A: Hi, Mike. Do you like jazz?
B: Yes, very much. And I like to dance to jazz too.
A: Do you know who first started to play jazz?
B: Yes, of course. The African Americans.
A: Do you know when and where?
B: Yes. Around 1900, people from many countries lived in New Orleans. Music was an important part of life in this city. Musicians in New Orleans started to play a new kind of music. It was called jazz. Jazz was a kind of music intended to make people happy.
A: I know jazz is kind of a mixture of many different kinds of music, for example, African, blues, European, church music, and work songs. Most early jazz musicians were African American. They played in small bands and they didn't write down their music.
B: Yes, they learned to work together to produce a loose and relaxed beat that was so powerful that listeners could not help but dance, or at least move their feet along with it. And soon white musicians were playing jazz too.
A: I know black and white musicians seldom played together in the United States at that time.
B: You are right. Around 1920, jazz music began to spread. Jazz musicians moved from city to city. People listened to jazz records. They heard jazz on the radio. In the 1930s and 1940s, jazz was popular in the U.S. and Canada. The music was called swing. It was played by big bands.
A: It was said there are still a few bands made up of very old musicians playing the old-style jazz in a club in New Orleans. They play jazz for four and a half hours each evening so many tourists go there and listen.
B: Can the audience make some special requests for the songs?
A: Yes, if the musicians are willing to play them, people pay a little money for the request. Traditional songs cost one dollar and all others cost two.
B: That's interesting. I'd like to visit the city sometime in the future.