This is the guide to prepare a trip by car to follow the route of jazz. The trip is planned for 13 days around the United States visiting historical places and clubs related with the History of Jazz.
New York -> Chicago -> Kansas City -> Memphis -> New Orleans
Let's start with some background on what was the real itinerary that Jazz musicians followed during the first half of the XX century.
The blues dates back before the beginnings of jazz and its origins are obscure beyond hope of precise documentations, although it must have come into being somewhere in the deep rural South, sometime before the turn of the 20th century. Of the large number of historical locations that played a central role in the growth of the blues, Beale Street in Memphis was officially declared as the "Home of the Blues" by an act of Congress in 1977. In the early 1900s, Beale Street was filled with clubs, restaurants and shops, many of them owned by African-Americans. WC Handy composed in Memphis some of the earliest and most famous blues, the "Memphis Blues" (1909), "Saint Louis Blues" (1914), and the "Beale Street Blues" (1916). From the 1920s to the 1940s, Louis Armstrong, Muddy Waters, Albert King, Memphis Minnie, B.B. King, Rufus Thomas, Rosco Gordon and other blues and jazz legends played on Beale Street and helped develop the style known as Memphis Blues.
Jazz was born in New Orleans in the late 1890s and early 1900s. It rapidly became a popular music throughout the city, mostly in the District of Storyville. In Storyville, one could legally enjoy prostitution while listening to the first Jazz Band in history, the Buddy Bolden Band. Unfortunately, although Bolden was recalled as having made at least one phonograph cylinder, no known recordings of Bolden have survived. Ten years later (1917), Storyville was shut down by the federal government, forcing jazz musicians to move to Northern cities ? mostly Chicago and New York City and to a lesser extend Kansas City-.
Chicago rapidly became the capital of Jazz between 1917-1928. Even if the bands could not march in the streets because of the adverse weather conditions, the New Orleans style remained almost intact. A large number of cabarets emerged in the _gSouth Side_h district. Amongst them, the most relevant were the _gRoyal Gardens_h (hosting the _gKing Oliver Creole Jazz Band_h with Louis Armstong playing the cornet) and the _gApex Club_h (hosting the greatest clarinetist Jimmy Noone and the pianist Earl Hines). Further information about the role of Chicago in Jazz History [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0276-3605(199021)10%3A1%3C82%3ACJT1%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7 here].
Meanwhile, Harlem saw the birth of outstanding Jazz pianists in the ragtime style such as Willie _gthe Lion_h Smith and Pete Johnson. This piano style became popular in part thanks to the House Rent Parties (private parties randomly held in apartments to finance the rent). The biggest Dance club in Harlem was the Savoy, a gigantic room with two stages that allowed bands to battle all night long. Two big bands became most popular, the Feltcher Henderson Orchestra first, followed by the best big band of all times, the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Two dazzling female vocalists emerged in Harlem during the 1920s: Bessie Smith, the empress of blues, and Ethel Waters.
The Great Depression (1929) marked the end of one of the greatest Jazz eras of all times. All of a sudden, Jazz musicians in Chicago and Harlem found themselves unemployed. The crisis quickly spread all over the country except in Kansas City. In the 1930s, Kansas City was the crossroads of the United States and transcontinental trips required a stop in the city. Kansas City was a wide open town with liquor laws and hours totally ignored. Many jazz musicians got caught up in the friendly musical competitions among performers that could keep a single song being performed in various variations for an entire night. Such musical competitions lead to a new style, the Kansas city Style. The establishment of the Kansas City style is attributed to Bennie Moten but it became highly popular when Count Basie took over his band after his death.
Kansas City has long been recognized as having been a major jazz center, ranking in importance only behind New York, New Orleans, and Chicago. From the mid-1920s through the late 1930s, jazz musicians from the central states of America were "goin' to Kansas City" in search of jobs, musical challenge, and good times. When they arrived they entered a musical community that was extraordinarily supportive, demanding, and artistically uplifting.
Kansas City jazz prospered while most of America suffered through the Great Depression, largely because of the corrupt but economically stimulating administration of Boss Tom Pendergast. Jazz was the popular social music of the time, and the centers of vice - nightclubs and gambling halls - usually hired musicians to attract customers. The serendipitous results were plentiful but low-paying jobs for jazz musicians from throughout the Mid-west and an outpouring of great new music.
But remember: in this trip, money is not an issue.
