Topics Related to Jazz in NC

Photo by Sierra Turner.

Photo: Connye Florance by Graham Gerdeman

The General Jackson, a modern-day replica of the flat-bottomed steamers of the nineteenth century, has been paddling the waters of Tennessee’s Cumberland River since 1985.

All Photos Courtesy of the Ocean City Jazz Festival

During the 1940s and the 1950s when jazz music was as hot as hip-hop is today, Wilmington, North Carolina, was the place where jazz giants like Cab Calloway, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Armstrong performed at a local jazz club and ballroom called The Barn.

Back home in Puerto Rico in the early 1990s, I used to listen to a jazz radio show called “En Clave de Jazz” where the DJ played music by artists such as Tito Puente, Cal Tjader and Bobby Hutcherson. It was through that program that I discover the marimba!