Overview

Jazz to Junkanoo is a three-day program (November 12-14th) led by Albert Gomez and the FIU Public Humanities Lab that explores the enduring relationship between The Bahamas and Miami through music, migration, cultural memory, and community. For more than a century, Bahamian settlers helped shape the foundations of Miami. They built homes, churches, schools, businesses, and civic institutions while bringing with them traditions of craftsmanship, faith, music, food, celebration, and community life that remain deeply embedded in the identity of South Florida.

Little Bahamas in Coconut Grove stands as one of the most important physical and cultural expressions of that history. Yet much of that history has become increasingly threatened by redevelopment, lot splitting, cultural displacement, the loss of original Bahamian clapboard homes and fruiting tree landscapes, and the gradual erosion of the living cultural memory that has defined Little Bahamas for generations.

Jazz to Junkanoo responds by using performance as an act of preservation. Through original composition, historical narration, Junkanoo, Rake-and-Scrape, dance, jazz, youth education, and international collaboration, the program celebrates the Bahamian people who helped found and build Miami while creating new pathways for cultural preservation, education, community advancement, and heritage tourism.

At the center of program is an original musical suite composed and arranged by Russ Spiegel, D.M.A., bringing Bahamian musical traditions into dialogue with gospel, blues, calypso, and American jazz.

This program is made possible thanks to the generous support of Albert Gomez, and the Dorothea Green Lecture Series, the Green Family Foundation, The Ten North Group, the Kimberly Green Latin America and Caribbean Center and Humanities Edge. 

We are grateful to be partnering with FIU Libraries, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, Bahamas Diaspora Association, The Bethel House Bahamian-American Museum, The Black Archives History & Research Foundation of South Florida, Digital Library of the Caribbean, Exceptional Educational Outreach Bahamas, Goombay Festival Planning Committee, Museum of Miami, Profiles in Black Miami, and Vizcaya Museum and Gardens.