Gary Bartz grew up in Baltimore, where his father had a jazz club. Bartz, an alto saxophonist who played with Miles Davis, tours the world performing, but he still enjoys playing in his hometown. Photo by Brian BPlus Cross

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Music is the fountain of youth, according to Gary Bartz, one of Baltimore’s most famous jazz saxophonists.

“Music does keep you young,” Bartz, 84, said in an interview with the Beacon. “Music is more powerful than anyone realizes.”

Bartz has won two Grammy Awards and released 45 solo albums during his six-decade music career. Last year, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) named Bartz a 2024 Jazz Master, the highest honor for a jazz musician.

Although he’s been called a “titan of modern jazz,” a “jazz icon” and a “certified national treasure,” Bartz remains down-to-earth. Far from being a master, he says, he still has a lot to learn.

“I always think of myself as still learning. I’m still a student, always a student.”

Bartz often returns to his hometown, performing at Keystone Korner Baltimore just last fall. This August, he was a headliner at DC JazzFest in Washington, D.C.

Power of Charlie Parker

Bartz’s musical career ignited when he was six years old. One Sunday at his grandmother’s house, he heard a Charlie Parker record for the first time. Though he had never heard a saxophone before, he knew he wanted to create that kind of sound.

“I heard this instrument, and I didn’t know what it was…but whatever [Parker] was doing, that was what I wanted to do with my life,” he told the NEA last year.

After begging his parents for a saxophone for years, Bartz finally received one for Christmas when he was 11 years old. Since he had spent so much time listening to Parker and other alto saxophonists, he was a quick study.

“I actually knew how to play before I got a saxophone,” he said. “Listening is learning, if you know how to listen.”

Bartz’s father, Floyd Bartz, often took his teenage son to jam sessions to hear and learn from professional musicians.

“He and my mom were my best supporters,” Bartz said.

One night when he was just 14, Bartz and his father were in a club watching saxophonist Sonny Stitt when Stitt, tipped off by Bartz’s proud papa, called him up on stage to play with him — his first appearance.

A few years later, his parents opened a jazz club in East Baltimore to immerse their son in the music. The North End Lounge was located on Gay Street between North Avenue and Port Street, and it became a popular venue.

“Mr. Bartz had a jazz club that was phenomenal, so quaint and wonderful,” the late Baltimore jazz singer Ruby Glover told a Johns Hopkins oral historian in 2002. “It was always packed.”

Although the North End Lounge closed decades ago, the building remains. It has housed a church and other businesses over the years.

“The last time I went, I think it was a laundromat,” Bartz said. “I used to go to Birdland [Jazz Club in New York]. Now it’s a strip joint. Time moves on.”

Coming on the scene

Bartz didn’t just watch jazz bubble up in this country; he contributed to the body of work as it evolved, learning directly from American icons.

Of course, New York City was the heart of the jazz scene. Bartz moved to New York in 1958 to attend the Juilliard School, catching downtown shows every chance he got. He returned to Baltimore after three semesters to complete his schooling at the Peabody Institute. All the while, he headed the in-house band at his father’s club in the 1960s, where he met greats like Max Roach, Charles Mingus and Art Blakey, playing in their bands.

“I was lucky and came up in a good time period,” Bartz said. “I miss my friends who taught me so much and helped me to learn this music.”

One of his greatest teachers was Miles Davis. One day in 1970, Bartz got a phone call from Davis, who invited him to join his band. The one-year stint was the best schooling for Bartz, who learned firsthand from Davis how to learn just by listening carefully to performances.

“I don’t know anyone who could listen better and harder than Miles,” he said.

Bartz formed his own band, Ntu (pronounced “into”) Troop, and performed all over the world. He recorded perhaps his most famous album, “I’ve Known Rivers” — named for a line in a Langston Hughes poem — in Switzerland at the 1973 Montreux Jazz Festival.

Younger generation

Bartz has also lived in Italy, Spain and France but now has a home in Oakland, California. He spends a lot of time in Ohio as well; he has been a professor of jazz saxophone at Oberlin College since 2001.

“I play [saxophone] every day. If I’m teaching school, I’m playing,” he said.

In addition to collaborating with his students in class, Bartz links up with younger musicians often, introducing jazz to new generations. For instance, last year he released an album with two hip-hop artists on the “Jazz Is Dead” label, a tongue-in-cheek name for a series of cross-generational albums and concerts. The project recognizes that “the spirit of jazz — the innovation, the rebellion, the soul — has never stopped evolving,” as their website puts it.

Even in his 80s, Bartz travels the world to perform at jazz festivals. He had concerts in Australia and the Netherlands earlier this year. In August he flew to Japan for a series of performances at Blue Note Tokyo, then back to the States to Chicago, New York and the DC JazzFest at the end of the month.

“We’ve been busy this year,” he admitted.

But, as research shows, music is good for the brain. Bartz remembers playing with the jazz drummer Roy Haynes when he was almost 100 years old.

“He acted just the same as when I first met him. Even with dementia, musically he was always there,” Bartz said.

Not all musicians make it to their 90s, of course. Baltimore’s most famous jazz singer, Billie Holiday, died at 44. Charlie Parker, Bartz’s inspiration, died at 34.

A reporter once asked, “Mr. Parker, are you a religious man?” Parker, an atheist replied, “Yes, I am a devout musician.”

That’s the kind of devotion Bartz has sustained throughout his life. As he says often, “Music is my religion.”