The Jazz Museum in Harlem

104 E. 126th Street • Suite 2D • New York, NY 10035

Upcoming Events
Past Events

Past Events

Jazz for Curious Listeners
The Musical World of Ralph Ellison - Lester Young -- Special Guest: Dr. Robert O'Meally, Columbia University
June 12, 2012

Ralph Ellison loved music deeply, and even considered a career as a trumpeter/composer before deciding on literature. His thoughts about jazz and it's place in American culture were innovative and remain essential ingredients in any serious understanding of where we are as a country and how we got here. We will list to music that amplifies Ellison's prose about these formative influences.

Lester Young came through Ellison's native Oklahoma City on many occasions long before he made his first recordings in 1936. It is in Ellison's descriptions of hearing the young Young that we get a glimpse of a nascent genius's reaction to hearing an already practicing musical genius.

This jazz site is part of