On August 8, the Reckonings Project hosted the first Story Tent installation on behalf of Boston Jazz Square Activation at the Charles River Jazz Festival. Two conversations — the first between Karen Cowan and Ron Mahdi and the second between Bonnie Johnson and Zahili Zamora — probed the deep history of Boston’s jazz music scene, and the engaged audience took the opportunity to ask the speakers questions.

Marking the Boston Jazz Foundation’s 6th annual free festival, this year’s Charles River Jazz Festival was held at the Hatch Memorial Shell and featured a lineup chock-full of extraordinary musical acts, including (but not limited to) Seba Molnar, Tyreek McDole, and the headliner Ghost-Note. The conversations at the Story Tent took place as the music on the festival’s main stage died down for set-up between sets.

The Charles River Jazz Festival’s mainstage at the Hatch Shell.

The first Story Tent conversation revealed the speakers’ connections with legendary Boston pianist and band leader Sabby Lewis. Karen Cowan, who is one of Lewis’s daughters, worked as an administrator and builder of special programs at Boston Public School for 36 years. With her mother Anna Lewis, she built Sabby Lewis’s archive, which she donated (with support from the Reckonings Project) to Berklee Archives. This summer, the Sabby Lewis Papers have opened to the public. Cowan’s conversation partner, Ron Mahdi, is a Boston-based bassist, recording artist, clinician, and retired professor emeritus at Berklee College of Music. After playing with Lewis early in his career in the 1980s, he has performed with artists such as Chet Baker, Bill Pierce, Kevin Eubanks, Roy Hargrove, Art Farmer, and George Coleman.

Mahdi recalled meeting Lewis through musicians who had performed with Lewis in Boston since the swing era. Mahdi went on to play as one of Lewis’s bassists for over a decade. Under Lewis’s mentorship, Mahdi learned that making notes swing — and Lewis smile — were the litmus tests for a jazz musician. Lewis treated the band like a family, which Mahdi sees as a key to his success: “The family vibe was so special … What a way to make a young person feel welcome and a part of something bigger than they actually are … For anyone that came in the band, whether they realized it or not, there was mentoring because of how he played.” As an educator, Mahdi aims to impart such lessons onto his students.

After leading her band in a moving early afternoon set on the festival’s main stage, pianist, composer, bandleader, arranger, and educator Zahili Zamora sat down for a conversation with 90.5 WCIN Public Radio host Bonnie Johnson for the second Story Tent installation. The two reflected on the festival’s theme of “The Revolution Will be Improvised” and how it relates to Zamora’s Cuban origins. Zamora said, “There’s something about that musical freedom, without the awareness of what it really represented historically. That’s that first thing of digging in, checking your story, your history, and realizing why that groove just makes you cry, makes you move. It’s just one note sometimes, but it’s a note that has so much emotion to it. And that’s a revolution in itself.” Zamora added, “For me, as an artist, now the biggest revolution is to be able to not be afraid to express just the essence of who I am.”

You can watch the full recordings of Session One and Session Two.

From left to right: Dzidzor Azaglo, Zahili Zamora, Bonnie Johnson, and Uta Poiger.

Throughout the day, festival attendees visited the Jazz Square Activation poster exhibit at the Story Tent to learn more about the entangled histories of jazz and migration, segregation, gentrification, entrepreneurship, artistic innovation, and activism. The posters feature legendary Boston venues — such as Wally’s Cafe or the Hi-Hat Club — and musicians — including Mae Arnette and Mabel Robinson Simms. Attendees were also invited to pick up new zines about the jazz club LuLu White in the South End and Duke Ellington’s 1966 Sacred Concert at Union Church in Boston, which can be viewed and downloaded at this link.

Festival attendees stop by the Story Tent poster exhibition to learn more about the history of Boston’s jazz scene.

Boston Jazz Square Activation — a coalition between the Boston Jazz Foundation, the Reckonings Project, and the Claremont Neighborhood Association — celebrates the past, present, and future of jazz in Boston. One of Boston Jazz Square Activation’s goals is to capture and preserve the history of the Boston jazz scene’s historical nucleus: the area around Jazz Square at the intersection of Massachusetts and Columbus Avenue.

In October, Jazz Square Activation will honor the 2026 Boston Jazz Luminary at its fourth concert at Union Church. The Boston Jazz Luminary Award recognizes the honoree’s influential role and shining presence in the Boston jazz community. If you are someone, or know someone, who has made an indelible impact on the Boston jazz scene, please submit this form by September 14th. For information on the 2024 and 2025 Boston Jazz Luminaries, Elynor Walcott and Sonny Carrington, click here. For more information on the Jazz Square Activation concert in October, stay tuned.