Jazz

In his new book, The Miraculous Art of Jazz, Benjamin Franklin V, Distinguished Professor of English, Emeritus, at the University of South Carolina, has gathered reviews of hundreds of recordings written over his 40-year career as a jazz writer.In our conversation his love for jazz and blues shines through. And the reviews he has collected in his book are as vital and important as ever – for listeners new to Jazz as well as long-time listeners who want to take a deeper dive into the music.

Can you make a living in our state playing jazz? Let’s find out. Mike Switzer interviews Mark Rapp, founder and executive director of ColaJazz Foundation in Columbia, S.C.

Can you make a living in our state playing jazz? Let’s find out. Mike Switzer interviews Mark Rapp, founder and executive director of ColaJazz Foundation in Columbia, S.C.

Little is known about tuba player Pete Briggs, one of the earliest musicians from South Carolina to make a name for themselves.

Earnest Evans, born in the Spring Gully community of Georgetown, SC, is better known by his equally alliterative stage name: Chubby Checker.

Singer and guitarist Freddie 'Pepper' Green was born in Charleston, SC in 1911.

The Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes considered Charleston-born jazz and blues vocalist Bertha "Chippie" Hill to be one of the 12 greatest African American folk singers.

Trumpeter, impresario, writer, and jazz advocate and historian, Jack McCray, was a native of Charleston, SC.

Houston Person, the tenor sax master, was born in 1934 in Florence, SC.

A disabled Gullah beggar riding through old Charleston, SC, on a goat-drawn cart tries to save a beautiful and troubled young woman from thugs and pushers. That might sound like a strange idea for an opera, but that is the plot of "Porgy and Bess," perhaps the greatest American opera written.