Detroit Sound Conservancy

09/26/2026

Today's the day! Join us at 6532 Beechwood, 2–5PM, for the Blue Bird BBQ.

🚧 Hard hat tours of the Blue Bird Inn
🎶 Blue Bird Collective + AK
🧒🏽🎉 Kid-friendly, bounce house!
🍖 Great food

RSVP: https://detroitsound.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/neonevents/events?path=%2Fportal%2Fevents%2F50979

09/24/2026

Reminder, Detroit! 🐦🔥

The Blue Bird BBQ is on for this Saturday, September 26, 2–5PM at 6532 Beechwood, around the corner from the Blue Bird Inn. 📍

🍖 Great food

🚧 Hard hat tours of the Blue Bird Inn

🎶 Live music from the Blue Bird Collective — Naima Shamborguer (vocals), Stephen Grady Jr. (saxophone), Pamela Wise (keys), Laura Simone (bass), and Gayelynn McKinney (drums) — plus a DJ set from AK

🧒🏽🎉 Family and kid-friendly, with kids activities and a bounce house!

RSVP: https://detroitsound.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/neonevents/events?path=%2Fportal%2Fevents%2F50979

See you Saturday!

09/18/2026

Weather is not looking great for tomorrow — cold and rainy. We’re hoping for a great outdoor event, and there are a lot of moving parts, so we’re postponing the Blue Bird BBQ one week.

New date: Saturday, September 26, same time, same place — 2–5PM at 6532 Beechwood, around the corner from the Blue Bird Inn.

Free food, live music from the Blue Bird Collective, and hard hat tours of the Blue Bird Inn running every 30 minutes. If you’ve already RSVP’d, you’re all set.

09/16/2026

This BBQ doesn't happen without partners 🐦🔥

Huge thanks to Audio Rescue Team for sound, Solar Power Detroit for solar power, Graig Donnelly of Proxy for building and site logistics, NKSK for event coordination, Baity Films for video, Shelby Robinson for photography, and the United Block Club Council for community engagement and rooting this work in the neighborhood. Your support makes days like Saturday possible.

We're also deeply grateful to the funders who make the Blue Bird Inn rehabilitation possible: the Mellon Foundation, Erb Family Foundation, Hudson Webber Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Gilbert Family Foundation, and the Michigan Arts and Culture Council. Your support makes days like Saturday possible.

Join us September 19, 2–5PM at 6532 Beechwood for free food, live music from the Blue Bird Collective, and hard hat tours of the Blue Bird Inn rehab in progress. RSVP:

https://detroitsound.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/neonevents/events?path=%2Fportal%2Fevents%2F50979

09/14/2026

Looking back at five years of Blue Bird BBQs 🐦🔥

2025 — Sophiyah E. & S.O.L. Tribe, with DJ Pirahnahead
2024 — Tariq Gardner's Evening Star, with DJ Donna Gardner
2023 — Timeline (Jon Dixon & De'Sean Jones), with DJ Saylem Celeste
2022 — McKinney Zone Trio brought the music back
2021 — our very first Blue Bird BBQ, right outside these doors

Every year, this BBQ has been about food, music, and the joy of coming together as a community. This Saturday, we're doing it again. Join us September 19, 2–5PM at 6532 Beechwood for free food, live music from the Blue Bird Collective, and hard hat tours of the Blue Bird Inn rehab in progress.

RSVP: https://detroitsound.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/neonevents/events?path=%2Fportal%2Fevents%2F50979

09/11/2026

Progress to share 🚧🐦

DSC has been working to preserve Detroit's music history for nearly 15 years, and all roads in our work lead to the Blue Bird Inn. We've come a long way!
Next Saturday, we're proud to host hard hat tours of the Bird that will run every 30 minutes throughout Saturday's BBQ. Come see the progress with your own eyes, and learn how we're hoping to start programming inside the building in 2026.

We're actively working every day, and by Saturday we'll be close to completing the newly constructed two-story addition off the back of the building that will serve as Detroit's music archive. It's nearly complete!

This building has always been more than a construction project to us. In 2012, our very first meetup happened right outside these doors. In 2016, our team salvaged the original stage before it was lost. In 2019, we purchased the building outright. Every step since has been in service of one goal: giving Detroit's musical story a community home.

