“Here” was the Douglass Hotel.
Tag Archives: #PhillyJazzApp
Church of the Advocate
The Church of the Advocate became a center of activism for the Civil Rights Movement embracing the cause of African American and women’s rights. It was the site of several nationally significant events, including the National Conference of Black Power (1968) and the Black Panther Convention (1970).
In the 1960s, Father Paul Washington invited musicians to come to the church for jam sessions which were held weekly on Tuesday. Tenor saxophonist Bootsie Barnes said the Church of the Advocate would be packed.
A collection of murals records the “stations” of the Civil Rights Movement.
These murals draw on Old Testament verses to dramatically illuminate parallels in African American history. Together, the medieval revival presentation of the building and the modern murals document the critical social role played by America’s inner city churches.
John Coltrane’s next-to-last performance in Philadelphia was held here on November 6, 1966. In an interview with DownBeat, Michael Brecker said he was asked to leave because the concert was for the black community.
For more information, visit Church of the Advocate.
Geno’s Empty Foxhole
Web Christman opened Geno’s Empty Foxhole on Christmas Day 1970 in the lower level of the parish hall of St. Mary’s Church, Hamilton Village, on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. The name came from the title of an Ornette Coleman album.
The small space played host to Sun Ra and his Arkestra, Rufus Harley, Charles Mingus, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Cecil Taylor, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, among others.
Larry Robin, director of Moonstone Arts Center, shared that he took his now-wife Sandy here on their first date. It was Christmas 1976; Betty Carter was performing.
In a 2005 interview with the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences’ West Philadelphia Music Project, Christman recalled:
No, just, um my amazement at the hugeness of the crowd for Sun Ra, and later for Rufus Harley those are the two nights when the, there’s a little courtyard and then there’s the Parish hole and then there’s Irving Street which is one of those alley type streets that Philadelphia people were lined up all the way down Irving Street all the way to 40th street waiting to get in.
WHAT-FM
In 1944, Dolly Banks, and her brother William Banks, purchased WHAT-AM from the Public Ledger. The deal included an extremely low profile FM station at 96.5 FM, which simulcasted the AM until the mid 50s.
In 1956, a young man named Sid Mark began hosting an all night music show, the first “live” programming on the FM station. Each morning at the conclusion of the show, two patch cords would be plugged back in to simulcast the AM for the rest of the day. To the surprise of station management, Mark’s Jazz show quickly gained popularity. In 1958, the decision was made for WHAT to become the country’s first 24 hour, live FM Jazz station, a format it would keep for the next 17 years.
First District Plaza
Mellon PSFS Jazz Festival “Third Annual Philadelphia All-Star Organ Jam” featuring Joey DeFrancesco, Bill Doggett, Charles Earland, Jack McDuff and Trudy Pitts was held here on June 21, 1992.
Health Care Center 6 Blue Train
The Health Centers of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health provide a full range of health services for Philadelphia’s underserved communities.
Every block tells a story about Philadelphia’s jazz heritage.
Standard Theater
A stop on the “Chitlin Circuit,” the Standard Theater was owned by African American entrepreneur John T. Gibson.
From ExplorePAHistory.com
In 1914, Gibson bought the Standard Theatre on the 1100 block of South Street. His timing couldn’t have been better, for in the following years, tens of thousands of southern blacks would pour into the city of Philadelphia as part of the Great Migration unleashed by the First World War.
Young men and women, with good jobs and money in their pockets, flocked to Gibson’s Standard Theatre to see a fare of “High Class and Meritorious Vaudeville,” stage shows, and popular music. The Standard became a regular stop for Black performers on their national tours: comedians Bylow and Ashes, singers Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters, Erma C. Miller’s Brown Skinned Models, popularly known as the “Black Rockettes,” and jazz bands led by Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.
Giant Steps Mosaic
Giant Steps depicts seven key album covers, tracing John Coltrane’s career from his work with Miles Davis to his own compositions, and his great masterpiece A Love Supreme. Each mosaic was preceded by a multimedia educational program presented by the John Coltrane Cultural Society.
Grover Washington, Jr. Mural
John Coltrane Apartment
From Hidden City Philadelphia:
When 18 year old John Coltrane moved to Philadelphia, in 1943 the nation’s third largest city, he entered a fundamentally different world from his hometown of High Point, N.C. Like many African-Americans who migrated to major cities of the North, Coltrane joined older family members and friends already settled there. They lived in an apartment at 1450 N. 12th Street between Jefferson and Master Streets in an area since demolished for the Yorktown Urban Renewal project.
All That Philly Jazz 