Jazz was so popular in the 1920s that the time period is often called the "Jazz Age" by historians.

International Jazz Day, celebrated annually on April 30, is an International Day declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2011 "to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe."

Minton's is famous for its role in the development of modern jazz. During the early 1940s, its jam sessions featured Monk, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

Jazz is hands down the most hybrid form of music in the world, combining elements of brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime, blues, African rhythms, and even European chamber music.

In 1917, Williams wrote a song called "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble" which inspired a jazz dance called the shimmy.

One of the most influential figures in the history of jazz, Armstrong was nicknamed Satchmo, Satch, and Pops. His career spanned five decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s.

On January 6, 1953, Gillespie threw a party for his wife Lorraine at Snookie's, a club in Manhattan, where his trumpet's bell got bent upward in an accident. He liked the sound so much he had a special trumpet made with a 45 degree raised bell, which became his trademark.

The famous stop-start opening of "Pharaoh's Dance" was constructed entirely in the studio, using repeat loops of certain sections. Later in the track, there are several micro-edits, including a one-second-long fragment that first appears at 8:39 and is repeated five times between 8:54 and 8:59.

One night before a performance, Holiday burned her hair with a curling iron. Sylvia Sims, a fellow jazz singer, promptly went to a club down the street where the coat check girls were selling flowers. Sims bought a big white gardenia and gave it to Holiday, who wore it that night to cover her burnt hair. She liked wearing the flower so much that she began to put a gardenia in her hair before every performance.

Primarily known for the saxophone, Coltrane experimented with the flute in both live performances and studio recordings toward the end of his career.