Ideally the trip should be done to make it to any of the Famous jazz festivals in one of the cities visited. See [http://www.netunes.com/jazz-festivals.htm Jazz festivals] for a list.
The '''Beale Street Muscic Festival''' [http://www.memphisinmay.org/site.asp?cid=34&PID=1&QLID=9&title=beale%20street%20music%20festival] takes place in Memphis on the 4-6th May 2007.
The '''New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival''' [http://www.nojazzfest.com/] takes place on April 27th-May 6th 2007.
The Sedalia Ragtime Music Festival takes place in June.
You can make your way to Chicago in coincidence with the [http://chicagofests.com/jazz_festival Chicago Jazz Festival], usually at the end of August.
a. Congo Room of the Capitol, West 115th & Malcolm X Boulevard, c. 1940 b. Bamville Club, 65 West 125th Street, c. 1920-1930 - Coleman Hawkins c. The Plantation, West 126th near Malcolm X Blvd., c. 1930 - rivaled Cotton Club; Cab Calloway d. Club Cabaret, 416 Malcolm X Boulevard, c. 1923-25 e. Club Baron, 437 Malcolm X Boulevard, c. 1940-46 f. Goldgraben's, I.G. Cafe, 439 Malcolm X Boulevard, c. 1919-30; In 1964, was renamed Baron's Lounge - favorite hangout for musicians after work at other clubs g. Elk's Rendezvous, 464 Malcolm X Boulevard, c. 1930-45 - held social club dances h. Club Harlem, West 130th & Malcolm X Blvd., c. 1927-29; In 1964 was renamed Harlem Grill i. Gee-Haw Stables, West 132nd Street between 7th & Malcolm X Blvd., c. 1940-45; In1964, was a Gulf Gas Station - had a horse's head over the entrance, an after-after-hours club j. Lincoln Theatre, 58 West 135th Street, c. 1909-1964 - installed a $10,000 Wurlitzer organ for Fats Waller; now a church (1964 data) k. The Elk's Cafe, Malcolm X Blvd. between West 137th and West 138th Streets, c. 1917-20 l. Capitol Palace, 575 Malcolm X Boulevard, c. 1922-50 - now a playground m. Brittwood Bar & Grill, 594 Malcolm X Boulevard, c. 1932-42 - Willie Gant's Musical Maniacs; n. Golden Gate Ballroom, Malcolm X Boulevard & West 142nd Street, c. 1939-50 - luxurious ballroom o. Rhone's Orchestra Club, 625 Malcolm X Boulevard, c. 1920-35 later Lenox Club, a.k.a. "The Breakfast Club," 652 Malcolm X Boulevard, c. 1935-45 - Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, 3 shows nightly with an 8-girl line; demolished 1958 for Bethune Towers/Delano Village.
:The Savoy was billed as the world's most beautiful ballroom; it occupied the second floor of a building that extended along the whole block between 140th and 141st streets, and featured a large dance floor (200 feet by 50 feet), two bandstands, and a retractable stage. It swiftly became the most popular dance venue in Harlem, and many of the jazz dance crazes of the 1920s and 1930s originated there; it enjoyed a long and glittering career that lasted well into the 1950s, before a decline in its fortunes set in.
:It was known downtown as the "Home of Happy Feet" but uptown, in Harlem, as "the Track". The Savoy regularly staged "Battle of the Bands" promotions that usually occurred between a house and a guest band, although not necessarily. Sometimes the bands would trade numbers at the change-over point between sets. Invariably packed when these events took place, there was little room to dance, and the crowd would vote as to who was their favourite band, band leader, vocalist etc. Two of the most famous "battles" happened when the Benny Goodman Orchestra challenged Chick Webb in 1937 and in 1938 when the Count Basie Band did the same. The general assessment was that they both lost, to Chick Webb.
:Elaborate events of this kind were also organized by the management: on May 15, 1927 the Savoy presented a "Battle of Jazz," which featured King Oliver's Dixie Syncopators, a band led by Williams, Chick Webb's Harlem Stompers, and Henderson's Roseland Orchestra; other battles were fought between bands led by Lloyd Scott, Webb, Alex Johnson, Charlie Johnson, Williams, and Henderson (May 6, 1928) and between Cab Calloway's Missourians and groups led by Duke Ellington, Henderson, Cecil Scott, Lockwood Lewis, and Webb (May 14, 1930).
