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Recorded live on Chicago's South Side. Robeson is ill at the time of recording. Speakers: Earl Dickerson, Etta Moten Barnett, Judge Sidney Jones, J. Mayo "Ink" Williams, Joan Brown (possibly Abena Joan Brown), Charles Hamilton, Margaret Burroughs, [John Gray's sister], [Stevens?]
Dempsey Travis presents a jazz program and discusses the life, the music, and the community of Chicago jazz from before The Great Depression until World War II. Travis discusses 1920s-1930s Chicago for Black families including rent parties, breakfast dances, employment opportunities, union strikes, and jazz.
Dempsey Travis talks about his book, "An Autobiography of Black Jazz," as he recalls his childhood memories of Jazz, Blues, and Boogie-Woogie artists that he met.
Dempsey Travis, real estate entrepreneur and civil rights activist turned historian and author, recalls his earlier days meeting and listening to many of the African American jazz artists. Some of the musicans mentioned are Louis Armstrong, Jimmie Lunceford, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, Art Tatum, Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole, and Benny Goodman.
Bob Koester, record producer and owner of Delmark Records, the United State's oldest independent jazz and blues label, talks about jazz, blues, and bebop musicians.
Studs interviews Allen Stone, Steven Larson, and Judith Erickson about the opera, "Regina," playing at the Chicago Opera Theater. They describe the variety of music and dances in the opera. Stone, Larson, and Erickson name the cast and their roles and describe the characters. Each share how they came to be in theater. Stone explains how the company started. Larson describes the orchestra and the chorus. Erickson reads some of the lyrics of the aria, "The Best Thing of All," at the end of act one. Stone, Larson, and Erickson read various lines from the opera.