This page was created by Manish Tyagi. 

Freedman Fellowship 2023

Cleveland Swings: The Rise and Fall of Jazz At University Circle 1950-1970

Department - Music/SAGES
Participant - George Blake

Mentions
https://scalar.case.edu/freedman-fellows/blake-2021-2022
https://thedaily.case.edu/2022-23-freedman-faculty-fellows-announced/
https://thedaily.case.edu/2021-22-freedman-faculty-fellows-selected-for-their-digital-scholarship/

Although it is widely known that "Cleveland rocks," the aim of this project is to show that "Cleveland swings." The rich history of jazz in the city is not widely understood, but it is extensive. Throughout my ethnographic research of the Cleveland jazz scene, I frequently found that today's jazz musicians look upon Cleveland's jazz past with nostalgia, a golden age of music in the city. Furthermore, during my Freedman Fellow project "Right Before Rock," I documented a list of more than 50 venues where jazz was performed in the city. In the project, I will map the history of Cleveland's jazz venues - with a particular focus in the University Circle area - using ArcGIS. Referred to as Cleveland's "second downtown," the area boasted numerous jazz clubs beginning around mid-century: The Alhambra, The Towne Casino, The Jazz Temple, Club 100, Cotton Club and numerous others. Cleveland trumpet player Kenny Davis once described jazz in the University Circle area as "a smaller version of New York' s 52nd Street." By mapping venues, this project seeks to illuminate a lost musical landscape. It also seeks to show how the jazz scene reached its peak in the 1950s and declined into the late 1960s. Additionally, the project seeks to digitize newspaper articles and other documentation that points to the jazz cultural heritage of the city, as well as on the campus of CWRU. In fact, it will feature a 1963 campus map printed in the CWRU paper (The Case Tech, Volume LVIV, Number 1) that includes The Jazz Temple. Beyond this focus on the landscape of the scene, I also intend to undertake interviews with two legendary Cleveland jazz musicians who emerged from this scene: Grammy award-winner Joe Lovano and legednary organist Eddie Baccus Sr. By discussing the past with these two musicians, I will add a textured contextual understanding to Cleveland's shifting musical landscape.

This page has paths: