Jazz Appreciation Month: Home

In 1955, as the Soviet Union's pervasive propaganda about the U.S. and American racism spread globally, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. convinced President Eisenhower that jazz was the best way to intervene in the Cold War cultural conflict. For the next decade, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Dave Brubeck traveled the globe to perform as cultural ambassadors.

Founded by the great Oscar Hernandez and Aaron Levinson in 2000, Spanish Harlem Orchestra – or SHO – is an emblematic salsa group, winner of two Grammy Awards, and a figurehead of 'salsa dura' – salsa typical of Spanish Harlem (New York City neighborhood) born in the late sixties and popularized by the great Fania Records label.

In 1929, America enters a decade of economic desperation, as the Stock Market collapses and the Great Depression begins. Factories fall silent, farms fall into decay, and a quarter of the nation's workforce is jobless. In these dark times, jazz is called upon to lift the spirits of a frightened country, and finds itself poised for a decade of explosive growth. New York is now America's jazz capital.

This video is a performance segment by Billy Taylor and his orchestra from the TV series Tony Brown's Journal. The segment has a short introduction by Taylor to the composition by Duke Ellington that the orchestra plays.

This is the extended interview of Sonny Rollins by Jeffrey Brown. The partial interview aired on PBS NewsHour on November 29, 2011.

If you’ve always wanted to get interested in jazz, jump in. Don’t approach it with fear or a sense that you don’t know enough about it. It’s just a smorgasbord of stuff to enjoy.

Music is the most mysterious of all the arts. Incorporeal and seemingly without intelligible meaning, it nonetheless has a powerful effect on most of those who hear it—though not all. Exactly what does it do to and for us, and why are certain people incapable of responding to its power? While scientists agree that music does something to the human brain that results in the giving of pleasure, there is no agreement about its nature, and the bald word "pleasure" fails to come anywhere near suggesting the overwhelming experience of listening to, say, "The Rite of Spring" or Duke Ellington's 1940 recording of "Ko-Ko" (as opposed to his 1956 recording of the very same piece, which isn't nearly so powerful…and why should that be so?).

Last year he released his Trio of Trios—three bracing albums teaming him with guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Thomas Morgan, pianist Gerald Clayton and guitarist Anthony Wilson, and guitarist Julian Lage and tabla player Zakir Hussain, respectively. [...]before that there were three albums with his Americana-tinged ensemble the Marvels, featuring Frisell and steel guitarist Greg Leisz alongside Lloyd’s bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland from his quartet of the time.

Through world-class collections, scholarship, concerts, exhibitions and programs, Smithsonian Jazz at the National Museum of American History explores and celebrates the American experience through the transformative power of jazz. We believe that jazz is an important bridge between our nation's identity, our shared history, and our communities and we are committed to stewarding this connection for all audiences.

Duke Ellington, the Composer
Daybreak Express is one of Duke Ellington's most original compositions. It provides a vivid picture of a train speeding down the railroad tracks, with its sounds and bouncing rhythms heard and felt in the music. Duke Ellington loved trains, and he and his band spent long hours on them traveling all over the United States. As there was hardly a day he did not write down some musical idea, if only on a piece of scrap paper, he often composed while riding on trains. Daybreak Express is an example of program music, where music is used to describe a non-musical image or event. Use your imagination and pretend you're on the train with Duke and his band!

The resources in the Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives are contributed by museums, libraries, and archives from across the Smithsonian.