How Jazz Musicians Influenced the Harlem Renaissance Jazz music changed forever during the burgeoning Harlem Renaissance, thanks to great singers who changed the genre forever. Jazz music was a way for African Americas to gain a sense of freedom. Singers like Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Lionel Hampton, for example, all took advantage of this freedom. Holiday, Armstrong and Hampton were so important to jazz music because they still influence music today. Billie Holiday was born on April 7, 1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. “Holiday's life was tinged with constant sadness, and she made every performance seem as if she had lived out the melancholy lyrics of the songs” (Shipton “Holiday”). She moved to New York with her mother and sang in local Manhattan clubs, even though she had no school experience. Throughout his career he faced racism while traveling, especially when singing in an all-white big band; this inspired her to join the desegregation movement. One of his most famous songs "Strange Fruits" was about Southern lynching. During his career,...