-- by Kim Davenport With a new school year beginning this week at UW Tacoma, the time has come for me to share the last of my posts relating to student work from last year's iteration of my Musical History of Tacoma course. I freely admit that the title of this blog post is not mine,... Continue Reading →
Original Jazz Fox-Trot, Published in Tacoma
-- by Kim Davenport A few years back, I spent a good portion of my free time researching 'booster songs' about Tacoma, in preparation for a talk I gave in August of 2017. In the early decades of the 20th century, booster songs were published in cities around America as musical representations of civic pride.... Continue Reading →
Nirvana’s Tacoma Connections
-- by Kim Davenport For her final paper in my Musical History of Tacoma class at UW Tacoma, student Kaisa Cannon decided to explore her father's favorite band, Nirvana, and determine whether the band typically associated with Seattle had any roots in Tacoma. Even a casual devotee of the grunge group would likely guess the answer... Continue Reading →
Meltarrus Washington and the role of music in the desegregation of Fort Lewis
-- by Kim Davenport For her final paper in my Musical History of Tacoma class this past Spring, UW Tacoma student Sunny Cada explored the vital role that music played in helping along the desegregation of the US military, specifically citing the example of musician Meltarrus Washington. Sergeant Meltarrus "Mel" Washington (1919-2007) came to Fort Lewis in... Continue Reading →