Celebrating the Birthday of Jazz Icon Al Downing with the AllStars Band

Celebrating the Birthday of Jazz Icon Al Downing with the AllStars Band"

Join us as we celebrate the life and legacy of the great Al Downing, beloved treasure of St. Petersburg. Meet special guests, members of Al Downing’s family who will be sharing this day with us.

Alvin J. Downing (1916-2000) is legendary to those who remember the golden days of jazz in St. Petersburg. Piano talent and a desire to perpetuate jazz among young people everywhere were two qualities Al possessed from the time he was a young man in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. He formed his first band in high school, pursued music throughout his college days and organized music programs at Gibbs High School when he moved to St. Petersburg in 1939. Al served with the Tuskegee Airmen before leading the 613^th Army Air Force Band in Tuskegee. When he retired in 1961 as a Major, Al went back to school for a Master of Music degree before returning to St. Petersburg. He taught first at Gibbs High School and then for 20 years at St. Petersburg Junior College.

Al was recognized as an Ambassador of Jazz by the Clearwater Jazz Holiday Foundation; he was named Tampa Bay’s Favorite Artist by Players Magazine; he was given the “Key to St. Petersburg” for outstanding community service; in 1983 was awarded the Friends of the Arts award from the Pinellas County Arts Council; in 1984 he received the Martin Luther King Jr. Drum Major for Justice Award from the Southern Christian Leadership conference; and in 1996, he was inducted into the St. Petersburg Downtown Hall of Fame. Al formed the Al Downing Florida Jazz Association. In 1989, it merged with the Tampa Bay Jazz Society and has existed as the Al Downing Tampa Bay Jazz Association, Inc. ever since.

Al died in 2000, but his outstanding reputation as a performer, educator, and humanitarian carries on. To honor him, Perkins Elementary School for the Arts and International Studies dedicated its theater to his memory in 2001. In 2004, the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Suncoast placed his likeness in the role models mural in their newly renovated historical Royal Theater Performing Arts Center.

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