Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
MUSIC PILGRIMAGES
The CD and its affiliated neighborhoods are of sketchy interest to regular city
sightseers, but, to music geeks, the chance to walk in the hallowed footsteps of
some of Seattle's (and the world's) erstwhile musical legends carries a poignant
allure.
Ray Charles & Quincy Jones
It's hard to envision today, but, in the late 1940s, Seattle possessed one of the
most fervent jazz scenes in the nation. Much of the nocturnal action was
centered on S Jackson St in today's International District, which hosted in excess
of 30 clubs belting out bebop. But, with many of Seattle's jazz musicians claiming
African American roots, the CD proper also had its fair share of sleazy bars.
The fertile West Coast music scene soon began attracting untested new talent.
Lured to Seattle because it was the most distant city from his native Florida, the
then unknown Ray Charles arrived in town in 1948 aged just 17. Describing the
city's music scene as 'really open and smokin',' he took up residence on 20th Ave
and hung around the still segregated jazz clubs, where he made the acquaintance
of a precocious 15-year-old trumpet player named Quincy Jones.
Though born in Chicago, Jones had arrived in the Seattle area with his family as
a young boy. Educated at Garfield High School in the CD (the school now has a
Quincy Jones Performance Center named in his honor), he lived for a while on
22nd Ave and, despite grinding poverty, soon graduated to playing hot local jazz
venues such as the legendary Washington Social Club on 23rd Ave and E Madis-
on St, and the E Madison YMCA just up the road, where Charles, Jones and Afric-
an American singer Ernestine Anderson once allegedly played on the same set
(oh, to have been there!). The Social Club is now an astrologer's shop, but the Y is
still around and continues to host the odd low-key jazz show. Charles and Jones
ultimately left Seattle and went on to achieve almost unimaginable musical suc-
cess elsewhere (Quincy Jones produced the greatest-selling record of all time,
Michael Jackson'sThriller), but they never forgot the city that had inspired them
long before the advent of Hendrix and grunge.
Jimi Hendrix
Born in the suburb of Renton in 1942, but forever linked to the music scene of
swinging London, Jimi Hendrix's association with Seattle was ephemeral and
curiously under-appreciated, at least until after his death. For a brief period when
Jimi was between the ages of 10 and 13 the cash-strapped Hendrix family lived at
