I've said it before - jazz is grassroots.  This music lives on because of the dedication and love from its truest fans.  There a few hard working individuals that feel the need to present this music anyway they can.  Their motives are not for financial but spiritual dollars.  I know educators, musicians and presenters in cities across America and the World who love this music and only want to see it propagated and enjoyed by the eager fans.  I have a list of my "allies" - people whom I know from all over who fall into this category.  To name a few I think of my friend Cory Weeds from Vancouver.  Cory, in addition to managing a club and a label also annually brings a tour group to New York for a jazz tour.  It's grueling work and yet he's here year after year.  I think of my friend Fischer Lee in Beijing, China.  Fischer, against all odds, operates a true jazz club in the heart of that city and caters to an actual scene of musicians and fans in that far away land.  I could go on and on.

The latest addition to my list is my friend Matt Yaple from Philadelphia.  Matt contacted me a year or so ago and invited me to an expensive lunch at Babbo.  As I was not inclined to refuse an expensive lunch I thought I'd meet him and, at the very least, have some great Italian food.  It turned out that Matt was inspired by the work we'd been doing at Smalls and wanted to pick my brain about being a presenter and what was involved.  Matt turned out to be an energetic and enthusiastic person who genuinely loved the music and wanted to present concerts to his community in Philadelphia.  He wasn't too concerned about making a buck, which was a good sign in my mind.  We talked for a few hours and then shook hands and parted ways.  A year or so later, I was excited to hear from him.  He had taken my words to heart and gone ahead and opened a performance space.  He invited me and my trio to perform there in a room he aptly named "Exuberance".  Exuberance exists in a former garage converted into a super cool, beautiful performance space with a great Steinway.  Matt also cultivated a true listening audience and the night of our show we had about 75 people come out to hear us.  The night of the concert Matt spoke passionately about the social value of jazz and the community.  He was a gracious host and the audience was unbelievably receptive and kind.  We were inspired and gave as good a performance as we've done in a long time.  The crowd was highly appreciative and at the end of the evening everyone felt edified and enriched.  I was sad to head back to New York, feeling like I had just made a whole new group of family members.

Jazz defies the corporate, cookie cutter mentality that pervades everything in our culture these days.  It is anachronistic - like finding that old street sign from another age still hanging on that old store.  There's something about jazz that is so real and nostalgic.  We as a culture need this real vitality so badly.  We are literally being starved to death culturally.  The only way to remedy this is by grassroots movements, local organizations and concerned dedicated citizens.  Music is a unifying source and not necessarily something commercial.  It is a human activity, like prayer in a church, it cannot really be monetized and it can't be reproduced on an assembly line.  Thanks to people like Matt and the many, many others that I've had the privilege of working with, there is a small but resilient pocket of resistance fighters.  The true culture of our cities and this country will only be preserved when the communities themselves organize and work to present concerts, art shows, dances etc.  We have to take it into our own hands and not wait for some government agency to provide it for us.  That's the only way for our cultural legacy to survive into the future.  Fortunately, thanks to quite a few good people we are still in the game.

Regards,

Spike