Jazz Hands! Let’s Celebrate International Jazz Day

This Day is intended to raise awareness of the virtues of jazz as an educational tool, and a force for empathy, dialogue and enhanced cooperation among people. Many governments, civil society organizations, educational institutions, and private citizens currently engaged in the promotion of jazz music will embrace the opportunity to foster greater appreciation not only for the music but also for the contribution it can make to building more inclusive societies.

• Jazz breaks down barriers and creates opportunities for mutual understanding and tolerance;
• Jazz is a vector of freedom of expression;
• Jazz reduces tensions between individuals, groups, and communities;
• Jazz encourages artistic innovation, improvisation, new forms of expression, and inclusion of traditional music forms into new ones;
• Jazz stimulates intercultural dialogue and empowers young people from marginalized societies.

Right on, UNESCO! And how about just: jazz makes you happy?!!!

Read more on their site here.

A Tune from Our Musical Millennial

Here’s a tune for your listening pleasure on this day of jazz hands, from one of my son’s last college concerts in the University of Texas Jazz Orchestra. The spring ones have been cancelled, of course, along with his senior recital, but we look forward to the ones to come from his Master’s studies at the University of Miami. I posted this one just a couple of months ago, but it’s worth another listen.