Jackson Street After Hours: The Roots of Jazz in Seattle

About this event

From 1912 to 1961, Seattle’s Jackson Street pulsated around the clock with the lively rhythms, energetic harmonies, and inimitable melodies of jazz. This creative atmosphere launched the careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, and Ernestine Anderson, as well as Bumps Blackwell, who produced Little Richard’s first hit records. Some of the era’s great touring musicians played the city as well, including Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker, and many of them sat in on the music-making sessions that took place in the after-hours spots and bottle clubs. In 1948 two dozen nightclubs lined Jackson Street, overflowing with jazz music, dancing patrons, and bootleg liquor. In Jackson Street After Hours (University of Washington Press, October 2026), author and jazz critic Paul de Barros draws on oral histories and interviews with more than eighty musicians as well as Black newspapers and archival sources to reconstruct a world of nightclubs, speakeasies, and jam sessions. The story unfolds against the social realities that shaped Seattle’s jazz culture: racially segregated musicians’ unions, the effects of Prohibition, and a city government whose corruption allowed an underground nightlife to flourish. In this distinctive environment, Black musicians forged a thriving musical culture largely ignored by the mainstream press. Fully updated throughout, the second edition features information that has come to light since the first edition was published in 1993, as well newly discovered archival photographs, maps of key sites, and an expanded discography. Paul de Barros has written about jazz for DownBeat and The Seattle Times since 1982. His work has also appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Los Angeles Times. In 2025, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jazz Journalists Association. This event will take place at the Main library on the second floor in the mixing chamber

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