In 1920, an aspiring African-American scholar named Fletcher Henderson came to Manhattan in hopes of pursuing graduate work in chemistry. What he found instead was that Plessy v. Fergusson—that blemish on the face of American juris prudence that held that "separate but equal" was not violative of the Thirteenth Amendment—still cast its shadow over American society. Segregation was the Supreme Court-sanctioned way of life, and despite Henderson’s degree from Atlanta University in both chemistry and mathematics, the hallowed halls of research science remained off-limits to him. Henderson turned instead to music, whose serious study he had made under the tutelage of his mother. Those years of training notwithstanding, this unassuming, might-have-been scientist was an unlikely candidate to start a musical revolution that would forever change the sound of jazz.

The same year that Henderson arrived in New York City, Mamie Smith and her band the Jazz Hounds recorded Crazy Blues, the first recording ever of a black singer accompanied by an all-black ensemble, for the Manhattan-based OKeh record label (OKeh 4169). Smith was a cabaret singer who came to Harlem from Cincinnati around 1898 while touring as a dancer with the Smart Set dance company. By the time she recorded Crazy Blues, Mamie Smith had amassed a following greater than that of any other Harlem performer of her day.