Bronx jazz venues like Club 845 and the Blue Morocco are long gone, but the stories of the musicians who put them on the map are now living on at the Bronx County Historical Society, thanks to David Carp, a prominent music journalist and librarian, who officially handed off his collection of 200 interviews at an event earlier this month.

“Rather than keeping them in my attic in New Jersey, [the materials] are going to be here and be much more accessible,” Carp said.

The materials stand as the first major acquisition of the Bronx African-American History Project, a collaboration between Fordham University and the Historical Society begun in 2003. The Project seeks to uncover the untold history of African-Americans in the borough.

Carp was drawn to the history of Latino and jazz music made in East Harlem and the Bronx while a radio journalist at WNYC and other outlets. The musical form was a major player in the area from the 1940s to the 1960s, but little information was available about its legacy. In his free time, Carp set out to piece together this history through interviews with the black and Latino musicians who were involved.

While there is little obvious evidence today, the Bronx was once a destination for jazz music. Leroy Archible, a longtime Morrisania resident, used to stroll among the fashionably dressed who descended on Boston Road’s many clubs on weeknights. “You could always find something happening,” Archible remembered fondly.

Robert Gumbs lived down the street from relatives of Thelonious Monk in Morrisania, and was a regular of Club 845, a jazz venue located on Prospect Avenue. In the ‘50s, Gumbs helped bring back some of the major musicians who played at 845 to join younger artists like himself.

“We would conduct sessions on Sundays … to expose young talent and bring the older musicians back,” he said.

The club, and the Bronx scene as a whole, was known for the cross-pollination of Black and Latino art forms. “There was all this intermingling of musicians,” said Phil Newsum, an African-American artist who fell in love with Latin jazz. “I don’t think African-Americans are as involved with this now.”

Nor are the signs of this movement still visible. A Burger King now stands where musicians once jammed at Club 845. In the ‘70s, Boston Road’s Blue Morocco and Goodson’s shuttered their doors.

Those legacies live on in Carp’s 25 boxes, a treasure trove of archival materials including photos of jazz big bands and ads for events at Club 845. The collection’s heart is 200 taped interviews Carp conducted with musicians across the country about playing in the Bronx.

“I don’t know how this guy paid his phone bill,” joked Newsum.

Those oral histories join 100 others Fordham researchers have conducted with African-American residents of all backgrounds. The Project aims to complete 200 more to finally create a body of primary information representing the experiences of the borough’s nearly 500,000 current African-American residents.

“This project has captured the imaginations of hundreds, even thousands of people,” said Mark Naison, a Fordham professor who is one of its founders. In addition to Fordham researchers, the Project also relies on independent historians like Archible.

“I have taught African-American history in the Bronx for 32 years, and I don’t know as much as them,” Naison said. Archible first came to the Project after major black research institutions, like the Schomburg Center in Harlem, weren’t interested in the materials he had amassed over the years.

“He showed up outside my office with these big bags,” Naison remembered. “I said, ‘Oh my God. We are so lucky to have this.’”

The Project hopes to make the material accessible for the growing number of organizations Naison says are interested in black Bronxites. Bobby Sanabria, a music professor at the New School, is already anticipating sending his students to explore the Carp collection.

“This will be a required pilgrimage of those studying with me,” said Sanabria, who, as a kid, tagged along with his father to Bronx jazz clubs.

The Historical Society is now archiving the materials, which will be made available to the public through appointment. “You’ll be seeing a lot more people streaming up here soon,” Sanabria said.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.