Buck Hill was a prolific jazz performer and a career mailman.
Mikaela Lefrak / WAMU
A man in a U.S. Postal Service uniform leans against a brick wall at 14th and U Streets NW. He’s playing a tenor saxophone, with his mailbag resting at his feet. He’s also nine stories tall.
The 70-foot-tall mural of Buck Hill is D.C.’s newest and tallest outdoor portrait. City officials dedicated it on Tuesday morning as Hill’s family members, historians, property developers, jazz musicians and members of the city’s letter carriers union stood by.
Hill was a native and lifelong Washingtonian who died in 2017 at the age of 90. He began performing in jazz clubs along the U Street Corridor in the 1940s when the area was known as “Black Broadway.” He played with jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, but passed up offers to perform in other cities and countries in favor of stayin