Philadelphia Jazz Legacy Project

In 2018-2019 five Philadelphia jazz organizations—Jazz Bridge, Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz & Performing Arts, Philadelphia Jazz Project, Jazz Philadelphia, and Ars Nova Workshop—began a collaborative discovery process to explore how to preserve, interpret, and share Philadelphia’s expansive jazz history. Funded by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, the one-year Discovery Project brought together leading figures in the local jazz community to develop a vision and lay the groundwork for a sustainable Philly Jazz Archives. Philadelphia has been home to many transformative figures in jazz history, including Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, and Sun Ra, in addition to lesser-known musicians who shaped the community and its music. This project represented is the first coordinated effort to identify and preserve original source materials that tell the story of the city’s vibrant jazz tradition, including manuscripts, recordings, photographs, show programs, and oral histories.