April is Jazz Appreciation Month

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History launched the fourth annual international Jazz Appreciation Month at a press ceremony on March 28 featuring Paquito D’Rivera, and the families of Mongo Santamaria, Chico O’Farrill, and Tito Puente. D’Rivera donated his first clarinet, his famous Panama hat, his white tuxedo, three music manuscripts, and a photograph taken with Dizzy Gillespie. Lupe O’Farrill donated the manuscripts to three of her late husband Chico O’Farrill’s most important compositions: The Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite, a milestone in Latin jazz, Aztec Suite, and Six Jazz Moods, along with the title page of Igor Stravinsky’s “Chant du Rossignol,” inscribed by Stravinsky to O’Farrill, and a photograph taken with Dizzy Gillespie. Nancy Anderson, daughter of Mongo Santamaria, donated his 1945 Cuban passport, a Grammy Award, a Gold Record, two pages of the score for his composition Afro Blue, his walking stick, two dashiki style shirts, several percussion instruments and one hundred-some photographs documenting his musical career. Tito Puente’s family donated a white sequined jacket, a passport, and several photographs, which will supplement earlier donations of Puente’s custom-made vibraphone and the timbales he played at the 1996 Olympics closing ceremonies.