I wouldn’t have considered Cleveland, Ohio, a destination spot for fine hot and sweet improvised music. But I am ready to do so now. In fact, I will be on a plane this coming Thursday, September 18, 2014, to be part of the first Allegheny Jazz Party (here, too, on Facebook).
(Thursday evening until Sunday afternoon, to be precise, in a modern hotel.)
I hope that JAZZ LIVES readers and like-minded friends will be joining me there. Not, mind you, because I get paid for writing about the AJP. I do not. Nor do I get a bounty for each attendee I bring in.
No, I write a post like this in the same spirit that I would eagerly tell you about a fine restaurant I had just discovered that you, too, could enjoy. There is jazz enough for everyone, and no one has to keep it to him or herself.
I also have the motive — is it selfish or altruistic or both? — of wanting these enterprises to continue. The finest musicians in the cosmos can sing and play to a half-empty room once, but not more than that.
So I urge YOU to come along. Yes, YOU.
And to make the point in a more cheerful, less didactic way, here are four of my idols — Rebecca Kilgore, Rossano Sportiello, Dan Barrett, Harry Allen — romping through a Walter Donaldson song whose title you will guess quickly:
And it is appropriate to point out that this music was created at the 2013 Jazz at Chautauqua, so I think the spirit and joy will certainly follow us westward to Cleveland. See YOU there.
May your happiness increase!
