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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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..
Trumpeter, songwriter; born in Pembroke, Georgia and died in New York City; entered the Jenkins Orphanage in 1915, studied music, and played with the bands from 1918 until 1925; trumpeter with Sidney Bechet, James P. Johnson, Cecil Scott, Erskine Hawkins, Fats Waller and Earl “Fatha” Hines…
Born in Charleston; traveled with a medicine show before settling down in New York; teamed up with his boyhood friend, Elmer Bowman (1879-1916) and began a successful two-man vaudeville team; he wrote songs for successful black entertainers and vaudeville…
