Australian jazz jazz as a definable musical genre in the United States. Until the 1950s the primary form of accompaniment at Australian public dances was jazz-based dance music, modeled on the leading white British and American jazz bands, and this style enjoyed wide popularity. It was not until after World War II that Australian jazz scene began to diversify as local musicians were finally able to get access to recordings by leading African-American jazz musicians like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, and bebop, cool jazz and free jazz exerting a strong influence on Australian musicians in the late
John Coltrane played together occasionally in the late 1940s. He was a member of groups led by Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic, and Johnny Hodges in the early to mid-1950s. In the summer of 1955, Coltrane was freelancing in Philadelphia while studying with guitarist Dennis Sandole when he received a call from Davis. The trumpeter, whose success during the late forties had been followed by several years of decline in activity and reputation, due in part to his struggles with heroin, was again active and about to form a quintet. Coltrane was with this edition of the Davis band (known as the "First