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Connections

The landscape of jazz in the 1920s

Gavin Rice, Derrick Lucas and guest host Daniel Kushner on "Connections with Evan Dawson" on Friday, June 2, 2023
Julie Williams
/
WXXI News
Gavin Rice, Derrick Lucas and guest host Daniel Kushner on "Connections with Evan Dawson" on Friday, June 2, 2023

Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis has called jazz "the perfect metaphor for democracy." While that may be true musically speaking, how democratic was the landscape in the 1920s, when America-at-large began to fall in love with genre?

CITY Arts Writer Daniel Kushner talks with local jazz musician Gavin Rice, who he profiled for CITY Magazine, and Derrick Lucas, the Jazz 90.1 music director and morning host, about what the jazz scene looked like at Black musicians in that era, early jazz as a catalyst for integration, and what that means for the genre and American culture today. Our guests:

Arts writer Daniel J. Kushner began writing for CITY in 2015 as a contributing writer before joining the staff full-time in 2018.