ANN SNEED, 87, from cancer on April 21 in Las Vegas. Her love of jazz led her to create an organization that for 35 years promoted concerts and sent top performers into schools to preach the value of music and education.
She founded the non-profit International Art of Jazz, which operated from 1964 until 1999. Among the musicians who played IAJ concerts were Lionel Hampton, Clark Terry, Billy Taylor, and Marian McPartland. Ann Sneed was also active in the American Federation of Jazz Societies.
Lew Shaw started writing about music as the publicist for the famous Berkshire Music Barn in the 1960s. He joined the West Coast Rag in 1989 and has been a guiding light to this paper through the two name changes since then as we grew to become The Syncopated Times. 47 of his profiles of today's top musicians are collected in Jazz Beat: Notes on Classic Jazz. Volume two, Jazz Beat Encore: More Notes on Classic Jazz contains 43 more! Lew taps his extensive network of connections and friends throughout the traditional jazz world to bring us his Jazz Jottings column every month.
