Melody, harmony, and tonality — these were the very elements in music that had been “emancipated” by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and other avant-gardists in the early 1900s. With the bebop movement, the avant-garde came to jazz.

Many new jazz styles followed after the bebop emancipation, from the 1950s to the present day. Jazz fans distinguish between cool jazz, free jazz, modal jazz, fusion jazz, Latin jazz, and more. Among the early leaders in this diverse, exciting music were pianist Thelonious Monk (1917–1982), trumpeter Miles Davis (1926–1991), keyboardist Sun Ra (1928–1994), and saxophonists John Coltrane (1926–1967) and Ornette Coleman (b. 1930). They were the first to improvise really freely — that is, without even a song or blues as a basis.