Declaring April 2026 as Jazz Appreciation Month in the City of Philadelphia and celebrating the City’s extraordinary jazz legacy. WHEREAS, Jazz is a uniquely American art form, born from the depth of the African American experience, that has shaped the cultural, social, and political life of the United States and continues to move people, spark creativity, and bring communities together across generations; and WHEREAS, The City of Philadelphia has played a central and enduring role in the development and evolution of jazz, producing and nurturing some of the most influential and transformative musicians in the history of the genre, including John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Morgan, Jimmy Smith, the Heath Brothers, and Grover Washington Jr.; and WHEREAS, Philadelphia has also been home to extraordinary women in jazz whose artistry and vision helped define what jazz could be, including Nina Simone, Billy Holiday, Dottie Smith, Shirley Scott, Trudy Pitts, and Dinah Washington; and WHEREAS, The story of jazz in Philadelphia is inseparable from the struggle for justice, for racial equity, for workers' rights, and for dignity in the workplace. At the heart of that struggle stood the Musicians' Protective Union Local 274, chartered in 1935 as a Black musicians' union during an era of segregation, which fought to ensure that African American artists had representation, respect, and a fair living at a time when so many institutions refused to offer any of those things; and WHEREAS,…
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