When the swaying and clapping subsided as the Quentin Baxter Ensemble closed out "Tuxedo Junction," John Dash recounted memories from half a century ago.

"They called that song the Negro national anthem," he said as dozens of audience members laughed with him. "When it was played, everybody was on the dance floor, even the senior citizens."

The catchy tune came from the mind of one of Dash's brothers, St. Julian Bennett Dash, who along with Erskine Hawkins and William Johnson composed the song in 1939. "Tuxedo Junction" became a Glenn Miller Orchestra standard and since has been recorded by more than 50 musicians.

BRAD NETTLES/STAFF Clifton Smalls (left) and Dr. Roger Dash share stories of Dash's brother, St. Julian Bennett Dash, before the start of the Charleston Jazz Initiative program "Remembering St. Julian Bennett Dash" on Friday.

The song is Dash's signature piece, but it's only part of his story and that of the Dash family.

Julian Dash died 30 years ago at age 57, and three of his brothers, John, Roger and Ernest, along with longtime New York jazz composer and former Burke High School student Clifton Smalls, paid tribute to the tenor saxophonist Friday at Avery Research Center. Among the more than 100 people who came to hear tales of Charleston's musical old days were many graduates of Avery Normal Institute who came from throughout the country for the 50-year reunion this week. Julian Dash graduated from Avery in 1934.

According to John Dash, his father wanted his first-born, Julian, to become a mortician. His mother made the case for letting Julian pick up the sax.

After stints with some of Charleston's top groups, the Night Hawks Orchestra and the Carolina Cottonpickers, Dash played with the Alabama State Collegians while attending Alabama State Teachers College for two years. That band got such a warm reception while touring New York that the players stayed and became the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra, which had a regular gig at the famed Savoy Ballroom in Harlem.

"The words 'smooth' and 'clean' were two adjectives always used to describe his playing," said Roger Dash.

"Julian was an individualist," said Smalls, a dapper 87-year-old, his brown felt hat in his hands. "He didn't copy anybody."

Smalls still composes and leads young musicians and is finishing a book of memoirs. Avery recorded an oral history from him after the discussion.

Julian Dash studied embalming for a while in New York, and after the Hawkins Orchestra disbanded in the 1950s, he became an administrator with Merrill Lynch while continuing his musical career part-time.

Roger Dash said education not only was important in his family -- all three brothers who spoke graduated from Avery and pursued higher education -- but was vital to the whole black community.

"Education was the only way out of the situation we found ourselves in," he said. "And we were attending what was then the flagship of high schools in South Carolina."

Still, music was the Dash family's hallmark.

The brothers' grandfather, Samuel B. Dash, started the Charleston-based Dash Orchestra, which toured the East Coast in the 1890s. Their grandmother, Emma Dash, was known for her music and theater leadership at Mount Zion AME Church, where the Dashes were members. The brothers' father, Charles, played piano and violin, and an aunt attended the Juilliard School.

But Julian was the star. 'The whole family revolved around Julian," Ernest Dash said.

The Dash family has committed $10,000 to start a foundation that will help fund Avery's Charleston Jazz Initiative, a multi-year endeavor to tell the story of the Lowcountry's jazz tradition from the late 1800s through today.