This Is Jazz presents a trial preview tracing the origins of American jazz, hosted by Jack McGregor. The program moves through a series of scenes, beginning in New Orleans in 1870 with a street band marching down Rampart Street playing High Society. It then follows the music as ragtime pianists and dance bands develop it through the 1890s and 1910s, carried up the Mississippi by riverboat. By 1922 the story reaches Chicago, where young players adopt the New Orleans style and shape a rougher Chicago sound. The preview closes with a 1925 Broadway number by Fats Waller. The broadcast is a pilot that invites listener feedback on whether a full series should follow, with mail sent to the Mutual Broadcasting System.

With Jack McGregor, Chuck Kuckey, Harry Fromkies, Rudy Bletch, Ernest Kid Punch Miller, Maxie Kaminsky, Albert Nicholas, George Brunis.

Listen for: The street band playing High Society in 1870, the ragtime Tiger Rag, and the Chicago numbers of the 1920s, with narration that traces how jazz developed.

First aired on January 18, 1947.

Episode notes written with AI from the recording itself; the audio is the original broadcast.

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