Duke Ellington rejected it, Charles Mingus was ambivalent about it, and Wynton Marsalis is okay with it. For many African American musicians the word “jazz” is a double-edged term, sometimes ...

Will Marion Cook, born in 1869 to educated parents in Washington, D.C., played some mean violin. As was true of many musical geniuses, his technique was at first faulty. But his facility, as well as ...

Miami is a young buck as far as cities go. But while our years are few, our memories are many. Overtown is one such bastion of historical recollection. One of the city’s earliest black neighborhoods, ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) Dyana Williams, Kenny Gamble and Ed Wright founded Black Music Month in June 1979. Also known as African American music Appreciation Month, it was first officially celebrated by ...

This post was updated May 22 at 9:43 p.m. Community and tradition inspire the performers of the Old-Time String Band and African American Music Ensemble. Each class of musical performers has shared a ...