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CJI's programs have been amazing. The James Jamerson event, in addition to drawing a broad spectrum of our own community, attracted musicians and industry insiders from far and wide as did the St. Julian Bennett Dash program and the official launch in June 2005. Jack McCray, with his in-depth knowledge of Charleston and jazz, has consistently fostered a comfortable environment that encourages audience participation and interaction. Audiences have quite literally laughed and cried as individuals disclosed and discovered little known facts that hit home. Audience members have even been moved to dance on a number of occasions! I would characterize CJI's audience participation and interaction at its programs as profound.
Tony Bell, CEO, Renaissance Media, Charleston (CJI Videographer)
3rd Annual Return to the Source - June 7-9, 2007
June 7th
- Jazzin' the Spirit (A Jazz Picnic) - 5-7:30 pm - Robert Mills Manor - 20 Franklin Street
*
The City of Charleston's Housing Authority, Jake McGuire Savage Foundation and the Charleston Jazz Initiative hosted a jazz picnic at the former home of the Jenkins Orphanage.
* Music was provided by the Franklin Street Five, a Jenkins Orphanage Tribute Band led by noted drummer Quentin Baxter...Imagination, a local neo-gospel and jazz youth band led by pianist Demetrius Doctor...
and featured the debut of CJI's Jenkins Orphanage Reenactment Band! The band was organized by Rachel Dowling, the daughter of Jenkins Orphanage administrators, the late Sarah and John Dowling, and David Richardson.
June 8th
- South Carolina Jazz Diaspora (CJI Symposium) - 6-9 pm New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church - 22 Elizabeth Street
June 3 article by Jack McCray of The Post and Courier about Lorraine Gordon and CJI's June 8th event!
* A celebration honoring the Jenkins Orphanage Bands, Freddie Green, Count
Basie's rhythm guitarist for nearly 50 years, and Jabbo Smith, rival trumpeter of Louis Armstrong...plus the debut of CJI's Edmund Thornton Jenkins Chamber Society organized by Rachel Dowling
* Keynote Address -- "Jabbo and Me: One Mo' Time" with Lorraine Gordon (shown right), Owner of the Village Vanguard (one of the most famous jazz
 clubs in the world), New York City...plus a booksigning of Alive at the Village Vanguard: My
 Life In and Out of Jazz Time (Hal Leonard, 2006)
* Conversations in Jazz with special guests...
Al Green, son of Freddie Green,
Palm Coast, FL (pictured bottom left);
Michael Pettersen, guitarist, arranger & Freddie Green historian, Evanston, IL (pictured bottom center);
Jeffrey Green, biographer of Edmund Thornton Jenkins,
West Sussex, England (pictured bottom right)
* Other special guests included CJI Advisors -- A.B. Spellman, former Deputy Chairman, ,National Endowment for the Arts; Dan Morgenstern, Director, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University; and Larry Ridley, Executive Director, African American Jazz Caucus, New York City, as well as visiting jazz historian, Dr. Rainer Lotz, Bonn, Germany
* Encore Screening of "Song of Pumpkin Brown" by filmmaker Brad Jayne...musical score by drummer Quentin Baxter
* Music was provided by the Edmund Thornton Jenkins Chamber Society; Celeste Laribo, Associate Pastor, The Net International Ministries, Inc.; Daniel Davis, Concertmaster, Charleston County School of the Arts Orchestra; and Darren Shuler, Minister of Music, New Bethel Sounds of Praise Pentecostal Fellowship Ministries, Inc.
June 9th
- Booksigning - Nineteenth Century Freedom Fighters:
The 1st South Carolina Volunteers (Arcadia, 2006) - 4-6 pm
Avery Research Center -
125 Bull Street
* Booksigning and discussion about the Civil War's 33rd Regiment, South Carolina's US Colored Troops from authors Bennie J.
McRae, Jr. & Cheryl Trowbridge-Miller
* Presentation on black American military bands...influences of early jazz & Jenkins Orphanage musicians by special guest Wolfram Knauer, Director, Jazz-Institut, Darmstadt, Germany
Other Events:
June 2nd
- Piccolo Spoleto Festival's Sister City Jazz Block Party:
A
Tale of Two Cities - 7-11 pm US Custom House -
Concord & Market Streets
Celebrate the jazz legacies of Charleston and New Orleans with Fotos for Humanity, Big Daddy & the Salty Dogs, Quiana Parler & Friends, & Skipp Pearsons' All-State All-Star Jazz Band
REGRETFULLY CANCELLED TROPICAL STORM BARRY
Special thanks to our 2007 major donors and sponsors
...
