Texas Jazz Archive Collection Digital Exhibit 

Houston and the Gulf Coast have long had a vibrant jazz scene, but it hasn't always been well-documented. In 1986, saxophonist Arnett Cobb and his daughter Lizette Cobb created the Jazz Heritage Society of Texas as a non-profit education, literary, and cultural arts organization. In 1987, the Jazz Heritage Society of Texas partnered with the Houston Metropolitan Research Center to document the under-represented jazz scene of Texas by establishing the Texas Jazz Archive. The inaugural set of inductees were musicians Arnett Cobb, Jewel Brown, Sammy Price, and I.H. Smalley, though the collection would eventually grow to include 22 artists. Since the archive was only actively collecting for a few years, this collection is not exhaustive of jazz music in Texas. However, through taped performances, recordings, oral histories, photographs, and other documentation, the Texas Jazz Archive illuminates the rich history of saxophonists and performers that were born or lived in Houston.