Sixty-one years ago on August 28, 1963, more than 250,000 people gathered for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Jazz musicians were the vanguard of the movement for freedom and civil rights, a fact acknowledged by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival.
Long before Beyoncé was born, tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins recorded “The Freedom Suite” which featured Oscar Pettiford on bass and Max Roach on drums.
Thousands of people from across the country arrived in Washington, DC on the “Freedom Train,” a special fleet of trains chartered by A. Philip Randolph, organizer of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
From Louis Armstrong’s “Black and Blue” to Charles Mingus’ “Fables of Faubus,” jazz musicians talked the talk and walked the walk. Trumpeter Lee Morgan and Max Roach were among the musicians on board the Freedom Train from New York City to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
