A term coined in the 1950s by the writer on jazz Stanley Dance to describe the work of contemporary musicians working in the swing idiom of the 1930s and 40s. However, it is now more widely used for any jazz improvised on chord sequences in the essentially solo style developed by Louis Armstrong and others in the late 1920s. Some writers have broadened it further to apply to jazz-rock and other fusion styles, but most would exclude the free or aleatory jazz of the avant garde, rock-based jazz, and dixieland and other traditional forms. See also jazz, §15.
JAMES LINCOLN COLLIER