Thursday Night Jazz: Colter Harper’s “Jazz in the Hill”

Renowned ethnomusicologist performs a concert inspired by the jazz scene in Pittsburgh’s Hill District.

From the 1920s through the 1960s, Pittsburgh’s Hill District was the heart of the city’s Black cultural life and home to a vibrant jazz scene. This performance pays homage to this era in the Hill, brought to life by musician and ethnomusicologist Colter Harper. In his book Jazz in the Hill: Nightlife and Narratives of a Pittsburgh Neighborhood, Colter explores how jazz shaped the neighborhood and created a way of life. Beyond backdrops for remarkable careers, jazz clubs sparked the development of a self-determined African American community. In delving into the history of entrepreneurialism, placemaking, labor organizing, and critical listening in the Hill District, Harper forges connections to larger political contexts, processes of urban development, and civil rights struggles.

You can purchase your own copy and learn more about Colter’s book, Jazz in the Hill, at City of Asylum Bookstore.

Featured Musicians:

Colter Harper: guitar

Curtis Lovell: vocals

Denzel Chismar-Oliver: bass

James Johnson III: drums

Cliff Barnes: piano

About the Artist:

Colter Harper is an ethnomusicologist and musician whose creative and scholarly work explores jazz, American nightlife, and the music of West Africa. Harper served as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Ghana from 2018 to 2020 and has performed as a guitarist, including with the rock band Rusted Root. He is currently a teaching assistant professor in the Department of Music at the University at Buffalo.