What happens to a dream deferred?

From 1982 to 1992, Dr. George “Poochie” Ross, woodwind virtuoso and director of Jazz Studies at the University of Maryland College Park, worked on a history of Richmond jazz. He interviewed his elders and recorded them on audio tape. He conducted archival research at the Richmond Public Library. He received a book writing grant from the University and drafted a manuscript. Then, sometime around New Year’s 1993, Ross died of a heart attack, age 54.

Not a trace of his research survives. Or does it?

I briefly touched on Ross’s career in previous posts about his teachers Undine Smith Moore and Jay Peters, as well as the site’s introductory essay. In multiple upcoming posts, I will present a mini-series covering Ross’s life, work, and legacy in greater depth. The culmination of this series will be a presentation on October 19 for the American Musicological Society and the Music Library Association at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. I am grateful to the Capital City chapter of the AMS for the opportunity to share this story.

While Commonwealth of Jazz is ultimately a story about community, so often jazz celebrates soloists within the context of the collective. Ross, who worked within institutions like Richmond Public Schools and Indiana University, was also an entrepreneur—a rugged individualist—like his DC compatriot, saxophonist Andrew White:

He’s one of the guys that inspired me…[Andrew and Rick Henderson] both do their own thing. It’s the hard way to do it but it’s the American way, the dream.

—George Ross (interviewed by Richard Harrington for the Washington Post, Apr. 22, 1983)

Ross’s dream lives on in his students, in the Richmond community that fostered him, and in the few precious artifacts he left behind. Watch this space to learn more as I investigate Poochie’s missing chronicle.