Jazz Appreciation Month at the Smithsonian

Last year I took my son to Copenhagen as a reward for doing well in his school exams. It just “happened” to coincide with the Copenhagen Jazz Festival. A family trip to Washington DC this Easter also happened to coincide with JAM. Would you believe me if I told you it was a genuine coincidence each time? My son certainly didn’t.

The JAM exhibition is, as the title might suggest, a month-long appreciation of jazz. But the Museum doesn’t pack jazz away for the remaining 11 months of the year—it’s featured quite prominently in the Entertainment Nation section of the Museum.

Alongside Joe Louis’ boxing gloves, Dorothy’s ruby red slippers, and Prince’s yellow cloud guitar, you will find the saxophone used by John Coltrane to record the album A Love Supreme in 1965 as well as Dizzy Gillespie’s angled trumpet. Did you know that the distinctive angled bell was as a result of an accident? And that the two people reputed to have damaged it were called Stump and Stumpy, play fighting on stage whilst Dizzy was between sets? Strange but true. Stranger still, the US Government asked Dizzy to tour the world as a means of using jazz to combat communism. He declined.

The Museum is worth a visit for those facts and items alone (although there is much more on permanent display), but making the trip during JAM (which is now in its 14th year) is even more worthwhile because it’s when the Museum brings a few things out of storage.

On the day of my visit, the Museum’s curators brought out Lester Young’s tenor saxophone and Cannonball Adderley’s alto, amongst many other things. The curators stuck around for a couple of hours to answer any questions (and stop you touching anything). As an unexpected additional treat, five members of the Smithsonian Jazz Orchestra played a couple of sets in an area usually reserved for the history of video games. They gave us some Monk, some Dizzy and some Miles. The bassist, Amy Shook, was playing Ray Brown’s actual instrument. It played beautifully and was beautifully played. Despite saying, “I’m a bass player myself” to Amy when we spoke between sets I wasn’t invited to have a go on it. But it was worth a try.

And to top it off, once you’ve finished looking at the pictures and the exhibits and reading the interesting quotes, you can head to the ground floor and grab a coffee at the Jazz Cafe. It has a wonderful painting on the wall by LeRoy Neiman, incorporating 18 of the greatest jazz musicians of all time. Whilst I couldn’t buy a print of it in the gift shop, the Museum’s website allows you to download it for use as wallpaper on your computer or phone.

Well worth a visit. And it’s free!

Might try and go again next year—just don’t tell my son!