Public Domain Jazz on the Internet Archive

Jazz is America's most significant musical export, and the earliest recordings of the genre are now entering the public domain in waves. These include 78rpm discs from the 1920s and 1930s capturing the first generation of recorded jazz: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, and hundreds of lesser-known artists.

The Internet Archive's jazz collection spans formats and eras, from scratchy acoustic recordings of the 1910s to high-fidelity stereo sessions of the late 1950s. Many of these recordings were digitized from private collections and are unavailable on any commercial platform.

For musicians, scholars, and listeners, this collection offers unmediated access to the roots of modern popular music — the rhythmic innovations, harmonic experiments, and improvisational brilliance that influenced every genre that followed.