Welcome to the Music Gallery!

We invite you to step behind the curtain and discover the hidden world of jazz. With our theme, “Backstage Pass,” you’ll get an exclusive glimpse into the intimate moments, creative processes, and untold stories that bring the music we love to life.

Most of us only experience music as listeners, rarely seeing what happens behind the scenes. Here, you’ll have the chance to explore the human side of jazz and even try out instruments and equipment you might never have touched or seen before!

We’re not a museum—we’re passionate music lovers, excited to share our discoveries with you.

A big thank you to all our partners, suppliers, donors, and friends who helped make this project possible.

Enjoy the experience! 🙂 

 

Bibliography 

THE DOUBLEBASS: HISTORY AND CONTEMPORANEITY – Igor Socican

CREATIVE FLOW AS OPTIMIZED PROCESSING: EVIDENCE FROM BRAIN OSCILLATIONS DURING JAZZ IMPROVISATIONS BY EXPERT AND NON-EXPERT MUSICIAN – David Rosen, Yongtaek Oh, Christine Chesebrough, Fengqing (Zoe) Zhang, John Kounios

IMPROVISATION AND CREATIVITY IN PROFESSIONAL JAZZ MUSICIANS – Neuroscience

CREATIVITY AND FLOW IN MUSICAL COMPOSITION: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION – Raymond Macdonald, Charles Byrne, Lana Carlton

BEYOND JAMMING: A HISTORICAL AND ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE CREATIVE PROCESS – Monika Herzig, David Baker

JAZZ IMPROVISATION AS A MODEL OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS: HEIGHTENED PERCEPTUAL AWARENESS AND SENSITIVITY – Psyche Loui, Emily Przysinda, Pheeroan Aklaff, Kellyn Maves, Cameron Arkin, Tima Zeng

HISTORY OF THE CYLINDER PHONOGRAPH – Library of Congress

THE VIBRATING WORLD OF JAZZ AND ITS RECEPTION IN ART – Singulart Magazine

JOHN COLTRANE DRAWS A PICTURE ILLUSTRATING THE MATHEMATICS OF MUSIC – Open Culture

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS: HOW FIBONACCI TAUGHT US HOW TO SWING – Vijay Iyer

THE EFFECT OF THE STRUCTURE OF JAZZ MUSIC ON ANXIETY – Kevin Buck, Joseph Punske, Hriman Shah,

1920-1929: THE FOOD DECADE THAT ROARED – Daniel Neman

JAZZ – Scott Deveaux and Gary Giddins

 

REPREZENTĂRI ALE RAPORTULUI SECȚIUNII DE AUR ÎN MUZICĂ – Lect. Univ. Dr. Octavian Denis Velescu

 

CELEBRATING JAZZ. HYBRIDIZING THE JAZZ IDENTITY IN PERFORMANCE AND LITERATURE – Nicola Crane

PROHIBITION AND THE RISE OF JAZZ, PART ONE – Peter Gerler

THE SPEAKEASIES OF THE 1920S – Prohibition: An Interactive History

THE MYSTERIOUS ORIGINS OF JAZZ – Christian Blauvelt

GEORGE GERSHWIN’S ‘RHAPSODY IN BLUE’ IS A STORY OF JAZZ, RACE AND THE FRAUGHT NOTION OF AMERICA’S MELTING POT – Ryan Raul Bañagale

KIND OF BLUE: HOW MILES DAVIS MADE THE GREATEST JAZZ ALBUM IN HISTORY – Stuart Nicholson

WHY MILES DAVIS’S „KIND OF BLUE” IS SO BELOVED – Eric Schewe

MUSICAL CREATIVITY AND THE BRAIN – Mónica López-González, Ph.D. and Charles J. Limb, M.D (National Institute for Health).

