Any friendship needs care. Like a plant, friendship dies when neglected. My readers love this music. We have felt its warm embrace. But many are quietly neglecting the art that has been a true friend. I refer specifically to jazz in performance, face to face.
If your finances are limited or your health is fragile; if you live hundreds of miles from an urban center, you are exempt from what I write. But if you are reasonably sturdy, and music is happening near you, why not get out of your chair, abandon the lit screen, put down the iPhone, and experience this music as it is created? Nothing else is as powerfully uplifting.
How many people reading this have seen live jazz this month? How many people have been to a club, a concert, a bar, a festival, the farmers’ market where three people are playing on a Sunday morning?
The computer has made it easy to procure “live” jazz for free. But it is now so very easy to stay home. I know I am part of the problem, offering performance videos for free. No musician can buy a bottle of water because of profit from these videos. But those videos exist because I go to gigs and festivals.
If, in years to come, you say, “I wish there was some jazz I could go to,” and there is none, it has disappeared because audiences glued to their phones. Club owners, concert and festival organizers need money to continue. Money comes directly from people in seats. And people? They are YOU. Don’t let a friendship die because you’re in thrall to your computer. Thank you for reading this.
Michael Steinman has been published in many jazz periodicals, has written the liner notes for dozens of CDs, and was the New York correspondent for The Mississippi Rag. Since 1982, Michael has been Professor of English at Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York. This story was originally published on Michael Steinman’s excellent blog Jazz Lives (jazzlives.wordpress.com), and is reprinted here with Michael’s permission. Write to Michael at swingyoucats@gmail.com. May your happiness increase!
