"The Sound of Jazz"

Hard to define Jazz.
It went from being the music of the outsiders, the ones at the margin, in the beginning, to become music for the elite.
The sense of rhythm and the essence of improvisation that was happening in different parts of the young United States of America, played mainly by Afro-American has gone through major changes since than.
It made the the country celebrate life as never before during the "Jazz Age", drastically terminated by the Great Depression.
It became the first example of pop music (as seen today) when Benny Goodman found the Swing, and brought it to the masses.
It walked hand in hand with the Beat Generation, when Bebop raised to impose amazing solo performances and free spirit as an opposition to the strict organization of the Big Bands.
It became Cool, having too amazing artists representing not only its sound, but the essence of that people, coming from such different places and races.
It has been changing so much that now it doesn't really matter what can be defined as Jazz, and what stays out.

The important thing, is the feeling it transmits to the one who listens and truly appreciates it. Close to incomparable.

In 1957, CBS invited Billie Holiday to their program "The Sound of Jazz". It was a tough moment in her life in many ways but for someone who sings the Blues, that might just help.
For the session, producers invited not only some of the greatest musicians of that time, such as Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Gerry Mulligan, Roy Eldridge- just to mention, but Billies closest friend, the one whom she called Pres (as in president) and who first called her Lady Day, saxophonist Lester Young.

This might just be one of the greatest Jazz performances in time. Or just an extremely beautiful thing.