Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Albert James "Alan" Freed was an American disc jockey. He also produced and promoted large traveling concerts with various acts, helping to spread the importance of rock and roll music throughout North America, including popularizing the term "rock and roll".

The Moondog Coronation Ball was a concert held at the Cleveland Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, on March 21, 1952. It is generally accepted as the first major rock and roll concert.

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African American music such as jazz, rhythm and blues, boogie-woogie, electric blues, gospel, and jump blues, as well as from country music. While rock and roll's formative elements can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until 1954.

Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately 60 mi (97 km) west of the Ohio–Pennsylvania state border. Cleveland is the most populous city on Lake Erie and second-most populous city in Ohio with a population of 372,624 at the 2020 census, while the Cleveland metropolitan area with an estimated 2.17 million residents is the 34th-largest metropolitan area in the United States.