BUFFALO, N.Y. — When it comes to the Colored Musicians Club, the music speaks for itself.
"How can I put it," said Dr. George Scott, Colored Musicians Club Events & Education Coordinator. "Let's say you and your friends you get together and you just chat about different things. Well that's what we do but in a musical way."
"We're trying to communicate without actually like talking to each other, without actually saying anything to anybody," said Dalton Sharp, Jay/Sharptet Saxophonist. "But its also that I'm expressing myself and how I feel at that moment and everybody else is reacting to the way that I'm expressing myself."
Audience members went on a musical journey Sunday night at the Buffalo History Museum. The featured band Jay/Sharptet let music lead the way as they kept a Buffalo music tradition dating all the way back to the 1930s alive.
"Back in the early years when you know all the famous people came into town, when they got done performing they couldn't stay at the clubs that they got paid good money to play for because you know they couldn't mingle with the white audiences," said Scott. "So when they got done they came back to our club. So they would eat, drink, have a meal. But if they liked what they heard as far as the jam session they would join in."
For Scott, there has always been more than one way to achieve perfect harmony.
"We never looked at this guy being white or that guy being black. It was he was the trumpet player, he was the sax player," said Scott. "In fact our particular club was probably one of the first clubs to have integrated bands as well as audiences."
Scott said for more than 80 years, the idea that anyone can play no matter the color still rings true.
"It's awesome to be able to share in the stage with my twin brother Jacob Day who is like you know not actually of our color but he is still close to my heart," said Sharp. "He's still the number one trumpet payer in my heart."
Scott said the Club will return to the historic 145 Broadway Street location after the expansion is complete. Then it will be right back to music lessons and raising up the next generation of musicians.
"We might have a future Charlie Parker or Miles Davis or something here," said Scott.
