Baltimore jazz is a major part of the music of Baltimore

Music of Baltimore

The music of Baltimore, the largest city in Maryland, can be documented as far back as 1784, and the city has become a regional center for Western classical music and jazz...

, Maryland, and is a field that has produced several well-known artists, including Billie Holliday, ab Calloway, Chick Webb and Cyrus Chestnut

Cyrus Chestnut

Cyrus Chestnut is an American jazz pianist, songwriter, and producer. In 2006, Josh Tyrangiel, music critic for Time Magazine, wrote: "What makes Chestnut the best jazz pianist of his generation is a willingness to abandon notes and play space." Chestnut enjoys mixing styles and resists being...

, as well as local legends like Ethel Ennis

Ethel Ennis

Ethel Llewellyn Ennis is an American jazz musician. Ethel Ennis began performing on the piano in high school, but her natural vocal abilities soon eclipsed those as a pianist...

 and Rivers Chambers

Rivers Chambers

Rivers Chambers was one of the major leaders in the jazz scene, part of the music of Baltimore. He was originally a pianist with John Ridgely, part of the first jazz band in Baltimore, and later led the house band at the Royal Theatre for many years. His Rivers Chambers Orchestra was a fixture on...

.

Jazz was first documented in Baltimore in 1917, the same year John Ridgely

John Ridgely

John Ridgely was an American film character actor with over 100 film credits. He appeared in the 1946 Humphrey Bogart film The Big Sleep as blackmailing gangster Eddie Mars and had a memorable role as a suffering heart patient in the film noir Nora Prentiss .The Chicago, Illinois-born actor...

 organized the first band that called its music jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

. Baltimore's Royal Theatre

Royal Theatre (Baltimore)

The Royal Theatre, which first opened in 1922 as the black-owned Douglass Theatre, was the most famous theater along West Baltimore City's Pennsylvania Avenue, one of a circuit of five such theaters for black entertainment in big cities...

 was, for many years, the most important venue in the city for jazz, and its house orchestra, led first by Rivers Chambers and then by Tracy McCleary

Tracy McCleary

Tracy McCleary was a prominent part of the Baltimore jazz scene, based around his position as leader of the Royal Men of Rhythm, the house band at the Royal Theater, the premier African American music venue in Baltimore at that time. He took his position from Rivers Chambers.-External links:...

, included many performers who went on to national careers with major acts. The Royal was known as a tough crowd, even more so than the legendarily cruel crowd at the Apollo Theatre

Apollo Theatre

The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. Designed by architect Lewin Sharp for owner Henry Lowenfield, and the fourth legitimate theatre to be constructed on the street, its doors opened on 21 February 1901 with the American...

 in New York.

Baltimore has a prominent jazz saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

 tradition, and has produced many well-regarded players like Mickey Fields and Gary Bartz. More recently, the Hammond B-3 organ has become a distinctive part of the local jazz scene.