Colorado Jazz Party Button: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This button is from Dick Gibson’s Jazz Party, held at various venues in Colorado since its inception in 1963. The button is a round metal straight-pin back button with a burgundy front and black text. These buttons were given to all Jazz Party goers as admission tickets and to simplify the billing for food and beverages. The button is printed:

Dick Gibson, a Denver businessman, sponsored the first Colorado Jazz Party in 1963 as a means to reinvigorate the jazz scene in Colorado. These private gatherings brought together musicians and fans from all over the world in an intimate setting of weekend-long jam sessions. Initially hosted at the Jerome Hotel in Aspen, the Jazz Party became an annual event, moving to the Broadmoor Hotel, a resort located high in the mountains above Colorado Springs, then to Denver. This Jazz Party format has since inspired multiple other jazz parties throughout the United States.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Object Name: button
• Physical Description: metal (overall material)
• Physical Description: paper (overall material)
• Physical Description: ink (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 1 3/4 in; x 4.445 cm
• place made: United States
• ID Number: 2007.0013.16
• accession number: 2007.0013
• catalog number: 2007.0013.16
• Credit Line: Gift of Hilma Carter
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.