Berkeley Artist Seeks Reconciliation In Story of Jazz Pianist Grandmother

Sometimes the greatest mysteries are closest to home. Just ask Kent Brown, a Berkeley man who’s embarking on a quest to learn about his grandmother. And what a grandmother.

Beryl Booker was anything but the stereotypical grandma. After all, how many grandmothers played with the 4 Toppers, Marian McPartland, Slam Stewart, Miles Davis, Dinah Washington and the incomparable Billie Holiday?

How many African American women had their own integrated jazz trios in the 1940s?

Though she’s little known today outside jazz circles, the woman who started out as a child prodigy in Philadelphia is still played today on jazz and public radio stations across the country. And her piano work on Billie Holiday’s posthumous ladylove album will be a lasting testament to her work.

“She’s still popular among other musicians,” Brown said, “and she may have created the first popular jazz trio.”

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