Music / Theatre & dance
Dorothy Ashby
1932–1986 · jazz harpist, pianist, singer, composer
Detroit-born pioneer who made the harp a bebop instrument, a product of Paradise Valley, Cass Tech and Wayne State who also ran a Black theater company in the city.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Santa Monica, California
aged 53- Birth name
- Dorothy Jeanne Thompson
- Detroit years
- 1932–early 1970s
- Field
- Music, Theatre & dance
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Dorothy Thompson grew up in the Paradise Valley and Black Bottom community, where her father, a self-taught jazz guitarist, often brought musicians home. At Cass Technical High School her fellow students included Donald Byrd and Kenny Burrell, and at 17 she went on to Wayne State University to study piano and music education. She started out as a pianist on the Detroit jazz scene, but by 1952 the harp had become her main instrument, and she proved it could play bebop as nimbly as a saxophone. In the 1960s she hosted her own Detroit radio show and, with her husband John Ashby, founded the Ashby Players, a theater company that staged plays for the city's Black community and gave young Black actors early roles. In 1967 her example helped bring harps into five inner-city Detroit schools. Later based in California, she played on records by Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers and Minnie Riperton.
Highlights
- Established the harp as an improvising jazz instrument
- Studied at Cass Tech and Wayne State University
- Hosted a Detroit radio show in the 1960s
- Co-founded the Ashby Players theater company in Detroit
- Harp on Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life (1976)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 3
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · mid-1940s–1949
Cass Technical High School
Her high school, whose harp and vocal ensemble later inspired Detroit's program to put harps in inner-city schools.
Studied here · 1949–early 1950s
Wayne State University
Detroit's public university, where she majored in piano and music education.
Lived here · 1930s–1940s
Black Bottom and Paradise Valley (former neighborhood)
Demolished
The historic Black neighborhood and entertainment district east of downtown where she grew up; it was cleared in the 1950s–1960s for urban renewal and the Chrysler Freeway.