Music Inn

Tucked away amidst the gently rolling Berkshire Mountains, in Lenox, Massachusetts, something magical happened between 1951 and 1960 at a place called Music Inn. Under the stewardship of Stephanie and Philip Barber, Music Inn marked a turning point in the history of music in America. Virtually next door to the Boston Symphony's Tanglewood Music Festival, the Inn evolved from a midsummer haven for some of America's greatest jazz and folk musicians and performers, through a period of jazz and folk "Roundtables" and then "Workshops" including scholars and critics, culminating in the first School of Jazz -- where earnest and talented students learned from and performed with accomplished masters. Frequent participation of students and performers from Tanglewood stimulated cross-fertilization between classical music and jazz. Music Inn was an undeniable force in the emergence of jazz from crowded and smoky urban clubs into concert halls. Louis Armstrong remarked in 1953, "They're doing ...