Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
(Photo: Paul Wellman)Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he heard someone banging on his front door. “Our neighbor…
The cover image of DownBeat’s Sept. 7, 1978, issue, which featured in-depth coverage of President Jimmy Carter’s jazz picnic party on the White House’s South Lawn. The historic gathering honored and was honored by a history of jazz that embraced everything from ragtime through the avant garde.
(Photo: DownBeat Archives)Jan 2, 2025 1:04 AM
The following speech by President Jimmy Carter kicked off the jazz festivities he and the First Lady hosted on the South Lawn of the White House on June 18:
“You are welcome to the first White House jazz festival. I hope we have some more in the future. This is an honor for me — to walk through this crowd and meet famous jazz musicians and the families of those who are no longer with us, but whose work and whose spirit and whose beautiful music will live forever in our country.
“If there ever was an indigenous art form, one that is special…