:Nowadays only a conmemorative plaque can be found in the location of the Savoy.
:Most of the principal jazz musicians, singers, and dancers of the period appeared at the Cotton Club at some stage, including Louis Armstrong, Ethel Waters, Ivie Anderson, Bill Robinson, and the Nicholas Brothers. The heyday of the club's existence was re-created in Francis Ford Coppola's film The Cotton Club (1984).
:After race riots in Harlem in 1935, the area was considered unsafe for Whites (who formed the Cotton Club's clientele and the club was forced to close (16 February 1936). It reopened in September 1936 downtown on West 48th Street, in premises that had formerly housed the Palais Royal and Connie's Inn (1933-6); the Cotton Club continued to operate at this location until June 1940.
:The club reopened later that year at Broadway and 48th Street, but closed for good in 1940, under pressure from higher rents, changing tastes and a federal investigation into tax evasion by Manhattan nightclub owners.The Cotton Club was reopened in 1978 in Harlem. The original site of the Cotton Club was demolished in 1958 along with the Savoy Ballroom and the Lenox Club, (1935-45 Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, 3 shows nightly) for the construction of Bethune Towers/Delano Village; however, its legacy lives on at a new site under the same name at 666 West 125th Street.
:It generally denied admission to blacks, although all entire performers were black.
:World renown talent take the stage for six day runs, with Mondays usually reserved for excellent local talent. Two sets are 9:00 and 11:30. Prices are $35 for table reservations + minimum, or $25 cover at the bar. There is $5.00 cover charge for the Friday and Saturday late night jam sessions. Sunday brunch served Noon - 6 PM. Show times at 1:00 PM and 3:30 PM.
:Sets: Sunday - Thursday 9:30 and 11:30, Friday and Saturday 9:30, 11:30, and 1:30. Monday nights, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, established by Thad Jones and Mel Lewis over 33 years ago continues their big band tradition. Sunday - Thursday: $25.00 at the door (includes $15.00 admission plus a $10.00 drink minimum). On Friday and Saturday: $30.00 at the door (includes $20.00 admission plus a $10.00 drink minimum). which has the right vibes and an excellent booking policy. Catch pianist Tommy Flanagan here for a perfect jazz night out.
:Opened in 1949. Initially the club was located on Broadway, a few blocks west of 52nd Street, which was a hotbed of jazz in the 1930s and 40s. Count Basie and his smokin' big band made Birdland their New York headquarters, eventually recording George Shearing's "Lullaby of Birdland" live at the club. John Coltrane's classic Quartet regularly appeared at the club in the early 1960s, recording "Live at Birdland."
:People that have performed at the Birdland: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bud Powell, Stan Getz, Lester Young, Erroll Garner, and many, many others.
:All show times: 9:00 and 11:00 P.M. (with early 5:30 tribute sets added to the Mon., Tues. and Fri. schedules). Music charge varies, $20-35. There is a $10 food/drink minimum per person at the tables. At the bar, the music charge includes one drink. Sundays belong to Arturo O'Farrill_fs Afro-Cuban Jazz Big Band, Mondays have been reserved for the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra featuring Lew Tabackin for the later sets, and now every Monday from 5:30 - 7:30pm - The Art Blakey Jazz Messenger's Revue perform. Tuesdays typically go to The Famous Duke Ellington Orchestra directed by Paul Mercer Ellington with early sets at 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. showcasing David Ostwald's Louis Armstrong Centennial Band. From Wednesday - Saturday expect the best in local and internationally touring artists. Just added: Every Friday from 5:30 - 7:30pm - Lew Anderson's All American Big Band. All will enjoy the excellent sightlines to the stage.
''(More jazz clubes at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_jazz_clubs#New_York_City])''
Concert night in Chicago.
The jazz historic places in Chicago are mostly located on the south side, with the exception of the Green Mill, which is in Uptown. Please visit the [http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/cja/jazzmaps/maphome.htm Chicago's South Side Jazz Clubs] website. The location and state of the building can be consulted at [http://chicago.urban-history.org/sites/ballroom/br_index.htm]
:Lincoln Gardens (formerly Royal Gardens) was a dance hall which could accommodate up to 1000 dancers. After a fire late in 1924 the hall was magnificently refurbished for its reopening on October 28, 1925, when the name was changed to the New Charleston Cafe; it later became known as the Cafe de Paris. Dave Peyton led a band there from late November 1926, but in June 1927, it was bombed ? perhaps in gang warfare ? and closed.
