The Juilliard Jazz Small Ensembles celebrate two foundational figures whose creativity helped define the language of early jazz—a language filled with character, emotion, and, above all, swing. Cornetist Joe “King” Oliver was a bandleader and mentor to Louis Armstrong; pianist, composer, and arranger Jelly Roll Morton demonstrated that a style rooted in improvisation could retain its essential elements when notated. As composers, one gave their collaborators more musical freedom, while the other wanted all musicians to simply “cut the dots,” or play exactly what the composer wrote.