BRAIN SCANS OF PHILLY JAZZ MUSICIANS REVEAL SECRETS TO REACHING CREATIVE FLOW – John Kounios, Yvette Kounios

BEHIND THE MUSIC: AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT THE CREATIVE PROCESS – William Douvris

„THINGS AIN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE”: BUSINESS SUBFIELDS BENEFITTING FROM JAZZ TO FOSTER CREATIVITY – Arvi Kuura

WHERE IN THE BRAIN DOES CREATIVITY COME FROM? EVIDENCE FROM JAZZ MUSICIANS – Drexel University

JAZZ ART: FLOW PSYCHOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL CREATIVE PROCESS – Isabelle Zoch

JAZZ IMPROVISATION AS A MODEL OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS: Heightened Perceptual Awareness and Sensitivity – P. Loui, Emily Przysinda

INNER SPARK: USING MUSIC TO STUDY CREATIVITY – Scientific American

BRAIN SCANS OF JAZZ MUSICIANS REVEAL HOW TO REACH A CREATIVE ‘FLOW STATE’ – Scientific American

THE CREATIVE PROCESS IN THE CONTEXT OF JAZZ JAM SESSIONS – Ricardo Nuno Futre Pinheiro

HOMER: THE FIRST JAZZ MUSICIAN? – Howard Peacock

 

In Jazz… …in the world 
1800s
  • Tommy Turpin, the pianist, writes Harlem Rag, first well known ragtime composition.
  • Duke Ellington is born.

Slavery is abolished in the United States by the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The first subway system in the U.S. begins operating in Boston.

The cinema is born.

General Electric is founded.

1900s

Louis Armstrong is born.

Pianist Jelly Roll Morton claims that he invented jazz.

The popularity of ragtime continues to grow among both Black and white people, leading to increased public interaction between races.

The first exhibition of painter Pablo Picasso takes place in Paris.

Cuba gains independence from the United States.

The ice cream cone is invented.

Alcohol is banned in North Carolina and Georgia.

Robert Peary reaches the North Pole.

1910s

The word “jazz” appears for the first time in print.

Vocalist Billie Holiday is born.

Irving Berlin records Alexander’s Ragtime Band, which becomes a hit but is scorned by genre purists.

The classic ragtime era comes to an end.

Tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins goes on tour with blues singer Mamie Smith and begins to develop a unique playing style.

Marie Curie isolates radium.

Amundsen reaches the South Pole.

The Titanic sinks.

World War I begins in Europe.

A flu epidemic kills approximately 20 million people worldwide.

Physicist Ernest Rutherford, known as the father of nuclear physics, discovers a way to split an atom. This is the first experiment in nuclear transmutation, transforming one chemical element into another.

1920s

The city of Zion, Illinois, bans jazz performances, labeling them as “sinful.”
Race records are created, which market and categorize music based on the race of the performers.
George Gershwin debuts Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman’s orchestra.
John Coltrane and Miles Davis are born.
Billie Holiday records the song “Strange Fruit,” with controversial lyrics addressing the lynching of Black people, leading to its ban on several radio stations.

Russia is denied entry into the League of Nations.

The tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun is discovered.

The Tokyo earthquake claims the lives of 100,000 people.

The Ku Klux Klan marches in Washington, D.C.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, leader of the communist revolution, dies.

The first television is introduced.

The American stock market crashes.

The painter Claude Monet passes away.

Japanese troops invade China.

Yugoslavia is formed under the rule of King Alexander.

1930s

Ornette Coleman, the saxophonist who introduced the free jazz style, is born.

Pianist Lil Hardin separates from her husband, Louis Armstrong, and forms an all-women band.

Duke Ellington composes the music for the Marx Brothers’ film “A Day at the Races.”

Duke Ellington records It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing), the first jazz composition to feature swing in its title.

George Gershwin dies of a brain tumor.

Cornetist King Oliver dies after years of poverty, having worked as a janitor at a pool hall.

Pluto is discovered.

Japan invades Manchuria.

John Cockcroft, working in nuclear physics, becomes the first to successfully split an atom in a fully controlled manner. This work, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1951, was also one of the first experiments to verify Einstein’s E=mc² theory.

The first photographs of the Loch Ness Monster are published in the British newspaper Daily Mail.

Criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are shot and killed.

The electric guitar is invented.

Actor Orson Welles broadcasts War of the Worlds, a science fiction radio drama about a Martian invasion, causing nationwide panic.

World War II breaks out in Europe.

