Jazz in the Hill: Nightlife and Narratives of a Pittsburgh Neighborhood

The late Pittsburgh native jazz icon, Ahamd Jamal, called jazz “America’s classical music.”1 Jamal, a Homewood community native and Westinghouse High School graduate, held an affinity for the history of Pittsburgh jazz. Having grown up in Pittsburgh, Jamal grew up with the knowledge of local jazz legends. He was a paperboy for the Strayhorn family and lived blocks away from Mary Lou Williams and Erroll Garner. Jamal would go on to be one of America’s most celebrated and creative jazz composers and pianists. He was a recipient of the Ministerial Order of the French Republic, one of the highest honors bestowed by the French government for artistic contributions to France and the world. Jamal was one of the many pianists that helped give Pittsburgh Jazz what Nelson Harrison called “the greatest story never told” framed by its alumni of pianists.2 But a review of the lineup of noted jazz music artists from Pittsburgh offers a surprising list of twentieth-century jazz icons. This lineup included Earl “Fatha” Hines, Mary Lou Williams, Erroll Garner, Billy Strayhorn, Jamal, Horace Parlan, Walt Harper, Dodo Marmarosa, Frank Cunimondo, and Gene Ludwig, to name a few. Pittsburgh jazz pianists were so influential that Gazarik and Cole spent a chapter on “Pittsburgh’s love affair with the piano” in their book, A History of Pittsburgh Jazz: Swinging in the Steel City.3 Pittsburgh jazz hasn’t been appreciated in popular culture the way New Orleans, St. Louis, or Chicago. The persona of jazz in Pittsburgh goes beyond names of local and national musical icons. To understand and appreciate the evolution of jazz in Pittsburgh, it is important to learn about the business, labor, and culture of local jazz.Colter Harper, a musician and scholar, has authored a history of Pittsburgh jazz, Jazz in the Hill: Nightlife and Narratives of a Pittsburgh Neighborhood, that provides detailed stories about the evolution, development, economic impact, and artistic development of Pittsburgh jazz and the presence of national artists in the city. Harper concentrates on the Hill District, a neighborhood that borders the eastern part of the golden triangle extending from downtown east toward the Oakland community and the University of Pittsburgh. For decades the Hill District or “The Hill” was home to the largest population of African Americans in the city. Beginning in the early years of the 1900s, jazz grew in Pittsburgh parallel to the Great Migration’s swelling the Hill with Black migrants from the south. From 1900 to 1950 the Great Migration increased Pittsburgh’s African American population and jazz accompanied it as well. The Hill became the settlement for hundreds of migrants, which included some future or budding jazz artists. Harper gives a thorough background of jazz in Pittsburgh that includes riverboat musicians, and the establishment of early (1900 to 1920s) speakeasies and clubs called, “Black and Tan Clubs.”Presented in three parts, Jazz in the Hill dissects the community’s growth and development with Black musical culture and spans out into the economic and political life of the community. In Part I, a section he calls, “Dangerous Ground,” Harper reconstructs the evolution of the black and tan clubs and presents central figures in the foundation of independent businesses like Harry Collins, a club owner and sports sponsor between the years 1920 and 1934. Collins straddled the line between vice and legitimate club ownership, as the business of nightclub ownership was often supplemented with vice. Another aspect of the Paramount Inn and the Collins Club, two of his establishments, is they welcomed multiracial audiences. During a time of segregation both in the north and south, Collins was able to cater to a White clientele that helped make his establishments popular among people seeking nighttime entertainment. At the time, the Hill District was not a majority African American community but included Jews, Lebanese, Syrians, and Italians among its multiethnic makeup. In the early 1930s Gus Greenlee, the numbers racketeer and successor to Collins, opened the Crawford Grill and changed Pittsburgh jazz culture forever.Part II of the book is called “Pittsburgh Renaissance and Jazz’s Golden Age” and focuses on the years 1945–58. Harper in detail combs through oral history, newspaper, and archival records with a supplement of sociological studies to tell the story of jazz and its impact on Hill District life and culture. He covers the demise of Henry Collins and the rise of Gus Greenlee as nightclub proprietors. Greenlee’s “Crawford Grill #2” and Birdie Dunlap’s “Hurricane Club” are singled out as places that attracted national and local jazz acts to the Pittsburgh jazz scene. Dunlap was one of the few female club owners to make a success in this male-dominated business. Opened in 1953 after running a restaurant in prior years, Dunlap operated her popular spot until a fire destroyed it in 1970. She made the Hurricane Club an attraction for organ players and connoisseurs of the organ and introduced Pittsburgh to Jimmy Smith who was billed for a time as the musical attraction. While the Crawford Grill #1 had a crystal piano atop its bar, the Hurricane Club had an organ installed.Part III, “The Paradox of Progress: Jazz as Black Musical labor (1908–1977),” explores the history and culture of the Black membered musicians Local #471. The Hill District local was a musician’s union but also a cultural locale that held jam sessions with local and national musicians. It was, in a sense, a club that attracted after hours socializing for musicians. As a union it was impacted by the 1964 Civil Rights Act that called for the elimination of discrimination and segregation in labor unions. That meant Local 471 and the White Local 60 would have to merge. Local 60 had more members and a larger treasury and could dictate terms of the merger. Fearing racial denigration, 471 leaders resisted a merger at first but when forced by the national union headquarters to work out a merger, negotiations resulted in unfavorable terms. Eventually Local #471–60 would be organized with Black musicians taking a backseat to White local members leadership. Harper recognizes the labor issues’ intersection with civil rights.Part IV of the book, “Jazz and the Community Archive (1968–1977),” places Hill jazz in the middle of the post–MLK Jr. assassination as the community reaction ripped the landscape apart. The few Whites who continued to patronize Hill clubs were now disappearing as fires burned and national guards occupied the community. Harper describes the jazz scene in the wake of 1968 and efforts to archive and capture the memories of jazz musicians, club owners, and connoisseurs.Harper’s book provides one of the first major studies of Pittsburgh Jazz that goes beyond the previous academic studies, theses, or dissertations on the subject. Harper shows how jazz sparked the development of a self-determined African American community. Jazz paralleled and at times intersected social events such as the destruction of the lower Hill in the 1950s, the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968. Overall, Jazz in the Hill is a great study of America’s classical music in Pittsburgh.