Jazz is more than music for the Black community
(CBS DETROIT) - "Jazz is very central to black history, to American history," said Jennifer Evans, the exhibitions manager at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.
In the Black community, jazz is more than just music.
"During a period of racial segregation, African American musicians really found their place in jazz. They found freedom in jazz," Evans said.
A freedom that didn't necessarily exist in the Black community when jazz first began around the 1920s.
That's why places like Detroit's own Baker's Keyboard Lounge, the self-proclaimed world's oldest jazz club, plays such a prominent role in not just black history, but music history as a whole.
"Baker's provided a venue where young artists could come and display their talents in a soundproof room - in a room that was built just for jazz. To come in and have someone pay you as a young Black artist to come on the stage - what it did was foster a movement," said Hugh Smith, the co-owner of Baker's Keyboard Lounge.
A movement that gave Black artists a voice.
"So often musicians use music as a form of expression when other things are happening," said Evans.
On a platform that reached the masses.
"You get so many different socioeconomic backgrounds in the same place to listen to the same thing. that means we come together on a common ground. this is one of the only places where there's no issue because we're all here to revel around the same thing together," said Smith.