1940s

Clarinetist Sidney Bechet plays five different instruments on The Sheik of Araby and four on Blues of Bechet, using some of the earliest overdubbing techniques.

Singer Sarah Vaughan, at age 18, wins a talent contest at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

Trumpeter Miles Davis arrives in New York to study at the Juilliard School of Music but drops out shortly after. He complains about the school’s classical/European focus and decides he can learn more from Parker, Gillespie, and the New York jazz scene.

Dizzy Gillespie records Be-Bop.

Billie Holiday is convicted of heroin possession.

Columbia Records releases the first long-playing vinyl records.

The Soviet Union attacks Finland.

Germany invades Norway and Denmark.

Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

The jitterbug dance becomes popular in the United States.

The U.S. drops atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The bikini is introduced.

South Africa institutes the apartheid system.

The first passenger jet flight is completed.

1950s

The New York police revoke Thelonious Monk’s cabaret card after he refuses to testify against Bud Powell during a drug trafficking arrest. Losing this card severely limits his ability to find work in New York, as the card is required to perform in any venue serving alcohol.

Benny Goodman’s band tours with Louis Armstrong’s All Stars, eventually leading to a dispute that results in Goodman suffering a nervous breakdown.

The first American jazz festival is held in Newport, Rhode Island, organized by George Wein.

Charlie Parker dies. The coroner conducting the autopsy mistakenly estimates Parker’s body, at only 34 years old, to be between 50 and 60 years old.

The Soviet Union declares its nuclear arsenal, and NATO is formed.

Queen Elizabeth II is crowned in London.

The United States tests the hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll.

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) goes on sale in the U.S.

Singer Elvis Presley releases the song “Heartbreak Hotel.”

The U.S.S.R. launches the first satellite, Sputnik.

1960s

Trumpeter Miles Davis records Sketches of Spain, incorporating elements of flamenco music, and later embarks on a tour in Europe.

Down Beat magazine publishes multiple articles attacking Ornette Coleman’s music and the contemporary free jazz of John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy.

John Coltrane records A Love Supreme, which sells hundreds of thousands of copies.

Duke Ellington receives the Gold Medal from the President of the United States.

The first Montreux Jazz Festival is held in Switzerland.

Avant-garde saxophonist Anthony Braxton, a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in Chicago, records For Alto Saxophone and Three Compositions of New Jazz.

Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to set foot on the Moon.

The Woodstock pop music festival takes place in New York.

Richard M. Nixon becomes President.

Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated.

The U.S.S.R. invades Czechoslovakia.

Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy is assassinated.

The first heart transplant surgery is performed.

The Star Trek series premieres on television.

Political activist Malcolm X is assassinated.

South African political activist Nelson Mandela begins his life sentence.

France and Britain agree to build a tunnel under the English Channel, linking the two countries.

Twelve-year-old Stevie Wonder releases his debut album.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated.

Actress Marilyn Monroe dies.

The Cuban Missile Crisis occurs.

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space.

The Berlin Wall is completed.

Writer Albert Camus is killed in a car accident.

John F. Kennedy is elected President of the United States.

The first laser beam is demonstrated.

1970s

Pianist Chick Corea records The Song of Singing, a successful experiment with atonal jazz.

Trumpeter Louis Armstrong passes away.

The Mahavishnu Orchestra records Birds of Fire and Love Devotion Surrender.

Duke Ellington dies of pneumonia and lung cancer.

Miles Davis performs in Japan, New York, and at the Newport Festival before retiring.

Pianist Thelonious Monk gives his final performance at the Newport Jazz Festival.

President Jimmy Carter hosts a jazz concert at the White House in honor of bassist and composer Charles Mingus.

Dizzy Gillespie publishes his book To Be or Not to Bop.

Turkish forces invade Cyprus.

President Richard Nixon resigns.

Gerald Ford becomes president.

The Khmer Rouge takes control of Cambodia.

North Vietnam invades South Vietnam.

Director Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is released.

Punk rock rises in popularity in the United Kingdom.

Singer Elvis Presley passes away.

George Lucas’s Star Wars is released.

Jimmy Carter becomes president.

Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is released.

The nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island occurs.

The first Sony Walkman is introduced.

1980s

Trumpeter Miles Davis retires from his career and records The Man with the Horn, an album with funk and rock influences.

Pianist Thelonious Monk passes away.

In memory of the jazz legend, the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz is founded to promote jazz education and awareness.

Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis makes history by winning a Grammy Award for both jazz and classical music in the same year.

Keyboardist Herbie Hancock’s synthesized dance hit “Rockit” tops the pop charts.

Pianist Chick Corea reaches a new audience with his Elektrik Band, featuring bassist John Patitucci and drummer Dave Weckl.

Trumpeter Chet Baker dies under mysterious circumstances in Amsterdam.

Actor Clint Eastwood directs Bird, a biographical drama about the life of Charlie Parker.

Nineteen-year-old trumpeter Roy Hargrove records “Diamond in the Rough.”

Former Beatles member John Lennon is assassinated in New York.

Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer.

President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, is assassinated.

Former actor Ronald Reagan becomes President of the United States.

The AIDS epidemic begins.

Filmmaker Richard Attenborough wins eight Academy Awards for the movie Gandhi.

Director Steven Spielberg wins three Academy Awards for E.T.

The first compact discs are marketed.

Vanessa Williams becomes the first African-American Miss America.

Apple Computers launches the first Macintosh.

A new, sweeter Coca-Cola is introduced but quickly reverts to the original formula due to poor sales.

Artist Andy Warhol passes away.

President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sign the first nuclear arms reduction treaty.

The antidepressant Prozac is launched.

Artist Salvador Dali passes away.

The Berlin Wall opens.

Writer Salman Rushdie is sentenced to death in Iran for his novel The Satanic Verses.

1990s

Vocalist Sarah Vaughan passes away.

Miles Davis performs at the Montreux Jazz Festival alongside Quincy Jones, playing early works with arranger Gil Evans.

Miles Davis dies in California.

The hip-hop group US3 achieves great success with a track sampling Herbie Hancock’s Cantaloupe Island.

Chick Corea’s Elektrik Band is denied permission to perform in Germany due to Corea’s association with the controversial Church of Scientology.

Wayne Shorter wins a Grammy Award for his electric jazz album High Life.

A $27 million jazz museum opens in Kansas City.

The Soviet Union collapses.

South African Prime Minister F.W. de Klerk and political activist Nelson Mandela are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Bill Clinton becomes president.

Former football star O.J. Simpson is tried for murder.

The federal building in Oklahoma City is bombed.

A bomb is detonated at the Atlanta Olympics.

Former Princess of Wales, Lady Diana, dies in a car crash in Paris.

The first successful cloning occurs (the sheep Dolly).

The internet search engine Google is founded.

2000s

A new music genre related to jazz, “jam bands,” grows in popularity.

The renowned Juilliard School establishes a jazz studies program.

Norah Jones, a Blue Note recording artist, wins 8 Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.

Louis Armstrong’s house in Queens, New York, opens as a jazz museum, educational resource, and historical landmark.

A new development in jazz, “jazztronica” (combining 1980s fusion-era grooves and studio electronics with improvisation), emerges on the scene.

Harry Connick Jr., Wynton Marsalis, and others from New Orleans organize telethons and concerts to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina; despite dark times, jazz continues to thrive in New Orleans.

Ornette Coleman wins a Pulitzer Prize for the album Sound Grammar.

Jazz musician Duke Ellington becomes the first African American prominently featured on an American coin with the release of a quarter in honor of the District of Columbia.

George W. Bush becomes president.

The World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. are struck by hijacked planes in the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil; over 3,000 people are killed.

Apple Computer launches the iPod.

The word “google” becomes a verb, and the American Dialect Society selects it as the “most useful word of the year” for 2002.

The Space Shuttle Columbia explodes upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts on board.

Apple Computer launches the iTunes media player and online music service.

Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein is captured in Tikrit by the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division.

Hurricane Katrina causes catastrophic damage in Mississippi and Louisiana; 80% of New Orleans is flooded, and over 1,400 people die.

Google purchases YouTube for $1.65 billion.

