April is Jazz Appreciation Month (with the ever-so-appropriate nickname, JAM) and there are so many ways to celebrate.
Here’s just a few: Read a jazz biography or history. Rent a movie about jazz – there are some good ones that come very close to reality and there are some indy documentaries that are totally worthwhile. Subscribe to a jazz magazine. Join your local jazz society. Attend a live performance, one at a time or a jazz festival, make it a family vacation. Follow your favorite musicians on social media. Make a donation to your favorite jazz radio station (that’s JazzOn2, right?).
A little history of JAM. It began in 2001 at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History by the museum’s curator, John Edward Hasse. The U.S. Congress passed the legislation and it was signed by President George W Bush in 2003. It was originally funded by the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation. As the program grew, so did the list of public and private institutions helping JAM achieve its vision of advancing and promoting jazz as our cultural treasure, born in America and celebrated worldwide.
