John Gennari on "The Jazz Barn" at the Ford Hall Forum

Join us for an evening of conversation and jazz as we welcome acclaimed author and historian John Gennari, who will discuss his new book, The Jazz Barn: Music Inn, The Berkshires, and Place of Jazz in American Life. Gennari will be joined in conversation by Neil Leonard, professor and Artistic Director of the Berklee Interdisciplinary Arts Institute, Berklee College of Music.

Rachel Ambaye, a Boston-based jazz vocalist, composer, and recording artist, will perform during the program.

This event is presented by Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University and Brandeis University Press Second Annual Book Festival.

This event is free, hybrid, and open to the public. Registration is required.

Register here to attend in person

Register here to attend via Zoom

The Jazz Barn explores the cultural significance of venues like the Berkshire Music Barn and later the Lenox School of Jazz to tell a surprising story about race, culture, and place. John Gennari explores how a predominantly white New England town became a haven for African American musicians and reveals the Berkshires as an important incubator not just of American literature and classical music but also of the Modern Jazz Quartet and Ornette Coleman’s “new thing.” The Berkshire Music Barn became a crucial space for the mainstreaming of jazz. Richly illustrated with the photographs of Clemens Kalischer, among others, The Jazz Barn demonstrates that the locations where jazz is played and heard indelibly shape the music and its meanings.

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