The Blu-Ray disc, Nintendo Wii, and PlayStation 3 are released in the U.S.

The iPhone is introduced to the public.

Russia is once again recognized as a full-fledged superpower by the U.S.

Barack Obama is elected as the 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African-American president.

The H1N1 flu strain, commonly known as “swine flu,” is declared a global pandemic, the first to receive this designation since the Hong Kong flu of 1967-1968.

U.S. Airways Flight 1549 makes an emergency landing in the Hudson River. All 150 passengers and 5 crew members survive.

The death of American artist Michael Jackson triggers a global wave of mourning.

2010s

International Jazz Day is established by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role in uniting people from all corners of the world.

Bassist Esperanza Spalding wins the GRAMMY Award for Best New Artist for her 2010 album “Chamber Music Society,” becoming the first and only jazz artist to receive this distinction.

The Turin Jazz Festival celebrates its inaugural edition.

UNESCO names Danilo Pérez as an Artist for Peace, recognizing his efforts to provide music education programs for underprivileged children in his native Panama.

Melissa Aldana becomes the first female instrumentalist to win the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Competition at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Ornette Coleman, a free jazz innovator and Pulitzer Prize laureate, dies at the age of 85.

The Montreux Jazz Festival celebrates its 50th edition.

English rock icon David Bowie releases his 25th and final studio album, “Blackstar,” with strong jazz influences and an accompanying band featuring jazz musicians Donnie McCaslin (saxophone), Jason Lindner (piano), Tim Lefebvre (bass), Mark Guiliana (drums), and Ben Monder (guitar).

Approximately two billion people watch the wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London.

U.S. Navy Seals capture terrorist Osama Bin Laden.

Washington and Colorado legalize marijuana.

The cruise ship Costa Concordia, under the Italian flag, sinks off the coast of Tuscany, causing 32 deaths and one of the largest maritime rescue operations in history.

The privatization of space begins.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturns the Defense of Marriage Act, paving the way for federal recognition of same-sex marriages in the United States.

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University describe the first production of human embryonic stem cells through cloning in the scientific journal “Nature.”

Michael Brown, an African American, is shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri, sparking widespread protests.

American computer scientist Alan Eustace sets a world record for the highest and longest freefall from 41.425 km (135,908 feet) above Roswell, New Mexico, USA, breaking the sound barrier without the aid of any machine.

SpaceX, a private space exploration company, launches a Falcon 9 rocket without a human crew, becoming the first reusable rocket to successfully reach orbital space and return to Earth.

Donald J. Trump is elected as the 45th President of the United States.

The United Kingdom votes to leave the European Union in a referendum, initiating the contentious political process of “Brexit.”

Montenegro joins NATO, becoming the 29th member of the organization.

North Korea successfully tests its first intercontinental ballistic missile.

The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle draws a global audience of nearly two billion viewers.

Saudi Arabia grants women the right to drive..

2020s

The ninth edition of International Jazz Day is celebrated worldwide, and the Herbie Hancock Institute’s annual All-Star Global Jazz Concert is presented virtually for the first time due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jazz clubs around the world close (many of them never reopening), and jazz festivals are canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jazz musicians turn to live-streamed concerts and online lessons as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Drummer Terri Lyne Carrington is named Jazz Artist of the Year by Down Beat magazine, becoming the first female instrumentalist to receive this distinction.

Legendary jazz pianist, jazz fusion innovator, and 27-time GRAMMY Award winner Chick Corea passes away from cancer.

Jazz saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter premieres his new opera Iphigenia, with Esperanza Spalding in the lead role.

The COVID-19 pandemic causes over two million deaths worldwide, along with an economic recession.

George Floyd, an African American, is killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, United States, sparking violent global protests against racism.

The COVID-19 pandemic halts the Summer Olympics and other sporting events.

Antarctica records its highest temperature ever.

Joe Biden is elected President of the United States, while Kamala Harris becomes the first woman and person of color to serve as Vice President of the United States.

The Taliban take control of Afghanistan following the withdrawal of American forces, bringing an end to the decades-long war in Afghanistan.

The global death toll from COVID-19 surpasses five million.