College of Charleston (Arts Management Program; Dean’s Office, School of the Arts; Office of the Provost; and the Avery Research Center); Charleston County Council; City of Charleston Housing Authority; Jake McGuire Savage Foundation; Office of Cultural Affairs/City of Charleston; Arcadia Publishing; Hal Leonard Publishers; National Park Service; First Citizens Bank; Coca-Cola Bottling Company; Herzman-Fishman Foundation; Jeffrey Green; Barbara Burgess and John Dinkelspiel; Charleston Place Hotel; and New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church.
2nd Annual
Return to the Source - May 29, 2006
Sister City Jazz: A Gullah and New Orleans Dialogue
- May 29, 2006 – Blacklock House and Gardens, College of Charleston
The program included live music by students from Charleston County School of the Arts Jazz Band, unveiling of “CJ,” an original painting by artist, Jahsun, guest presentations, and “Conversations in Jazz” with oral history accounts from:
• Quentin Baxter (Charleston), Jazz Percussionist; Adjunct Professor of Jazz
Percussion, College of Charleston; drummer with Rene Marie and Monty Alexander; CJI Resident Musical Director
• Jonathan Bloom (New Orleans, LA), Jazz Percussionist; Music Educator, New Orleans Public Schools; former Director, New Orleans All City Jazz Outreach
• Jeffrey Green (West Sussex, UK), Historian and Author; biographer of Edmund Thornton Jenkins: The Life and Times of An American Black Composer, 1894-1926
 CJI Official Launch
Return to the
Source
- June 2-4, 2005
Robert Mills Manor and Avery Research Center, College of Charleston
* A Jazz Tribute to William Blake (June 2) at Robert Mills Manor, 20 Franklin St. (home of the former Jenkins Orphanage) honoring former Jenkins Orphanage band director, William Blake with Quentin Baxter and the Franklin Street Five; commissioned work (“Brother Blake”) by Baxter; and the jazz debut of LaToya Smith
* CJI Jazz Symposium and Exhibition Opening including “Charleston Cradle of Jazz” (June 3) with Carolyn Jabulile White, viewing of Jenkins Orphanage Band outtakes by University of South Carolina (USC) Newsfilm prepared by Julie Hubbert of USC Music Department; unveiling of “Baby James,” an original painting inspired by artist, John Carroll Doyle; live jazz by the Quentin Baxter Jazz Ensemble *Conversations in Jazz with Jenkins Family and Friends; scholarly presentations; Photojazz, an exhibition by documentary photographer, Jim Alexander featuring 33 photographs of celebrated jazz musicians and Charleston sidemen; and the inaugural gathering of the CJI Circle with a presentation by Kathleen Wyer Lane, collector of family source material on the Avery Normal Institute, Jenkins Orphanage, and several Charleston jazz musicians.
* Presentations and oral history accounts by:
• Keynote Speaker, A.B. Spellman (Washington, DC) ( pictured below), Poet, former Deputy
 Director, National Endowment for the Arts; author of Art Tatum: A Critical Biography and Four Lives in the Bebop Business
• Dan Morgenstern (Jersey City, NJ) ( pictured left), Director, Institute of
 Jazz Studies, Rutgers University; former editor of Downbeat; six-time Grammy-award winner for his liner notes; author of Jazz People and Living With Jazz
• Jeffrey Green (West Sussex, UK) ( pictured below),
 Historian and Author; biographer of Edmund Thornton Jenkins: The Life and Times of An American Black Composer, 1894-1926
• Larry Ridley (New York, NY) ( pictured below), Bassist, Executive
 Director, African American Jazz Caucus,Inc., an affiliate of the International Association for Jazz Education, and Jazz Artist-in-Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York City
• Wolfram Knauer (Darmstadt, Germany) ( pictured below), Director,
 Jazz-Institut Darmstadt, Germany; author of several books including Jazz in Europe and essays for the International Dictionary of Black Composers
• Alvin Batiste (Baton Rouge and New Orleans, LA) ( pictured below right), Clarinetist; Educator at New Orleans Center for the
 Creative Arts; author of several scholarly articles including “Charleston: Another Cradle of Jazz?”