:The residency at the Royal Gardens in 1918 of the Original Creole Band, led by Bill Johnson, established the dance hall's reputation as a venue for jazz, and initiated a series of appearances by New Orleans musicians that were of great significance for the development of the music in Chicago. [http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_oliver_joe_king.htm Joe King Oliver]'s Creole Jazz Band played a residency from June 17, 1922 until February 1924. During this period he sent a telegram to his cornet student in New Orleans to come to Chicago and join his band as a second trumpet to play at the Lincoln Gardens. The name of the trumpet was Louis Armstrong. This was a dream come true for Armstrong and his amazing playing in the band soon made him a sensation among other musicians in Chicago.
:During his two-year stand at the Lincoln Gardens, King Oliver with Louis and the Creole Serenaders brought hot New Orleans style jazz to Chicago and later, via recordings, to the world. '' :"When King Joe Oliver sent for me to leave New Orleans in 1922 and join him at the Lincoln Gardens to play second trumpet to his first trumpet, I jumped sky-high with joy. The day I received the telegram from Papa Joe - that's what I called him - I was playing a funeral in New Orleans and all the members of the Tuxedo Brass Band told me not to go because Papa Joe and his band were having some kind of union trouble...I arrived in Chicago about eleven o'clock the night of July 8, 1922, at the Illinois Central Station at Twelfth and Michigan Avenue. I'll never forget it. The King was already at work. I had no one to meet me. I took a cab and went directly to the Lincoln Gardens."'' (Louis Armstrong)
:'Royal Garden Blues' is considered the first 'riff' song
:Built in 1909 remodeled in 1937. Following a 1921 remodeling, this simple automobile garage was transformed into one of the city's earliest and most legendary jazz venues. Its house orchestra featured such famed musicians as Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, and Earl "Fatha" Hines, while its floor shows introduced the latest dances to local audiences. Many promising young artists, including Bix Beiderbecke, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Gene Krupa, got their start at late-night sessions here. After a 1937 remodeling, it was renamed the Grand Terrace Ballroom (relocated from its earlier location in 3955 South Parkway Blvd) and remained a popular night club until 1950.
:Earl Hines enjoyed great success there, though other big bands, including Fletcher Henderson, Count Basie, and Horace Henderson, also played the Grand Terrace before World War II. The store's office, which long ago was part of the raised bandstand overlooking the Grand Terrace's dance floor. The back of the bandstand was a large mural depicting jazz rhythms, and a portion is still visible. [http://www.bigbandlibrary.com/grandterraceshuffle.html]
:At the Grand Terrace Ballroom and other Chicago night spots, leaving a club without permission from the management was hazardous to the health of many Chicago jazz musicians. This is why Earl Hines remained at the Grand Terrace for more than a decade. [http://www.tuxjunction.net/chicagojazz.htm].
:During 1936 at the Grand Terrace Ballroom, where Fletcher Henderson was appearing with his own band, Goodman played in front of the band with Krupa sitting in on drums. This is perhaps the first time that black and white jazz musicians played together before a paying audience [http://www.tuxjunction.net/bennygoodman.htm].
:The building at the new location, whose exterior looks very much as it did during its musical heyday, is now a hardware Store. Some walls in the interior are still painted as they were during the Grand terrace times. it is possible to ask the ownes to visit the inside.
:The club served as Inspiration for the song called "Sunset Cafe Stomp" by the Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five.
:As the twenties roared, The Green Mill became mobster territory when Al Capone's henchman, "Machinegun" Jack McGurn, gained a 25% ownership of the club. Manager Danny Cohen had given McGurn the 25% stake to "persuade" comedian/singer Joe E. Lewis from moving his act south to the New Rendezvous Cafe at Clark and Diversey. McGurn managed to convince Lewis by slitting his throat and cutting off his tongue. Miraculously, Lewis recovered, but his songs never regained their lush sound. The incident was later immortalized in the movie The Joker is Wild, with Frank Sinatra as Joe E. Lewis and a Hollywood soundstage as The Green Mill. Of course, his interest piqued, Sinatra had to visit the club. In 1986, the Green Mill decoration was restored it to its prohibition-era, speakeasy decor.
