DoLive music venueEast Side

Colored Musicians' Club

Located on Broadway just outside downtown, this former home of American Federation of Musicians Local 533 (and, before that, the Charlie Zifle Shoe Store) has done double-duty as a renowned jazz club since not much later than the union chapter's foundation in 1918, made necessary when Local 43 voted to bar local African-American musicians from membership. With jazz music all the rage among the black community at the time, the union's second-floor performance space became the place to see informal jam sessions by members of local ragtime and jazz bands after their workday was finished, or on Sundays, to see them rehearse in the practice space the union provided free to its members. Soon enough, it was a venue in its own right, playing host to world-famous luminaries like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Lionel Hampton, and more. The tradition continues: the Colored Musicians' Club hosts big-band concerts on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights, as well as Sunday afternoons followed by a legendary open jam session in the evening. And if you're interested in the club's storied history, there's also an attached museum where you can learn all you've ever wanted to know about Buffalo's jazz scene of yesterday and today.

Address: 145 Broadway
Getting there: Metro Bus 1, 2, 4, 6, 14, 16, 24 or 42; Metro Rail: Lafayette Square
Phone: +17168559383
Website: coloredmusiciansclub.org (opens in a new tab)

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Listing from Wikivoyage: Buffalo/East Side, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Also listed in Overture Maps open data.

Updated 28 Sept 2026. Something wrong? Tell us.

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Colored Musicians' Club
Hosts big-band concerts on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights, as well as Sunday afternoons followed by a legendary open jam session in the evening.
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Colored Musicians' Club Museum
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