The Queens Jazz Trail
The following information is from the printed Queens Jazz Trail Map, written by Marc H. Miller and updated in 2022 by Ben Young.
The history of jazz is associated with many cities, districts, and streets. There is New Orleans (Storyville and Basin Street); Memphis (Beale Street); the Southside of Chicago; 18th and Vine in Kansas City; and several spots near here in New York City: Harlem, 52nd street, Greenwich Village, and many others. Conspicuously absent in most accounts of jazz history is New York City’s borough of Queens, despite its many links to the music. Since the 1920s, Queens has been the home of jazz—the residence of choice for hundreds of jazz musicians, including such stars as Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dizzy Gillespie. The QUEENS JAZZ TRAIL©, a project of Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts dba Flushing Town Hall, aims to shed light on this neglected history. The project is built around a map showing addresses of major musicians who lived in Queens, and includes addresses and locations updated in 2023.
Queens’ role as a jazz center began in 1923 when music magnate Clarence Williams and his wife, singer Eva Taylor, purchased a home and eight adjoining lots along 108th avenue in Jamaica, which was then quite rural. Williams had been born and raised in the Louisiana delta, and he preferred living in the country to the city. Similar views were held by other African-American musicians, many of whom were also from the South. Soon the open spaces of Jamaica, St. Albans, Hollis, and neighboring towns were home for other musicians like piano player James P. Johnson, composer Perry Bradford, and bandleader Fess Williams. As jazz continued to grow in popularity, more and more musicians could afford to purchase homes in the borough. For one example, the small community of Addisleigh Park in St. Albans must have seemed like a living music Hall of Fame in the 1940s and 1950s. Its long list of famous residents included Fats Waller, Count Basie, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Mercer Ellington, Bill Kenny of the Ink Spots, and (later) the soul singer James Brown.
Jazz played a role in almost every community of Queens. In 1931 Sunnyside was site of the death of Bix Beiderbecke, the troubled luminary of the cornet. (Some years before, he also had been in rehab nearby in Astoria.) Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and Woody Herman—pivotal leaders of swing-era big bands—lived in the new apartment buildings of Jackson Heights. Red Nichols and Red Norvo had houses in Forest Hills. Encouraged by his new wife Lucille, who had spent her teenage years in Queens, Louis Armstrong purchased a home in Corona in 1943. Billie Holiday moved to Queens at the end of the 1940s, living first in a house in Addisleigh Park, and later in a modest second floor apartment in the new Parsons Gardens development in Flushing. Dizzy Gillespie also lived in Parsons Gardens as he saved the money to buy a large brick building in Corona, less than three blocks from Armstrong. Although the press often made much of the rivalry between Satchmo and Diz, the two trumpet players were in fact neighbors and friends. Even in death the two jazz greats would remain connected in Queens; both are buried in Flushing Cemetery.
Now, as musicians of a new generation move into Queens, they join a living legacy. The Louis Armstrong House Museum has become an essential hub of jazz scholarship, and a major attraction in the borough. Numerous Queens institutions now strive to keep the borough’s jazz tradition alive. York College houses The Black American Heritage Foundation, which Buck Clayton and other local jazz greats contributed to. Flushing Town Hall stages jazz concerts, classes, and exhibitions on the music. Jazz can be heard at other venues as well.
While there has never been a tune called “Take the F Train,” the QUEENS JAZZ TRAIL© shows that many musicians could have ridden that subway line home. For them, and for the musicians who took the J Train, the Long Island Railroad, or drove across the Queensborough Bridge, Queens really was THE HOME OF JAZZ.
Acknowledgements
The QUEENS JAZZ TRAIL© is a program of Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts dba Flushing Town Hall (FTH). The mission of FTH is to present multi-disciplinary global arts that engage and educate the global communities of Queens, New York and New York City, New York. FTH is a Smithsonian Affiliate, and as a member of New York City’s Cultural Institutions Group (CIG), FTH stewards Flushing Town Hall, restoring, managing, and programming the historic 1862 landmark. FTH, under the leadership of Board President Veronica Tsang and Executive & Artistic Director Ellen Kodadek, receives major support from: the National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; New York State Assembly Member Ron Kim; The City of New York; The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Commissioner Laurie Cumbo; Queens Borough President Donovan Richards; The New York City Council; Howard Gilman Foundation, Guru Krupa Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation.
We would like to thank and honor those who were part of the original Queens Jazz Trail Map creation, many in memoriam: Committee Executive and Creative Director Jo-Ann Jones, David G. Berger, C. B. Bullard, Clyde Bullard, Michael Cogswell and the Louis Armstrong House and Archives, Bill Crow, Jodi Doherty, Don Donaldson, Jr., Mary Duka, Ernest Gillespie, Jr., Jeff Gottlieb, Jimmy Heath, Milt Hinton, Mona Hinton, Clarence Irving, Bill Jacobs, Phoebe Jacobs, Illinois Jacquet, Rhonda and Richard Jones, Coby Knight, Dr. Michael Kurtz, Marge Markey and the Queens Tourism Council, Ron Marzlock, Marc H. Miller, Terry Mohr, Dan Morgenstern, Nobuko Cobi Narita and the Universal Jazz Coalition, Gene Perla, Patrick J. Polisciano, Allen Pope, Jeff Saunders, Phil Schaap, Walter Schaap, Moe Wechsler, Estella Williams, and participating cultural organizations.
The original Map was directed by Marc H. Miller, illustrated by Tony Millionaire, and designed by Cindy Ho. The original Map was made possible by support from the Cultural Tourism Initiative, a project of the Arts and Business Council; the New York State Council on the Arts; The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, Inc., and Sam Ash Music Stores. Content was updated in 2023 by jazz historian Ben Young. This third edition update was made possible by support from New York State.