[Tradjazz] Young jazz musicians - young jazz audiences?

[Vaxtrpts at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/27/2006 8:47:48 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
tradjazz-request at list.okom.com writes:

Hello  Bruce!     Your  comments are right on the money. Unfortunately, the 
average age of our  audience is deceased. The music is still great, but it 
hasn't been "young  peoples' music" for many years.

Henry N.

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From:  GeoHunt1 at aol.com
Subject: [Tradjazz] Capitol Focus Jazz Band
Hi  Bruce:
On the subject of young Dixieland Jazz musicians:
Dave Robinson  is a great trumpet player from the Washington, DC, area, and 
also a music  educator.  Robinson directs the Capitol Focus Jazz Band, an all 
youth  organization.  See the web site: http://www.prjc.org/cfjb/ .  The  
CFJB is 
sponsored by the Potomac River Jazz Club, and we feature them when  we can at 
the Tri-State Jazz Society.
George Hunt


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Capitol Focus JB played for a reception at the American Federation of  
Jazz Societies conference a couple of weeks ago in Washington DC and sounded  
great.  Dave was "sitting in" on cornet, as they were looking for a new  young 
player for the band at the time.
Being that I am very involved in jazz education, I can tell you that there  
are youth bands all over this country and many of them sound very good.   Some 
are traditional and usually sponsored by a jazz society, many are in the  big 
band format in schools, and some are more modern and usually put  together by 
the kids themselves.
We keep talking about keeping the music alive and how important it is to  get 
young musicians playing, but as Henry N alludes to, what we are NOT doing is  
focusing on the audiences.  If we don't really work at bringing the music  to 
young people and doing it in a way that might entice them to become more  
interested in it, then all these wonderful young musicians that we are training  
will have NO place to perform and No audience to perform for, even say  twenty 
years from now.  
I am putting together a plan for the Federation to try to help jazz  
societies partner more with schools to get our music to the younger  generation.  I 
will give you more on this as the plan grows.  If you  don't know about the 
Federation, please go to _www.afjs.org_ (http://www.afjs.org)  . It is being 
re-vitalized and will  be doing some great stuff in the future.
Mike Vax
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