The National Jazz Museum in Harlem

Overview
As the legendary jazz pianist/composer (and mentor to Duke Ellington) Willie "The Lion" Smith once said: "I'd rather be a fly on a lamppost in Harlem than a millionaire anywhere else." His remark still holds true today: Harlem is in the midst of a new renaissance of culture, commerce and tourism.

Outside of its native New Orleans, no community has nurtured jazz more than Harlem. Duke Ellington, Benny Carter, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Count Basie, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday - all of their unique sounds reverberated throughout these fabled streets. Their legacy continues as the jazz musicians of today have also found a home in this community for their own contemporary sounds. The National Jazz Museum in Harlem is dedicated to fostering this spirit -the music as a living, breathing entity that looks as far into the future as it does into the past.

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem has been ensconced in its Harlem offices for six years now; Executive Director Loren Schoenberg and Director of Operations Bryan E. Glover maintain things on a day to day basis. Co-Director Christian McBride, internationally in-demand bassist, is the Museum’s traveling Ambassador when he is on the road, as well as frequent participant in our programs when he is in New York. The Museum is hosting a series of educational and community events – all of which can be found on this website.

If you would like to receive updates on our progress or further information, please contact us by email or by phone at 212-348-8300. We will be constantly updating this website to not only be a valuable resource for the Museum, but Jazz in general, so please check back frequently.

Upcoming Events
Jazz for Curious Listeners
Charles Mingus: On Film Pt. 2 - 7:00 – 8:30pm
Location: NJMIH Visitors Center (104 E. 126th Street, Suite 2C)
FREE

Mingus received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Smithsonian Institute, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He also received an honorary degree from Brandeis and an award from Yale University. At a memorial for Mingus, Steve Schlesinger of the Guggenheim Foundation said: "I look forward to the day when we can transcend labels like jazz and acknowledge Charles Mingus as the major American composer that he is." From the New Yorker: "For sheer melodic and rhythmic and structural originality, his compositions may equal anything written in western music in the twentieth century."
He died in Mexico on January 5, 1979, and his ashes were scattered in the Ganges River in India. Both New York City and Washington, D.C. honored him posthumously with a "Charles Mingus Day."
After his death, the National Endowment for the Arts provided grants for a Mingus foundation called "Let My Children Hear Music" which catalogued all of Mingus' works. The microfilms of these works were then given to the Music Division of the New York Public Library where they are currently available for study and scholarship. Repertory bands called the Mingus Dynasty, Mingus Orchestra and the Mingus Big Band continue to perform his music. Biographies of Charles Mingus include Mingus by Brian Priestley; Mingus/Mingus by Janet Coleman and Al Young and Myself When I Am Real, by Gene Santoro.

Mingus' masterwork, "Epitaph," a composition which is more than 4000 measures long and which requires two hours to perform, was discovered during the cataloguing process. With the help of a grant from the Ford Foundation, the score and instrumental parts were copied, and the piece itself was premiered by a 30-piece orchestra, conducted by Gunther Schuller, in a concert produced by Sue Mingus at Alice Tully Hall on June 3, 1989, ten years after Mingus' death.

According to the New Yorker, "Epitaph" represents the first advance in jazz composition since Duke Ellington's "Black, Brown, and Beige," which was written in 1943. The New York Times said it ranked with the "most memorable jazz events of the decade." Convinced that it would never be performed in his lifetime, Mingus called his work "Epitaph," declaring that he wrote it "for my tombstone.” Mingus’s music and composition live today, as does his image and sound on film, as you will hear and see in Part II of our focus on Charles Mingus on film.