Music of the decade

Duke Ellington: Ko-Ko (1943): With his sophisticated harmonies and kaleidoscopic tonal palette, Ellington gave the lie to the old rumour that jazz was about to fuse with art music, and made jazz into its own kind of art. He, and the string of jazz musicians who followed him, developed the happy-go-lucky sounds of Dixieland jazz into an art form whose works - even improvised works - would rival the masterpieces of the classical music repertoire.