp, political arrests, and the appropriation of Jewish finances by the government. President Franklin Roosevelt initiates economic recovery in the U.S. Mahatma Ghandi is imprisoned. Prohibition ends in the U.S. The first photographs of the Loch Ness monster are published in Britain's Daily Mail. Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes president.
1934	Fletcher Henderson's band folds due to financial difficulties and Henderson sells some of his arrangements to clarinetist Benny Goodman who performs with his band at Billy Rose's Music Hall in New York. The journal Down Beat: the Contemporary Music Magazine is launched in Chicago. The Quintette du Hot Club de France, featuring guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli, gives its first public performance at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris. Jimmie Lunceford's band replaces Cab Calloway’s at the Cotton Club in Harlem. Clarinetist Jimmy Dorsey and trombonist Tommy Dorsey form the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra. Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday appear in the film Symphony in Black.	Outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are shot dead. Italian troops invade Albania. The Nazi coup fails in Austria. Adolf Hitler begins his dictatorship in Germany. Blues singer Leadbelly is released from prison in Louisiana after writing a song to the governor asking for a pardon. The first cheeseburger is served in Louisville, Kentucky.
1935	Pianist and bandleader Bennie Moten dies. Pianist Count Basie forms the Barons of Rhythm with members of Moten's band. Vocalist Ella Fitzgerald makes her first recordings. Clarinetist Benny Goodman records Fletcher Henderson's arrangement of Jelly Roll Morton's King Porter Stomp. Benny Goodman begins recording with a racially integrated trio that includes pianist Teddy Wilson and drummer Gene Krupa. Billie Holiday makes several recordings with pianist Teddy Wilson, including What a Little Moonlight Can Do. George Gershwin's three-act opera Porgy and Bess opens at the Alvin Theater in New York.	Italy invades Ethiopia. The first paperback books are published. The electric guitar is invented.
1936	Billie Holiday and Teddy Wilson record I Cried for You, which goes on to sell 15,000 copies. Pianist Nat King Cole makes his first recordings with the Solid Swingers, a band led by his brother Eddie, a bassist. Benny Goodman, adding vibraphonist Lionel Hampton to his trio, records Moonglow, which starts a series of popular quartet recordings. Duke Ellington provides music for the Marx Brothers movie A Day at the Races.	Black American athlete Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at the Olympic Games in Berlin; Hitler leaves the stadium and refuses to be photographed with Owens.
1937	Billie Holiday makes her debut with Count Basie's band. Coleman Hawkins records with Django Reinhardt and saxophonist Benny Carter in Paris. Duke Ellington records Caravan, by Juan Tizol. Count Basie's band broadcasts from the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. Count Basie's band records One O'clock Jump, which becomes their signature tune. Benny Goodman records Sing, Sing, Sing. George Gershwin dies of a brain tumor. Nat King Cole creates a new ensemble with piano, bass, and guitar. Bessie Smith dies in a car accident. Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie makes his first recordings.	The Hindenburg explodes in New Jersey. The Japanese capture Peking and control Shanghai.
1938	Benny Goodman's band hosts a sold out concert at Carnegie Hall which features a jazz history element and a jam session with members of Duke Ellington’s and Count Basie's bands. After the Goodman concert, Count Basie's band and Chick Webb's band have an informal competition at the Savoy Ballroom. Cornetist King Oliver dies after years in poverty working as a pool-room janitor. Benny Goodman's band records Bach Goes to Town: Prelude and Fugue in Swing, which combines elements of classical music and swing.	Germany annexes Austria and Sudetenland. Shopping carts are introduced for the first time in Oklahoma. Actor Orson Welles broadcasts War of the Worlds, a radio science-fiction drama about a Martian invasion, and causes a nationwide panic.
1939	A new band led by trombonist Glenn Miller gains notoriety through regular radio broadcasts. Billie Holiday records Strange Fruit, with controversial lyrics regarding lynchings which causes it to be banned from several radio stations. Chick Webb dies and Ella Fitzgerald takes over his band. Glenn Miller records the hugely successful In The Mood. Benny Goodman hires guitarist Charlie Christian. Lester Young records Lester Leaps In with Count Basie. Coleman Hawkins records Body and Soul, setting a new standard for improvisational sophistication on the saxophone. Artie Shaw retires. Singer Ma Rainey dies. Blue Note Records is founded.	World War II breaks out in Europe. Germany occupies Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, and Lithuania and invades Poland. Military conscription is introduced in Britain. Hitler and Mussolini agree to a "Pact of Steel." The Spanish Civil War ends.