Sunday Jam

Play.

Most Sunday afternoons you can find me lurking with a rag-tag group of people that are alternately either twice or half my age, under the awnings that surround a small downtown building. On the outside, we look like we might be on break from our AA meeting or waiting for the cannabis clinic to open. None of us look like we should be hanging out together. There are teenage kids in jeans and t shirts, tall men in impeccable suits, and hunched hippies in deer skin jackets with long tassels. From the outside there is no reason for us all to be together, much less for the easy conversation and obvious camaraderie. 

Like most things, it's what's on the inside that counts. On the inside of this little building is the Sunday Jazz Jam, an all-comers welcome event that is headed by some seriously talented musicians and filled in by anyone who walks in the door and wants to play. This is not a place for divas or show boaters, though both show up and given their time in equal measure, this is a place for students. This is where you go to see how it's done by the kinds of musicians that play three gigs a week, and figure out your own style. This is where you go to listen to singers find their range, their own unique timing. This is a place to go to listen, to forget about the scene, and to return to the roots of the improvisational Jazz form.

It is a kind of Sunday service, and one that I have come to cherish. It is community, education, fun, and some damn good music. Check it out:

  http://thejazzstation.org/# 

Stone Cold

Jazz.

There is nothing better in the education of a tapper than the instruction of a good drummer.  Real percussionists do far more than keep time, they serve as the foundation, backbone, and elaboration of the musical experience.  Percussion speaks to our souls and enters our bodies, reminding us that we are all born into rhythm and nursed inside the tight drums of our mothers bellies.  There is a large distance between tapping, dancing, to the music, and using the tap form to become a percussionist, a part of the band.  A good percussionist needs to know nothing about tap other than that it lets you make sounds to teach a dancer about rhythm, syncopation, and phrasing.  The key, I have been told, is in the doing.  

Recently we, myself and several hundred musicians, artists, and friends celebrated percussionist and instructor Kenny Reed in an eight-hour concert to raise funds for his dialysis.  Kenny, founder and lead man for Stone Cold Jazz, cut his chops in New York as a percussionist for Sesame Street and on air as a DJ among many other things.  He made his way west and now has landed in Oregon.  Kenny is old-school jazz, knows every tune in the book, wears a sharp suit, and carries his drumsticks wherever he goes; in case of emergency drumming.  We are glad to have him as mentor, artist, and friend. 

To give to the Kenny Reed Fund contact:

http://thejazzstation.org/

To listen/watch early Sesame Street:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnBAMQhtjEk

To Listen to Stone Cold Jazz

http://www.reverbnation.com/stonecoldjazz

Photo courtesy of:

http://eugeneagogo.com/Kenny-Reed-Stone-Cold-Jazz/e/FPP6JVV/