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Due to his failure to adapt, Morton's success and prestige were dwindling. His fall in popularity as a bandleader had nearly collapsed his financial empire when he moved to Washington, D.C. in 1935. One night at the club in 1939, Morton slapped a rowdy club patron. The man attacked Morton with a knife, slicing Morton in the head and chest. He never fully recovered from the incident, which only aggravated other existing health problems. On June 10, at the age of fifty, Morton died in Johnson's arms. The cause of death was heart failure resulting from chronic high blood pressure.

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The 1920s were Morton's most productive years. He was offered a job in Los Angeles in 1917, where he worked as a bandleader and in other entertainment areas. By this time, Morton owned several small businesses. He was making money and establishing a name for himself. Morton reached the height of his popularity between 1926 and 1930. He formed a band called the Red Hot Peppers and produced several classic recordings for the Victor label, both in Chicago and New York.

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Health problems slowed Fitzgerald down in her later years, she underwent cataract surgery in 1971 and open-heart surgery in 1986, but she continued to perform and record.. In the same year, Fitzgerald had both legs amputated below the knee due to complications from diabetes. On June 15, 1996, Ella Fitzgerald died quietly at her Beverly Hills home. Shy and quiet until the end, she seemed slightly surprised and always delighted that people liked her music so much. She will be fondly remembered as one of America's finest female vocalists.

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Fitzgerald received recognition from many sources. She was named Best Female Singer in Down Beat magazine's Readers Poll 21 times, including a record 18- consecutive-year run from 1953 to 1970. In 1984, she was presented with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Person's Whitney Young Award, and she received the Medal of Freedom Award from President George Bush in 1992. She held honorary degrees from several universities, and in 1974 the University of Maryland named its Ella Fitzgerald School of Performing Arts in her honor.

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Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia on April 25, 1918. She moved north with her mother, settling in Yonkers, near New York City. At first, young Ella aspired to be a dancer. However, after winning a talent competition at Harlem's Apollo Theater in 1935, it became clear that singing would be her dedication.

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Though Rodgers was a successful musician, he lost much of his money during the stock market crash of 1929. He died of tuberculosis in New York City, exhausted after a long recording session.

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Much of the information about Morton's early life is uncertain. He was born Ferdinand Joseph La Menthe, October 20, 1890, Gulfport, Louisiana. Morton's creole father, E.P. Le Menthe, was a carpenter. La Menthe was also a classically-schooled trombonist and took young Morton to the French Opera House in New Orleans. La Menthe abandoned the family when Morton was very young. After Morton's mother married Willie Morton, the boy lived in Biloxi and Meridian, Mississippi, and then in New Orleans, mostly under the care of his aunt and godmother.

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He was discovered by a music company scout, and began recording the songs he wrote in 1927. He had recorded over one hundred hit records, including “Blue Yodel,” “Mule Skinner Blues,” “In the Jailhouse Now,” and “T.B. Blues.”

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Rodgers began working at the age of fourteen on the railroad. He worked his way up to brakeman before he was forced to retire at age twenty-seven with the then-incurable disease tuberculosis.

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Jelly Roll Morton was America's first great jazz composer and one of the foremost contributors to American music. A pioneering jazz musician and leader. Morton claimed to have invented the term jazz and the musical style itself at the Swing Era in 1902. Morton was also an influential composer reaching a great amount of audience.

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Ella Fitzgerald "The First Lady of Song" was well-deserved. With a career spanning 60 years, Fitzgerald was perhaps the world's most celebrated and accomplished female vocalist. An author had stated that "She was so loved by her many fans that they referred to her as "Ella." (Gale).

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Jimmie Rodgers known as the “Blue Yodeler” and the “Singing Brakeman,” is the father of country music. His amazing music career spanned only nine years, Rodgers became one of the most beloved performers in America, yodeling his soulful and uplifting blues to a country stuck in economic depression during the 1920s.

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Music in the 1920’s were the most uprising time. Jazz was said to be the music of the 1920s. It displayed the best black musical talent the world had ever seen. Originating with musicians in New Orleans, Louisiana, the sound soon spread across the country. At the same time blues music emerged in the early twentieth century in the United States. It became the most distinctive and original American musical forms. It is an African American creation and one of the best contributions to American popular culture. Blues music is often thought of as being sad music, expressing the hardships endured by many African Americans.