The nationwide spread of jazz music is BEST attributed to the success of which group?

• A. Louis Armstrong's All-Stars
• B. Original Dixieland Jazz Band
• C. Duke Ellington's Orchestra
• D. Bessie Smith

Answer: (B)

Jazz spread across the country mainly through early commercial recordings. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s 1917 records were among the first jazz recordings released and were widely distributed, giving listeners nationwide their first exposure to jazz and sparking broad interest that helped the music take hold beyond New Orleans. Later figures like Louis Armstrong and his bands popularized jazz through distinctive solo playing, Duke Ellington expanded the big-band era and national reach, and Bessie Smith was a leading blues performer, not a primary driver of jazz’s nationwide diffusion. The ODJB’s breakthrough recordings best explain why jazz became a national phenomenon.