April arrives carrying two powerful designations — Jazz Appreciation Month and Minority Health Month — and at first glance, they may seem like an unlikely pairing. But spend a few minutes withCharmaine Michelle Nokuri,jazz trumpeter, social activist, and secretary of theBaltimore Jazz Alliance,and the harmony between them becomes undeniable.
“Jazz is more than just music,” Charmaine told me during a recent conversation. “It’s a culture, it’s a lifestyle. It’s a way of being.” And she’s right. From its roots in the African American experience, jazz has always been about more than sound. It has been survival, protest, communion, and liberation — a living art form that has carried Black people through some of the most brutal chapters of American history.
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Charmaine speaks about jazz in Baltimore with reverence. Long before the Civil War, Baltimore was home to more free Black people than any other American city. That legacy of sovereignty and self-determination, she says, runs through every note played in this town. “If you play jazz in Baltimore, you really understand how this music has helped Black Americans overcome oppression.” She describes it as pulling music from the ground up — something raw, hard-won, and deeply necessary. Legends like Eubie Blake and Billie Holiday didn’t just happen. They grew from that soil.
@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 100px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 90px;}}As America’s greatest original art form — and arguably its most significant cultural export — jazz has also long embodied the democratic ideals the country has often struggled to practice. Charmaine points to Wynton Marsalis’s eloquent framing: jazz championed inclusivity before the rest of the world had language for it. Jazz had mixed,” she says plainly. “We really didn’t need DEI or government policies. Those are just a reflection of what jazz has been in America for over a century.”
It is precisely this kind of spirit — freedom, improvisation, resilience — that the Baltimore Jazz Alliance is bringing to the forefront with its upcoming conference onFriday, April 11th at St. Matthew’s New Life United Methodist Church. Doors open at 10:30 a.m. for members and 11:00 a.m. for the general public. The event is open to everyone.
Attendees can expect a rich survey of Baltimore’s jazz history, live performance by a featured jazz organist, and programming for musicians, parents, educators, hobbyists, and fans. Charmaine describes it as serving four interconnected pillars of the jazz ecosystem: the audience, the musicians, the business community, and the educational sector. Whether you’ve never heard a jazz set in your life or you’ve been gigging for decades, there is something in this conference for you.
@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-2{min-height: 100px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-2{min-height: 90px;}}And then there is the health dimension — which, during Minority Health Month, Charmaine brings into sharp, personal focus.
She survived a quadruple bypass. And she is clear-eyed about what made her survival possible: a corporate job with healthcare, disability insurance, and an HSA. “I would have died if I didn’t have a good job,” she says without flinching. That honesty opens a door to a conversation many in the music community are not having loudly enough. Too many musicians are living gig to gig, without benefits, without access to preventive care, and without the financial cushion to step away from the road when their bodies send signals they cannot afford to ignore. The jazz world has lost Casey Benjamin. Roy Hargrove. Others we carry quietly.
“Self-care is really a team effort,” Charmaine insists. And for her, it begins in the mind—spiritual grounding. Sound financial decisions. Access to functional medicine and comprehensive blood work. And — she graciously notes — the kind of food story coaching that helped her see that her relationship with food was, at its core, a relationship with herself.
@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-3{min-height: 100px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-3{min-height: 90px;}}This is the intersection April invites us to examine: the music that has sustained Black life in America, and the health of the bodies and spirits that make that music. Jazz teaches us to listen, to respond, to hold space for every voice in the room. Minority Health Month asks us to direct that same attention inward — to our glucose levels, our blood pressure, our grief, our joy.
Come to the conference on April 11th. Bring your curiosity, your community, and maybe a notebook.
Because the music is the medicine. Baltimore is playing.
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Michelle Petties is aTEDx speaker, Food Story coach, and award-winning memoirist. After gaining and losing 700 pounds, Michelle discovered the secret to overcoming stress and emotional overeating. Her free workbook,Mind Over Meals, reveals her core principles for losing weight and keeping it off.
