The Jazz Museum in Harlem

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

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Jazz for Curious Listeners
The Musical World of Ralph Ellison - Minton's Playhouse
June 26, 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.

Shortly after moving to New York in 1937, Ellison found his way to Minton's Playhouse, on W. 118th Street in Harlem. Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Christian and others were involved in discovering new, creative avenues for jazz there nightly. Those evenings inspired Ellison to write one his most memorable essays.

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