In this dynamic rendering of a musical partnership, Augusta Savage celebrated everyday people in her local community of Harlem. The two sculptures aesthetically respond to one another: the musician twists at the waist, throwing back his shoulders and head and lifting his wind instrument high in the air. The dancer likewise leans off his vertical axis, his arms bent close to the body, full of kinetic energy.

Savage was an influential sculptor, teacher, and intellectual leader. Determined from childhood to become an artist, she moved from Florida to New York in 1921 and studied at the Cooper Union. Two years later she won a scholarship to train in France—an offer later rescinded because she was black. Savage would go on to found her own school and also lead the Harlem Community Art Center.