• Rachel Dowling (North Charleston), organist and daughter of former Jenkins administrators, John and Sarah Dowling
• Barbara Braithwaite (Charleston), granddaughter of Reverend Daniel Jenkins
• Stanley White (Charleston), grandson of Reverend Daniel Jenkins
• Jomo Zimbabwe (Boston), grandson of Reverend Daniel Jenkins and nephew of Edmund Thornton Jenkins
• Elizabeth Carter Prioleau (Charleston), 1920s resident of Jenkins Orphanage; played piano at the orphanage and her brother, Wilbur, played trumpet
• Rollins Edwards (Summerville, SC), Jenkins era musician; drummer; alumnus of the Count Basie, Buddy Johnson and Willie Jackson bands
• Kathleen Wyer Lane (New York, NY), Marketing Consultant; collector of family source material on the Avery Normal Institute, Jenkins Orphanage, Arthur Briggs and Tommy Benford
• Jim Alexander (Atlanta, GA), Documentary photographer; photographs include those of Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Eartha Kitt and sidemen from the Jenkins Orphanage Bands including Cat Anderson, Freddie Green and Speedy Jones.
From Avery to Erskine Hawkins: Remembering St. Julian Bennett Dash
(A Program of the Avery Grand Reunion)
– July 2, 2004
Avery Research Center, College of Charleston
The program included live music by the Quentin Baxter Jazz Ensemble including
“Tuxedo Junction,” co-written by Julian Dash, a media display of source material donated by the Dash Family, and Conversations in Jazz with oral history accounts from:
* Brothers of Julian Dash -- Roger Dash (Palm Desert, CA), Avery graduate, 1945 -- John Thompson Dash (Charleston), Avery graduate, 1948 -- Ernest Dash (Inglewood, CA), Avery graduate, 1951
* Clifton Smalls (Brooklyn, NY), native Charlestonian; pianist and jazz band leader who recorded with Dash; former member of the Carolina Cotton Pickers; relief piano player for Earl “Fatha” Hines;
recorded with, and served as musical director for the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra, Billy Eckstine, Eartha Kitt, Ella Fitzgerald and Sammy Davis, Jr.
Return to the Source:
Remembering Legendary Bassist,
James Lee Jamerson
September 18-19, 2003 -
Avery Research Center and Sottile Theatre, College of Charleston
A two-day tribute honoring Motown and Funk Brothers bassist and Edisto Island native, James Jamerson. Programs included music by the choirs of the New First Baptist Church of Edisto Island, The McKnight Brothers, and the Black Velvets; the Charleston premiere of the Grammy-award winning documentary, “Standing in the Shadows of Motown;” a display of Jamerson source material acquired from donors, Anthony and Felix McKnight; a James Jamerson Proclamation from the City of Charleston; and “Conversations in Jazz: James Jamerson” with oral history accounts from:
• Ann Jamerson (Detroit, MI), James Jamerson’s widow
• Anthony McKnight (Charleston), First Cousin of James Jamerson; President, South Carolina Chapter, Motown Alumni Association Bob Lee (Los Angeles, CA), Jamerson historian-bassist
 Charleston Jazz, Yesterday and Today: A Gathering of Former Jenkins Orphanage Band Musicians and Educators
March 25, 2003 – Avery Research Center, College of Charleston
Stories, anecdotes and remembrances from five musicians who studied and played with the Jenkins Orphanage Bands and who established careers in music. The program also featured a media display of Jenkins Orphanage Band and Avery-related source material from Avery’s archives, music by the Quentin Baxter Jazz Ensemble, and oral history accounts from:
• Lonnie Hamilton, III (North Charleston), alto saxophonist; played in the Jenkins Orphanage Band during the mid-1940s; former Chairman of Charleston County Council
• Oscar Rivers (Charleston), pianist, saxophonist and music educator; established musical career in Chicago working with Sonny Stitt
• George Kenny (Charleston), multi-instrumentalist (woodwinds, brass and saxophone) and former band director at C.A. Brown High School; learned, taught by, and played with Orphanage Band musicians and instructors in the 1940s and 50s
• Bob Ephiram (Charleston), multi-instrumentalist (trumpet and keyboards); taught math and served as principal of Chicora Elementary School; played with the Orphanage Band in 1955
• Raymond Rhett (Hanahan, SC), educator; and performed with the Royal Entertainers, the premiere Charleston dance and show band of the 1950s and 60s.
Conversation with George Smith
– September 5, 2002
Avery Research Center, College of Charleston
Native Charlestonian and vocalist; performed/recorded with the Ink Spots, and the Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington orchestras
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