Here is a mulitmedia link from the Times-Picayune on Buddy Bolden.
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band was one of the more successful groups to head out of New Orleans to Chicago, distributing the sound up the Mississippi River. In New Orleans, this sound also took on new dimensions with Italian-American groups such as Nick LaRocca's Original Dixieland Jazz Band (embedded below.)
In northern cities and on the radio, white audiences fell in love with the form. Soon, major white performers (and bands) began to mimic this style and create their own sounds. Perhaps most emblematic was the tragic musical genius of Bix Beiderbecke.
By the late 1920s, Jazz had become a widely accepted form of pop music - and its play ranged the gambit from the transcendental to the profoundly banal - not unlike most forms of modern music. Paul Whiteman dubbed himself the "King of Jazz" by hiring all of the best (white) talent available and assembling it into his orchestra. This over-the-top production of orchestral jazz reached its zenith with the making of The King of Jazz, a feature-length film featuring Whiteman's orchestra and a host of extras including the Rhythm Boys whose lead man was a youthful Bing Crosby. It also was the premiere of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which Whiteman commissioned for the film.
Gangster movies really began to take off as the Depression deepened. Along with the longstanding love of westerns, Americans loved the escapism of the gangster movies. Most were made to reinforce the old saw that crime doesn't pay, but sometimes that message would get lost on audiences. James Cagney's performance in Public Enemy (1931) is an iconic execution of this genre. Here is the famous "grapefruit scene:"
Lastly, while there probably weren't all that many "flappers," they were conspicuous for what they represented to main-stream Americans.
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