This year the BBQ also moves into a new home. Eight lots along Beechwood are becoming a community greenspace and park, designed by JIMA Studio. Detroit's cultural resources are heavily concentrated downtown, leaving neighborhoods like ours without much walkable, high-quality public space. This park is part of changing that — bringing welcoming space directly into a residential neighborhood. It's still a work in progress today, but we're thrilled to finally put this ground to use. This is the same space that will host block club meetings, community gatherings, and years of BBQs to come.

None of this happens without this community. Thank you for walking this journey with us.

Blue Bird BBQ, Saturday, September 19, 2–5PM at 6532 Beechwood. Free food, live music from the Blue Bird Collective, hard hat tours every 30 minutes.

RSVP: https://detroitsound.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/neonevents/events?path=%2Fportal%2Fevents%2F50979

09/08/2026

Meet the Blue Bird Collective — a collective musical exploration in the tradition of the legendary Blue Bird Inn house bands.

Naima Shamborguer, Ingrid Racine, Pamela Wise, Marion Hayden, and Gayelynn McKinney: five incredible Detroit jazz musicians bringing together tremendous musical energy that pulls inspiration from the past and leads us musically into the future. We're honored to celebrate this occasion with such a dynamic group.

This band also continues to build on our Women in Jazz Collection, started by Veronica Johnson. The collection, which features over 20 oral histories and continues to grow, explores the unique contributions of Michigan-based women, non-binary, and LGBTQ+ musicians to the development of jazz, here and around the world.

And this band is continuing a notable Blue Bird Inn tradition. In 1948, Buddy DuBois hired pianist Phil Hill to lead the Blue Bird Inn's first house band, devoted to a new sound just arriving from New York — bebop. It caught on fast. By 1949, Charlie Parker was walking up from the crowd to sit in. For the next decade, house bands here helped launch the careers of musicians who went on to shape modern jazz — Elvin Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris, Terry Pollard, Donald Byrd.

Join us to celebrate the moment and carry this legacy forward. Catch the Blue Bird Collective live at the Blue Bird BBQ, Saturday, September 19, 2–5PM at 6532 Beechwood.

RSVP: https://detroitsound.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/neonevents/events?path=%2Fportal%2Fevents%2F50979

09/04/2026

Celebrate John's Legacy In Person and Online.

Tomorrow — JAMMIN': The Official Public Homecoming Celebration for John E. "Jammin'" Collins.
Come celebrate the life, music, love and legendary spirit of John "Jammin'" Collins the way he would want us to: together, with good people, great music and lots of love.

Join John's family, friends and the Detroit community at the Bonstelle Theatre for an evening of DJs, food trucks, special presentations, memories, fellowship and celebration honoring a man who gave so much to this city and to all of us.
📍 Bonstelle Theatre, Detroit
🗓️ Saturday, September 5, 2026 | 5–10 PM

FREE and open to the public. Donations welcomed. Limited capacity, first come first served. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jammin-the-official-public-home-going-celebration-tickets-1998637770373?aff=oddtdtcreator

Can't make it in person? We're also excited to share a remastered DJ set of John Collins and Stacey "Hotwaxx" Hale from the Club Heaven Sound System unveiling last May. Listening back, you hear the way he moved a room through time, space, and history in a single set. And the way he healed through music. The energy got so good in the room that night the recording peaked a bit — you'll feel it. Set remastered by DSC Digital Archivist Evan Haywood.

Listen here: https://detroitsound.org/artifact/2025-05-22_collins_hale_heaven/

09/03/2026

05/15/2026

On Detroit’s Old West Side, the Blue Bird Inn helped shape the sound of modern jazz.

Known as the bebop academy of the Midwest, The Bird welcomed artists like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughan, Tommy Flanagan, Harold McKinney, and so many others who helped define Detroit’s musical legacy.

Today, that legacy is continuing to take shape.

As we celebrate 14 years of preserving Detroit’s musical heritage, work is actively moving forward on the rehabilitation of the Blue Bird Inn, with foundation work underway and plans to begin programming in the space by the end of this year.

Your support helps make projects like the Blue Bird Inn rehabilitation possible. Click the link in our bio to help sustain DSC’s work today.

We’re also excited to share that Detroit Sound Conservancy has purchased the green space next to the Blue Bird, creating new opportunities for community gathering, outdoor events, and neighborhood connection.

What is taking shape here is more than a rehabilitation project. It’s a home for Detroit’s musical legacy.

Explore DSC’s Blue Bird Inn Collection to learn more about this historic and influential place through the link in our bio.