Blues predates jazz. The blues "form" comes from myriad African-American musical expressions, many of which were a cappella--slaves were often prohibited from owning instruments, especially drums. Slaveowners did not want slaves to use the drums to transmit messages to each other, so African-Americans created chants, hollers, spirituals call-and-response patterns and work songs that evolved into blues music after the abolition of slavery. When millions of African-Americans moved to northern cities during the Great Migrations of the early 20th century, their music became a part of urban culture (such as the Chicago blues).
Jazz has its roots in late 19th-century New Orleans, when musicians melded the rhythms of the blues with the techniques of marching bands, ragtime, religious music and African drumming. The legendary "founding father" of jazz, Louis Armstrong, helped create this sound from a mix of genres and brought jazz into the mainstream with performances around the world and appearances in movies.
As jazz and blues traveled around the world via musicians like Armstrong and blues legends like Mississippi-born Muddy Waters, they began to evolve into other forms and influence other genres, especially rock and roll. Certain types of blues became associated with geographical areas, such as the Mississippi Delta and St. Louis. Jazz ceased being a southern-based "Dixieland" type of music and splintered into other expressions like bebop, swing, cool jazz, Latin, Afro-Cuban and many others.
Waters is considered the father of Chicago blues. He pioneered the amplified sound of electric instruments that became typical of Chicago blues in the 1950s. As time went by, musicians in the city's blues clubs began playing the electric guitar, including Waters' biggest rival, Howlin' Wolf. Buddy Guy also began playing in this era; today, he owns Chicago's premiere blues club, Buddy Guy's Legends.
Jazz trumpeter and composer Dizzy Gillespie is largely responsible for the spread of Afro-Cuban jazz. He wrote one the most famous Afro-Cuban compositions, "A Night in Tunisia," in 1942. The staccato rhythms from that composition also spawned the bebop movement. Gillespie introduced other African-American musicians to the genre, like the legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker, who played in Gillespie's band. Cuban musicians became some of Gillespie's most frequent collaborators.
Blues and jazz were initially shunned by mainstream music companies and culturally conservative Americans as being "the devil's music" and a bad influence on morality. Newspapers like the New York Times and prominent Americans like Henry Ford derided jazz and blues. However, by the end of the 20th century, prominent music schools began developing blues and jazz programs.