Singers with the Chattanooga Gospel Orchestra perform at the Gospel Meets Jazz concert at Barking Legs Theater.BIG NINE JAZZ SERIES EVENTSSee a complete schedule at www.jazzanooga.org.• Today: Jazz on the Grass, featuring local musicians, 6 p.m. at Whiteside Park in front of Whiteside Manor on M.L. King Boulevard. People are encouraged to bring a blanket for seating while they take in the free concert.• Thursday: Jazz at Memo’s, featuring local musicians, 6 p.m. Music served up with a side of barbecue and chopped wieners at one of the city’s iconic eateries.• Friday: Downtown Jazz at Waterhouse Pavilion, 12:30-2 p.m., conclusion of weekly concert series featuring Chattanooga State Community College Jazz Ensemble, Jazzanooga Youth Academy and Chattanooga’s Jazz Divas.• Saturday: Series concludes with JazzWalk, a traditional New Orleans second-line parade, beginning at 11 a.m. at Whiteside Park and concluding at the Bessie Smith Cultural Center, where activities continue until 4 p.m. Set to perform are Tennessee State University Jazz Collegians, University of Tennessee Knoxville Trombone Ensemble, Sweet Georgia Sound, 9th Street Stompers and the Jazzanooga Youth Music Academy.
Musician Erskine Peoples played in jazz and blues clubs on Ninth Street, what is now known as M. L. King Boulevard. Known as the Big 9, the musical Mecca was the Bourbon Street of Chattanooga in the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s.When Erskine Peoples, 82, first arrived in Chattanooga as a 22-year-old high school music teacher, Ninth Street, or the Big 9, as it was fondly called, was in full swing. A half-dozen clubs thrived in the five-block area between Foster Street, near where Memo’s Grill still sits today, and the railroad overpass near Peeples Street.
It was a concentrated area of dance halls, nightclubs and eateries. On the weekends, it was where black people gathered to see friends, dance, eat and hang out.
This month, as part of Jazzanooga, the multiday, multi-event celebration of jazz in general and the history of jazz in Chattanooga, presenter Shane Morrow has created the Big Nine Jazz Series to “animate the corridor.” Part of the overall festival, it features concerts, educational programs and a parade, all designed to get people back to Ninth Street, now known as Martin Luther King Boulevard.
“In having conversations with (local musicians) Booker T. Scruggs and William Price about what the Big 9 was like, I learned it was the Mecca of music in Chattanooga,” Morrow says. “It sparked my interest, so I started to research.