The original and First Great Day in Cleveland was a gathering on a brisk day in 2001 of Jazz professionals from Northeast Ohio to make a video documentary and photoshoot that commemorates all of the famous local and national African-American musicians that have had anything to do with Northeast Ohio's music scene.
The idea was brought about from a vision that Dr. Fred Wheatt had in which he wanted to replicate the famous jazz musicians gathering in Harlem, NY back in 1958. This gather was called a Great Day in Harlem.
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Since the year 2000, The Wheatt Foundation has been preserving, through interviewing, photographing and videotaping, the history of the Cleveland, Ohio area’s African-American jazz performers and venues. The result is a memorial and an educational documentary of the subjects many of whom unfortunately are now deceased.
Those featured in the video include composer Hale Smith, whose compositions were performed by a range of great artists from jazz saxophonist John Coltrane to the Cleveland Orchestra; Grammy Award-winning composer and saxophonist Willie Smith; the iconic blues guitarist Robert Lockwood, Jr.; keyboard/vocalist Duke Jenkins and many others.
Cleveland’s interviewed include internationally recognized male vocalist Little Jimmy Scott; keyboardist Eddie Baccus who for over half a century has been a Cleveland resident and performer; jazz historian and saxophonist John Richmond; Tri-C Jazz Fest Artistic Director Willard Jenkins and many others.