With Tab Jams season coming up in June, we think about music. Jazz music in particular. You might be surprised to learn that while our current church building was opening its doors 100 years ago, there was another summer tradition in Indianapolis which our collective history leaves out. Jazz music created and performed by Black citizens engulfed the streets on Indiana Avenue from Ohio Street to Lockefield Gardens as heavily as Midwestern humidity. Indiana Avenue was the cultural, economic, and social hub for African-Americans in the first half of the 20th century. With segregation, Jim Crow, and the Governor of Indiana (Edward L. Jackson) openly affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, this was the only place these creative geniuses could play in the city.
Indiana University professor David Baker (1931-2016), an internationally known composer, musician, and jazz educator is one of the many jazz luminaries who graduated from Crispus Attucks High School. An all-black public high school with a location and music program that further fueled the musical and cultural boom along “The Avenue,” Crispus Attucks gave Baker access to an extraordinary training ground. Still, he encountered obstacles: Baker tried out for the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and was told explicitly that he had the best audition but there was “no chance” he would become a member. Like other Black musicians of his time, he turned to jazz. “People can only excel when they are given an opportunity,” he said, “and the only opportunity for a black musician in the early to mid-twentieth century was religious, jazz, or R&B music.”
While this article could highlight countless talented Black musicians from Indianapolis, we felt it was important to recognize the common thread that runs through our summer traditions: Back in the day and again today, music can bring us together.
Perhaps if we see someone new, or someone who doesn’t look like us at Tab Jams, we will say “Hi” and find out what we have in common. Then as we sit and listen to the Black musicians and singers, we can remember that at one time this was not possible. At one time this was illegal. At one time self-proclaimed Christians supported segregating those made in the image of God. Let us rejoice as one Body of Christ and “Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; tell of all His wonderful works” (Psalm 105:2).
Photo: The Duke Hampton family band playing in a club along Indiana Avenue. Copyright 2005 Indiana Historical Society