A talk next week at the Woodlawn Library explores the giants and the lesser-known figures in the First State’s jazz history to mark Jazz Appreciation Month and as part of the state’s DE 250 semiquincentennial celebrations.
The talk is being given by Hannah Grantham, a historian of 20th Century music, jazz performer, and Director of the Jane and Littleton Mitchell Center for African American Heritage at the Delaware Historical Society.
While the First State may not have the deep jazz history of New Orleans, Kansas City, or Chicago, Grantham says there are a few pivotal figures who called Delaware home. One example is the trumpeter Clifford Brown, born in Wilmington. His meteoric rise was cut short with his death at age 25 in a car accident.
“He was landing these really great spots with major record labels as a 20-something, which is really unheard of,” Grantham says.
Another famous Delawarean, Cab Calloway, chose to make the First State his home after a stellar career.
“He came to fame in the late 20s, early 30s as part of the Harlem Renaissance nightclub scene,” Grantham says. “His ‘Hi-De-Hi-De-Ho’ call is one that I think could be felt around the world.”
While Clifford Brown and Cab Calloway are the most famous jazz names associated with the state, there are many other, less recognized names, like trumpeter Boysie Lowery, who taught generations of jazz musicians, including Brown. Another Delawarean deeply involved in the jazz scene was Lem Winchester, a vibraphonist who recorded with Ramsey Lewis and Oliver Nelson and appeared at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. Like many musicians, Grantham says, Winchester had a day job as well.
“A lot of them juggled multiple positions and still were able to have these really strong impacts on the music while doing multiple jobs,” Grantham says. “In Lem's case, he was a police officer.”
Like Brown, however, Winchester’s life and career ended early and tragically, when he died at age 32.
Grantham says her talk is not just about people, but the places that made Delaware’s jazz scene. While many venues were concentrated in Wilmington, stages up and down the state attracted some of the greatest jazz musicians in the world.
“You hear anecdotes about Duke Ellington playing in places like Laurel, Cab Calloway playing at places like Trap Pond State Park,” she says. “I think that these anecdotes really help to impress upon the fact that Delaware is this kind of central thoroughfare where people are going to stop here because they know that there are venues where black audiences in particular are wanting to come out and listen.”
She notes that Delaware’s racial climate was also more tolerant, an important consideration for touring bands.
“A lot of musicians were wary of going down south because it was more difficult to live along that route, where you're touring and you may not have stable housing along the way for an entire band,” she explains. “So Delaware is an important stopping point in between the south and the north.”
While Grantham’s talk will include music from some of the state’s jazz giants, she acknowledges that much of the music played in Delaware’s venues during the golden years of jazz was, “off the record,” not recorded for posterity. To help fill in the gaps, she plans to lean on visual artifacts, especially photographs from the time, to help paint a more complete picture.
Grantham’s talk on Delaware’s jazz history is Wednesday, April 22 at 6:00 p.m. at the Woodlawn Library in Wilmington. Admission is free.
Delaware Public Media's arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
