Blue Bird Inn Annual BBQ

Free with RSVP
Please join Detroit Sound Conservancy (DSC) at our annual community BBQ for an afternoon of music, joy, and celebration!

The event will take place on Saturday, September 19, 2026 from 2–5pm at 6532 Beechwood, around the corner from the Blue Bird Inn at 5021 Tireman Avenue, Detroit, MI.

The free community event will be an opportunity to gather and celebrate with live music and delicious BBQ, featuring the Blue Bird Collective Led by Marion Hayden.

In its heyday, the Blue Bird Inn was home to some of the finest house bands in jazz, the kind of stage where young Detroit musicians sharpened their sound alongside the legends passing through.

That legacy of house bands is the spirit behind the Blue Bird Collective, an ensemble of Detroit’s own carrying the tradition forward: Naima Shamborguer on vocals, Ingrid Racine on trumpet, Pamela Wise on keys, Marion Hayden on bass, and Gayelynn McKinney on drums.

The Blue Bird’s house band tradition dates back to 1948, when owner Buddy DuBois hired pianist Phil Hill to lead a five-piece group devoted to bebop, the sound then just arriving from New York. Word spread fast: by October 1949, Charlie “Yardbird” Parker himself joined the band from the audience for an impromptu jam session. Over the next decade, a string of house bands turned the Blue Bird into what regulars called a jazz academy, launching and sharpening the careers of Detroit musicians who went on to shape the national sound of modern jazz, among them Elvin Jones, Thad Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris, Yusef Lateef, Terry Pollard, and Donald Byrd. Miles Davis and John Coltrane both spent time on that stage as well, performing alongside the Blue Bird’s own house players during Davis’s extended stay in Detroit in the 1950s. Today’s Blue Bird Collective steps onto that same continuum, keeping the tradition of great Detroit house bands alive.

This year, we’re inviting you inside. Take a hard hat tour of the Blue Bird Inn and walk through the restoration in progress. See the space taking shape, hear about the milestones behind it, and get a firsthand look at what’s coming next for this legendary club as it becomes home to the archive and to live music once again.

Free with RSVP
Please be sure to bring your own chairs.

For more information, contact Detroit Sound Conservancy at (313) 757-5082 or info@detroitsound.org.

Thank You to Our Sponsors! This program is supported in part by Erb Family Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and Michigan Arts and Culture Council.