The Charleston Jazz Initiative (CJI) is a multi-year research project that documents the African American jazz tradition in Charleston, the South Carolina Lowcountry, and its diasporic movement throughout the United States and Europe between the late 19th century through today.
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← This video is presented courtesy of the Fox Movietone News Collection [...]
Charleston Jazz sets out to reveal the rich, untold story of the evolution of American jazz in one of its major cradles: Charleston, South Carolina. The text and images, many from CJI’s archival collection, show that what happened on the Gullah coast of South Carolina in terms of history, culture, and entertainment had a huge impact on jazz as we know it today.
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From Gullah-Geechee rhythms to Freddie Green’s “Corner Pocket,” and Julian Dash’s tenor saxophone career, Charleston, South Carolina has a rich jazz history but it is not well known. Charleston: A Cradle of Jazz – CJI’s first publication chronicles this little known legacy of Charleston’s ensemble musicians who helped create American jazz with Duke Ellington, Count Basie and other big bands of the era.
Born in Columbia, SC (Lexington County); cornetist/trumpeter; later resided in Washington, DC; played and recorded with many of the giants of jazz from the 1940s and 1950s including Lester Young, Mal Waldron, John Coltrane (1957)…
Born in Summerville, SC; trombonist; moved to Washington, D.C. as a child and played his first gig with the Miller Brothers in D.C. and with small bands led by Sidney Bechet, where Williams is said to have done some of his finest work…
Born in Orangeburg, SC; baritone saxophonist; graduate of South Carolina State University; played and recorded with Sarah Vaughan, the Manhattan Transfer,…
Graduate of Avery – was in 9th grade with Edmund Thornton Jenkins; entered the Jenkins Orphanage in 1900 and played trumpet with Jenkins Orphanage Bands regularly until 1913…
Born in St. Matthews, SC; guitarist; Ulmer began his career playing in funk bands, first in Pittsburgh (1959-64) and later around Columbus, OH (1964-67)…
Born in Columbia, SC; jazz saxophonist; early in his career (before age 21), he played with Erskine Hawkins’ Alabama State Collegians, and played tenor saxophone with Billy Eckstine (including Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey) and Count Basie…
Born in Charleston; Avery Graduate, 1921; his mother, Maude Smith was the head of music at Avery; oral accounts are that he gigged with the Jenkins Orphanage Band in the mid-1920s; met Jimmie Lunceford at Fisk University, where he graduated with a chemistry degree..
