Whether at dance marathons or speakeasies, jazz music filled the air. It floated out from radios in bars and beauty parlors and it was played by live bands at dance halls.

The word jazz, a black slang term for making love, was on everybody's lips. Fashionable clothes were called "jazz dresses," modern syncopated verse was called "jazz poetry," and fast old cars were called "jazzy jalopies."

Jazz was real American music, combining elements of ragtime, marching band music, and blues. Born in the black neighborhoods of New Orleans around 1895, jazz traveled with African American musicians up the Mississippi River to Kansas City and Memphis, and over to Chicago, eventually hitting it big in New York City in the twenties.

Like so much else during the decade, the spread of jazz throughout popular culture can be attributed to Prohibition. Before alcohol was outlawed, there were...