It was in Chicago that the coronet player/bandleader Joe "King" Oliver earned his place as one of the most important figures of early jazz. King Oliver got his start as the coronet player in Kid Ory’s jazz band, then moved to Chicago in 1918 and formed King Oliver’s Jazz Band the following year. In 1922, Oliver persuaded another coronet player, who was still living in New Orleans at the time, to come and join his band in Chicago. That coronet player was Louis Armstrong.

Armstrong was already the undisputed king of the hot jazz solo. Foreshadowing the extended solos of such later jazz artists as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Armstrong infused jazz improvisation with a rhythmic and harmonic sense that was well beyond that of any of his contemporaries. The King Oliver recordings between the years 1922 and 1924 were the hit records of the day among African-Americans, though white Americans continued to shun jazz.