2010 JAM Launch

Under the theme “Jazz and Justice” a variety of programs are being developed and select events will be webcast. Please continue to consult the JAM website and Calendar through April for event updates at NMAH and other Smithsonian museums.

The museum launched JAM in 2001 as an annual event that pays tribute to jazz both as a historic and living American art form. It has since grown to include celebrations in all 50 states and 40 countries. In celebrating JAM, the museum joins with a diverse group of organizations, institutions, corporations, associations and federal agencies that have provided financial and in-kind support, as well as organizing programs and outreach of their own.

"Jazz is a truly American style of music that has played an important role in our heritage," said Brent D. Glass, museum director. "Through the Smithsonian’s Jazz Appreciation Month activities, we will highlight jazz and its history and how the genre has an important function in global diplomacy."

The Smithsonian operates the world’s most comprehensive set of jazz programs and the National Museum of American History is home to jazz collections that include 100,000 pages of Duke Ellington’s unpublished music and such objects as Ella Fitzgerald’s famous red dress, Dizzy Gillespie’s angled trumpet, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme manuscript and Goodman’s clarinet. The museum has reopened after a two-year renovation.

Listen to jazz composer Billy Taylors “Peaceful Warrior Suite” – in tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jazz Appreciation Month poster features Dave Brubeck

The National Museum of American History (NMAH) has developed a poster of the legendary jazz artist Dave Brubeck to celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month in April.

NMAH Curator of American Music John Hasse worked with the artist Leroy Neiman to have him create the portrait in tribute to Brubeck. Neiman has provided other jazz works for JAM posters featuring Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.

Brubeck is a 2009 Kennedy Center Honoree. In a White House reception for the Kennedy Center honorees, President Barack Obama remarked that he became a lifelong jazz fan after attending a Dave Brubeck concert with his father.

The museum has printed 250,000 posters for free distribution to schools, libraries, music and jazz educators, music merchants and manufacturers, radio stations, arts presenters, and U.S. embassies worldwide. To request a copy, write jazz@si.edu. Or, you can download it in PDF format.

Meet the new JAM Program Manager

Joann Stevens is a seasoned communications strategist, program manager, writer, and public relations professional whose skills have helped propel diverse nonprofits to new levels of public recognition, capacity building, and financial sustainability.  She has held leadership positions with The Executive Leadership Council, a member organization of the most senior African-American corporate executives in Fortune 500 companies; Special Olympics International with Sargent and Eunice Kennedy Shriver; the National Urban Coalition; The George Washington University; the Association of American Colleges and Universities; the Washington Post; and the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday Commission. More