Marcus Shelby Trio: Celebrating Jazz At The Blackhawk at Tenderloin Museum

In collaboration with the Tenderloin Museum, Jazz in the Neighborhood commemorates jazz at the Blackhawk nightclub with a performance by Marcus Shelby, bass; Dillon Vado, vibes; and Ila Cantor, guitar. Opening the program with be the youth jazz band from Community Music Center.

Marcus Shelby is a bandleader, composer, arranger, bassist, educator, and activist, who has been a supporter of Jazz in the Neighborhood since its inception. Over the past 25 years his work and music has focused on sharing the history, present, and future of African American lives; on social movements in the United States of America; and on early childhood music education. Shelby is currently a member of the San Francisco Arts Commission where he serves on the Community Arts Grants and Education Committee and the Street Artists Committee. His recent work includes "Beyond the Blues: A Prison Oratorio,” an original composition for big band orchestra, commission by the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, which premiered in 2015....

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In collaboration with the Tenderloin Museum, Jazz in the Neighborhood commemorates jazz at the Blackhawk nightclub with a performance by Marcus Shelby, bass; Dillon Vado, vibes; and Ila Cantor, guitar. Opening the program with be the youth jazz band from Community Music Center.

Marcus Shelby is a bandleader, composer, arranger, bassist, educator, and activist, who has been a supporter of Jazz in the Neighborhood since its inception. Over the past 25 years his work and music has focused on sharing the history, present, and future of African American lives; on social movements in the United States of America; and on early childhood music education. Shelby is currently a member of the San Francisco Arts Commission where he serves on the Community Arts Grants and Education Committee and the Street Artists Committee. His recent work includes "Beyond the Blues: A Prison Oratorio,” an original composition for big band orchestra, commission by the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, which premiered in 2015.

The Blackhawk Jazz Club, at the corner of Hyde and Turk Streets in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood, hosted the world’s best jazz musicians from 1950—1963. The club’s legacy lives on in recordings made there by Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Cal Tjader, Thelonious Monk, Ahmad Jamal, and others. Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Count Basie, the Modern Jazz Quartet are other legends who played on its stage.

In later years the Blackhawk accommodated its underage patrons in a special section behind chicken wire. The Tenderloin Museum features an exhibit about these “caged teens.” In the late 1950s during a Tenderloin “moral panic”, the police raided the club decrying underage attendance. Splashy newspaper
headlines eventually receded, but unable to afford rising artist fees, the Blackhawk shuttered its doors in 1963. Legendary saxophonist John Handy was the last headliner to play the Blackhawk's final concert in late 1962.

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