Speaker: Hugh Wyatt

Phoebe Jacobs saved the careers of almost all early African American jazz pioneers, including Baltimorean Eubie Blake. Throughout her career, Jacobs was the publicist, manager, producer and ‘fixer for such trailblazers as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Wynton Marsalis.

Jacobs was also an avowed feminist and civil rights activist, who would eventually take on the mafia and the political establishment to bring about a semblance of equality for all jazz musicians.