Davis famously informed his musicians they’d be playing the gig for free just minutes before downbeat. What followed was one of the most celebrated live jazz performances of all time.
Black History Month 2025 continues with week 2 of “Freedom Now! Jazz and the Fight for Civil Rights.”
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Long before the 1619 Project, there was Ellington’s Black, Brown, and Beige, a sprawling jazz symphony meant to communicate a comprehensive picture of African American history through music.
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Long before Wynton Marsalis became the first jazz musician to win a Pulitzer, Norman Granz treated jazz as high art, imploring audiences to listen with the same reverence they might reserve for Bach or Brahms.
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Long before Fire Aid or Live Aid or the musical response to 9/11, Miles Davis and his Second Great Quintet played Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center — on Lincoln’s birthday in Feb. 1964 — to benefit voter registration efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi. Miles’ sidemen weren’t informed until right before curtain that they’d be forgoing their normal wages that night. It remains considered one of the greatest jazz concerts ever given.
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Even before President Kennedy established the Peace Corps… jazz was deputized by the State Dept. as a tool of Cold War-era cultural diplomacy.
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And even before he became known as The Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra took an authoritative stance against racial and ethnic bigotry.
If you want to understand the role jazz plays in today’s conversations, it helps to understand the role it’s consistently played throughout the last century.
Every weekday at noon this month, get both the style and the substance of the music that shaped the American century. Live at KSDS Jazz 88.3 FM in San Diego. All around the world at – and on demand– at jazz88.org and the KSDS mobile app.