More historical jazz clubs listed in [http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/cja/mapkey.html here]
:Thankfully the story of Jazz didn't end with BeBop. It kept right on cranking into the avant-guard. Part of that adventurous set was a society of (mostly African-American) musicians in Chicago called the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
:Taking as its mission the "nurturing, performing, and recording serious, original music," the AACM supports musicians, composers and educators working in Jazz. Beginning in 1965 the AACM (first lead by Muhal Richard Abrams) has educated young musicians in Chicago, and oddly enough Amsterdam and Paris where some of founding memebers lived in self-imposed exile during the early 1970s.
:Musicians associated with the AACM, such as Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton, Jack DeJohnette, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago: Lester Bowie, Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, Famoudou Don Moye, and Malachi Favors produced some of the most exciting and challenging Jazz music of the 1970s, music which only began to be recognized by the mainstream and academia in the 1990s.
:In the late 1980s and early 1990s musician and Columbia College professor Hal Russell brought a large influx of new musicians into the AACM sphere of influence both through his teaching and playing with the NRG Ensemble. Students and followers of Russell's such as Ken Vandermark, Kent Kessler, Mars Williams, and Weasel Walter have helped re-energize and the AACM scene and brought it deserved critical, and media attention.
:Luckily quite a few of the original AACM players are still on the scene, as are many of their students both from Chicago and Europe, as well as players from the newer scene descending from Russell. You can catch shows ranging around town almost every night of the week, but the scene most predictably centers around a handful of clubs with connections to the musicians.
:Taste and variety define the music menu as well, showcasing Jazz and Blues 7 days a week. No other venue can boast of the three shows daily and a weekend rotations of world-class headliners. :Now only available on Friday's - Live Jazz At Noon is your mid-day oasis. A variety of lunchtime favorites with conversation friendly music, guaranteed to satisfy the cravings of the clock-watchers and leisure lovers alike. Open for lunch Monday-Friday with live music only on Friday. Jazz At Five ups the intensity when locals and visitors mingle beneath the "Wall of Fame" and exchange ideas in the universal language of Jazz. Jazz At Nine expands the experience with a range of world-renowned artists with diverse styles continuing until 1 AM. To accommodate a more energetic weekend crowd, hours are extended to 1:30 AM and serve from the complete menu until 1 AM. Sunday, entertainment jump starts your morning with our 11am-2:30pm Brunch and continues on with evening music offered from 5pm-Midnight. Located in the heart of the River North Neighborhood of the Chicago Loop, you can find Andy's Jazz Club & Restaurant at the intersection of State Street and Hubbard Street.
More modern Chicago clubs at [http://www.chicagojazz.com/v2/Main/Venues.asp www.chicagojazz.com]
Distance: (532 Miles)
Concert in the Phoenix?
:''...The Flavor of 18th street was on the sidewalks, you could find everybody who was anybody on 18th street.But it was grand. 12th street was joints, 18th street was class. It was all we had, and it was the only place we could go." Reuben Benton, long time resident.
:18th and Vine in Kansas City is internationally recognized as one of the cradles of jazz. Along with New Orleans's Basin Street, Beale Street in Memphis, 52nd Street in New York and Los Angeles's Central Avenue - the 18th and Vine area was a midwife to the birth of a new style of jazz. Like the spicy barbecue for which Kansas City is so widely noted, the jazz that evolved in the 18th and Vine district was likewise distinctive. Simmered in the blues, Kansas City's jazz was a riff-based sound fueled by jam sessions in the district's crowded clubs.
:A list of the musicians who worked and made their home in the historic district reads like a veritable Who's Who of Jazz in the 1930's and 1940's. Charlie Parker is likely the most noted modern jazz musician to come from Kansas City. However, many notables call the city home or got their start in this significant jazz scene.
:Located just east of Downtown Kansas City, it is the Kansas City metropolitan area's historic center of African American culture. It has been the focus of more than $30 million of civic investment since the late 1980s, but the district's redevelopment has struggled. In the 1990s, parts of the film Kansas City were filmed there. Facades left from the movie remained on most of the dilapidated buildings until the end of the 1990s. Today, the 18th and Vine district includes the Mutual Musicians Foundation, the Gem Theater, the long-time offices of African-American newspaper The Call, the Blue Room jazz club, the American Jazz Museum, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, restaurants and apartments.
