The period from the end of the First World War until the start of the Depression in 1929 is known as the "Jazz Age". Jazz had become popular music in America, although older generations considered the music immoral and threatening to cultural values. Dances such as the Charleston and the Black Bottom were very popular during the period, and jazz bands typically consisted of seven to twelve musicians. Important orchestras in New York were led by Fletcher Henderson, Paul Whiteman and Duke Ellington. Many New Orleans jazzmen had moved to Chicago during the late 1910s in search of employment; among others, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band and Jelly Roll Morton recorded in the city. However, Chicago's importance as a center of jazz music started to diminish toward the end of the 1920s in favor of New York.

In the early years of jazz, record companies were often eager to decide what songs were to be recorded by their artists. Popular numbers in the 1920s were pop hits such as "Sweet Georgia Brown", "Dinah" and "Bye Bye Blackbird". The first jazz artist to be given some liberty in choosing his material was Louis Armstrong, whose band helped popularize many of the early standards in the 1920s and 1930s.

Some compositions written by jazz artists have endured as standards, including Fats Waller's "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Ain't Misbehavin'". The most recorded 1920s standard is Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish's "Stardust". Several songs written by Broadway composers in the 1920s have become standards, such as George and Ira Gershwin's "The Man I Love" (1924), Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" (1927) and Cole Porter's "What Is This Thing Called Love?" (1929). However, it was not until the 1930s that musicians became comfortable with the harmonic and melodic sophistication of Broadway tunes and started including them regularly in their repertoire.

In 1920, the jazz age was underway and was indirectly fueled by prohibition of alcohol. In Chicago, the jazz scene was developing rapidly, aided by the immigration of over 40 prominent New Orleans jazzmen to the city, continuous throughout much of the 1920s, including The New Orleans Rhythm Kings who began playing at Friar's Inn. However, in 1920, the cabaret business began in New York City and the growing number of speakeasies developing in the cellars of New York City provided many aspiring jazz musicians with new venues which gradually saw many musicians who had moved to Chicago ending up in the east coast. Classic Blues became very prominent from 1920 after Mamie Smith recorded Crazy Blues and grew in popularity along with jazz.

In 1920, Paul Whiteman and his band recorded "Whispering" in New York City, in a subgenre known as symphonic jazz. Meanwhile, in New York City Adrian Rollini began playing bass saxophone with the California Ramblers and would later in the decade play with Bix Beiderbecke. Duke Ellington had developed into a successful band leader and Louis Armstrong began to amaze audiences with New Orleans Jazz.

In 1922, Chicago and New York City were becoming the most important centres for jazz, and jazz was becoming very profitable for jazz managers such as Paul Whiteman who by 1922 managed some 28 different jazz ensembles on the East Coast, earning more than $1 million in 1922. Yet as a form of music it was still not appreciated by many critics, including Anne Faulkner, who passed off jazz as "a destructive dissonance," asking if the music "put the sin in syncopation"and Henry van Dyke who described jazz as "an unmitigated cacophony, a species of music invented by demons for the torture of imbeciles."

Chicago in 1922 in particular was attracting bands such as Joe "King" Oliver's Creole Jazz Band at the Lincoln Gardens, joined by Louis Armstrong on 8 August 1922 and the Austin High Gang featuring Frank Teschemacher (clarinet), Jimmy McPartland (cornet), Richard McPartland (guitar and banjo) and Lawrence "Bud" Freeman (sax) who began playing at the Friar's Inn in Chicago. Meanwhile, on the New York scene, Duke Ellington arrived in New York City with Sonny Greer and banjo player Elmer Snowden and met his idol James P. Johnson, Fats Waller who had begun to make a name for himself with his piano rolls and Willie "The Lion" Smith.Coleman Hawkins, already well noted for his high level of profiency joined Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds and were later hired in New York by Fletcher Henderson.

Jazz began to emerge in the Soviet Union with the "First Eccentric Orchestra of the Russian Federated Socialist Republic – Valentin Parnakh's Jazz Band ".