Jazz brightened clubs and bar scenes of the Harlem Renaissance from the 1920s onward. Visual artists too loved the rhythms and energy of the music, its performance, and its atmosphere. Romare Bearden was especially enamored with the jazz scene, and his Jazz series is included in WAM’s spring exhibition, African American Art in the 20th Century: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond. John Edwin Mason—African history and African American photography scholar, musician, jazz historian—presents a talk on the cross-fertilization of jazz, African American experience, and visual expression during the Harlem Renaissance. He is currently at work on a biography featuring Kansas native son, photographer Gordon Parks.

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