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The Philadelphia StoryBy: Jambrio & Byard Lancaster
The Philadelphia Story is long overdue in words that is in reading many books on the history of Jazz an other essays about Jazz in America. Many cities that have produced great JAZZ innovators have been overlooked. Philadelphia, Detroit, Newark, Forth Worth, Washington DC and Boston are just a few that historians bypassed in there research. For some reason they only look at New Orleans, Kansas City, Chicago and New York for there references it's true that musicians of the great cities made contributions and deserve the credit given them but that just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the history of Jazz. The next statement will upset some of you but truth is jazz did not start in New Orleans or with Louis Armstrong. Musician were improvising all around the country many years prior. According to the book Of Black American Music by Eileen southern musicians were playing in the jazz style in the beginning of the 1800s and I go on to say back to 1619 when the first Africans quarried in America, because back in Africa that what the Africans knew. Philadelphia that was the Curatorial Capital which was anew country and they traveled city to city and to Europe for command performances. Musicians and composer Frank Johnson a Philadelphia was one of those and was know to jazz up his music with improvisation Philadelphia has been to many great innovators especially the 20th.century. Which is the pried where most historians believe jazz began. Let put it this way John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Philly Joe Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy, Percy and Albert Heath, Stan Getz, Randy and Michael Breaker, Sun RA, Jimmy Smith, Christian McBride, Stanley Clark, Lee Morgan, Hank Mobly, Wilbur Ware, Archie Sheep, Sunny Murray, Grover Washington, Jr., Benny Golson, Jimmy Garrison, Kevin and Robin Eubanks, Jamaladeen Tacuma, Charles Frambroiugh, Reggie Workman, Rashann Roland Kirk, Red Rodney, Pat Martino, Walt Dickerson, Bill Lewis, Mohammed and Rashid Ali there are thousand of others who were born, raised and lived part of there musical lives in Philly. If your a jazz historian it's worth historian checking out Tony William's, Jackie Byard, or Washington DC with Duke Ellington, Buck Hill and Detroit with Hank, Thad and Elvin Jones, Donald Byrd, Yuseff Latiff, and Marcus Bel Brave are just a few names of many.
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