:The clubs sported colorful names such as the Cherry Blossom, the Chez Paree, Lucille's Paradise, the Subway Club, the Sportsmen Club, the Ol' Kentuck' Bar-B-Q and Fox's. Many of the clubs featured "Blue Monday" sessions. Former bassist for Andy Kirk, Laverne Barker remembered how, "People would go to the area on Sunday Nights and would wait for Blue Monday parties to start in the clubs at midnight. The jam sessions would start and go `til Monday afternoon."
:Vine Street also has been celebrated by many songs including "Vine St. Bustle," "Vine St. Boogie," "Vine St. Drag" and "Kansas City."
:'Closed on mondays'
:The balcony above the bandstand here was Charlie Parker's favorite roost. He'd sit there, the air thick with marijuana smoke rising from the band downstairs, and listen to his idol, Lester Young, blowing with the "Count" Basie band.
:Nightly broadcasts from the club were relayed on radio station W9XBY. In 1938 Jesse Price's big band played there, and the following year George E. Lee, whose career passed through a decline in the mid-1930s, brought his new band (formed the preceding year for a residency at the Brookside Club) to play an engagement at the Reno. The club was as important for after-hours jam sessions by the many jazz musicians playing in the city at that time as it was for the music that was played to entertain the clientele.
:A police parking lot now occupies the sacred ground where Club Reno once stood.
:The American Jazz Museum's Blue Room is a museum by day and at night comes to life as a working jazz club. Four nights a week, the Blue Room resonates with the sweet sounds of Kansas City jazz. As the only Kansas City club included in DownBeat magazine's 2004 list of Top 100 Jazz Clubs in the world, the Blue Room consistently books top name national and international entertainers while it continues to showcase the best of jazz in Kansas City.
:The Blue Room was recently recognized again in DownBeat magazine's February 2007 issue as the only Kansas City club to make the list of Top 100 Jazz Clubs in the world:
:As part of the American Jazz Museum, the Blue Room is designed to resemble a nightclub from the '30s. Shows in the room hit on Monday (a regular jam session), Thursday, Friday and Saturday, featuring top regional straightahead talent.
(More jazz clubes at [http://home.kc.rr.com/kcjazz/])
Driving distance: 538 Miles.
:Once there, the [http://www.mostateparks.com/scottjoplin.htm Scott Joplin House] can be visited.
Once in Memphis, Try to catch a Blues concert.
:In the 1920's, when the area took on a carnival atmosphere and gambling, drinking, prostitution, murder and voodoo thrived alongside the booming nightclubs, theaters, restaurants, stores, pawnshops and hot music. By mid-evening, the street would be packed and a one-block walk could take forever, especially if he had to detour around the medicine show set up in the little hole in the wall, or if he stopped and listened to the wandering bluesman playing for pennies and nickels. There were big vaudeville shows at the Palace and the Daisy, hot snoot sandwiches at the corner cafe jug bands playing down at the park and one block over on Gayoso there was a red-light district to rival New Orleans_f Storyville.
:Beale Street was completely shut down and the bulidings demolished. Nowadays it is just a street for tourism and shopping wiith some reopened blues clubs but missing the spirit of the early 20's.
:A. Schwab Dry Goods, in the family since 1876, is the only remaining original business on Beale St. Open Mon-Sat, 9am-5pm. The Orpheum Theatre also remains, opened on October 15, 1928 on the corner of Main and Beale.
:Clubs on Beale street: Alfred's On Beale, Mr. Handy_fs Blues Hall, Alley Cats, New Daisy Theater, A. Schawb, New York Pizza, B. B. Kings Blues Club, Pat O'Briens, Beale St. Tap Room, People_fs Billiard Club, The Black Diamond, The Pig on Beale, Blues City Cafe & Band Box, Psychics of Beale Street, Club 152, Rum Boogie Cafe, Dyer_fs Famous Hamburgers, Shake Shack, Eel Etc. Fashions. Silky O Sullivan_fs, Hard Rock Cafe, Strange Cargo, King_fs Palace Cafe, Tater Red_fs, Memphis Music, Wet Willies.
:Located at 191 Beale, on the corner of legendary Highway 61 at the FedExForum sports and entertainment complex, the museum offers a comprehensive Memphis music experience from the rural field hollers and sharecroppers of the 1930s, through the explosion of Sun, Stax and Hi Records and Memphis_f musical heyday in the 70s, to its global musical influence. The museum_fs digital audio tour guide is packed with over 300 minutes of information, including over 100 songs, and takes visitors at their own pace through seven galleries featuring 3 audio visual programs, more than 30 instruments, 40 costumes and other musical treasures.
