April is Jazz Appreciation Month, and for those of us who came up playing the bandstand, carrying an amp up narrow staircases, and learning the trade from older players, it’s more than a celebration….. it’s a reminder of how this profession was built. 

Here in Los Angeles, that history runs straight through Central Avenue, where from the 1930s through the 1950s some of the greatest jazz ever played in this country came out of union halls, nightclubs, recording studios, and live stages where musicians worked under AFM contracts that set real standards. Those contracts meant scale wages, pension, health, and the idea that musicians are professionals…. not hobbyists.