:Stax was a major player in the creation of the Southern soul and Memphis soul music styles, and frequently released early funk and 1960s Chicago blues recordings. While Stax was involved almost exclusively in the production of African-American music, the label is noted for having some of the first popular ethnically-integrated bands. Featuring recordings of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Albert King.
:Today, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, located at the original site of Stax Records, pays tribute to all of the artists who recorded there with a rare and amazing collection of more than 2,000 interactive exhibits, films, artifacts, items of memorabilia, and galleries designed to keep Stax alive forever. Because it is the only soul music museum in the world, it also spotlights America's other major soul music pioneers, including the sounds of Muscle Shoals, Motown, Hi, and Atlantic Records, spotlighting the contributions of such soul pioneers as Ike & Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, The Jackson Five, Ann Peebles, Al Green, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Ray Charles, and many others.
:Hours: March-October, Monday-Saturday,9 a.m.-4 p.m.,Sunday: 1-4 p.m., November-February, Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
:In 1948, Blues Boy King was hired by Memphis blues station WDIA for a 15-minute live radio spot where he performed and hawked a health tonic called Pep-Ti-Kon. A year after, B.B. King records for the first time, cutting four songs (including his debut single, _gMiss Martha King_h) at Memphis radio station WDIA.
:The WDIA studio on Union Avenue, just up the street from the Peabody Hotel, is also still in operation, broadcasting a steady stream of talk and music, and you can stop in for a quick tour. On Saturday mornings Rufus Thomas, the senior statesman of the local music scene, still broadcasts a weekly show, and the station_fs all-blues programming on Saturdays remains an unpretentious tribute to the city_fs blues tradition. Listening to the radio as you drive around the city or take a day trip down to the Delta,
:The Elvis Presley Birthplace is part of the Elvis Presley Park and has been restored to the period before the singer's family moved to Memphis. The birthplace has been designated a Mississippi landmark. The Elvis Presley Park includes the Elvis Presley Museum, Memorial Chapel, Gift Shop and a lifesize statue of "Elvis at 13". The Park offers complete recreation facilities for picnics and community events.
:Hours: 9:00am to 5:30pm, Monday through Saturday, (May through September), 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Saturday, (October through April), 1:00 pm to 5:00pm, Sunday year round.
:Tours are given: Monday- Saturday 11:00am, 12:00pm, 1:00pm, 2:00pm, 3:00pm, and 4:00pm, Sunday 12:00pm, 1:00pm, 2:00pm, 3:00pm, and 4:00pm
Driving Distance: 396 Miles. Take route 61, the Blues Highway, and follow it as weaves into Mississippi, all the way to New Orleans.
Once one of the Delta_fs main trading towns, Clarksdale is possibly the most important blues-town in Mississippi. John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke, Jackie Brenston and Ike Turner were born and raised here. Other influential bluesmen that made their names in Clarksdale include Muddy Waters, Bukka White, Son House, and Robert Nighthawk. On September 26th, 1937, Bessie Smith died in Clarksdale after a car accident on Highway 61 near Coahoma.
Take Highway 8 east from Cleveland (Here WC Handy pronounced his famous words _gAn american composer is Born_h) for about 5 miles to reach the Dockery Plantation founded around 1895. According to many, the blues was born right here. Charley Patton, pioneer of the Delta blues was a worker here.
These were the lyrics of the first Blues WC heard in Tutwiler. He asked the singer what they meant. They actually mean a point where the Yazoo and the Mississippi railroads meet. This point is in Moorhead and the railroads still exist
When Natchez was the old capital of cotton industry, more milionaires lived here than anywhere else in America. This is today a city of contrasts full of Southern Charm and elegance.
From about 1905, it was sometimes known as the Arlington Annex, after Josie Arlington's whorehouse, one of the three largest and most popular on Basin Street. The saloon offered music on a modest scale, presenting small bands, such as string trios (mandolin or violin, guitar and double bass); among the musicians who played there were Bill Johnson, the black guitarist Tom Brown, and Wellman Braud, playing violin. In published accounts such famous musicians as Louis Armstrong and Albert Nicholas are said to have played at Anderson's Annex, but they actually worked at Tom Anderson's New Cabaret and Restaurant.
:They have a lot of old jazz items, including a Louis Armstrong cornet!. They let people take pictures if you request it in advance by phone.
By Plane.