Archive for the ‘ramsey trio lewis’ tag
The Rhythm of Community Life
“Without music life would be a mistake. ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Recently I heard a contemporary musician say on the radio, that music is not meant to be thought, but to be 
felt. Indeed, if we think about the first beats we ever heard as human beings, it would be the soothing, rhythmic beat of our mother’s heart in utero. Music reminds us of the rhythm of our own bodies, the sounds of our world around us and our body’s ability to reverberate with them. It calls to our souls in words we cannot express, reaching back to older, simpler, lighter and darker places in our collective primal memory. As Ludwig van Beethoven said, “music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.”
It is also a mediator of community life. For centuries, music has called us together, acting as a communication medium over ancient times, place and peoples. Music marks every dimension of our collective cultural lives –births, deaths, transitions, gatherings and separations. It tells us who we are, where we are, what we are doing and all we were in the past. It is, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “the universal language of mankind.”
In this month of July, we are blessed with an abundance of music in our community. Maybe you’ve been hanging out at the Noontime Notes Concert Series which started in June and continues through to the middle of August at the Oak Street Plaza with local trios and quartets? If you haven’t, this concert series is free and open to the public, starting at 11:30am and finishing around 1 – just in time to pack up the picnic! Today, the series welcomes Mark Sloniker on Jazz Piano. The Old Town Sunday Sounds Concert Series in Old Town Square also started last weekend and will continue through August 30 every Sunday from 2-4pm. This Sunday, Finders and Youngberg, a bluegrass group and solo artist Russ Hopkins will be performing for your pleasure. You can find a complete schedule for this series here.
This week of course, kicks off the Fort Collins Jazz Experience, 
welcoming The Ramsey Lewis Trio to the Lincoln Center Performance Hall on from 7:30pm and then Al Jarreau on Saturday, July 11 starting at 8pm. You can get tickets and more information here. Fill out the form here for a chance to win one of 12 sets of Special Combo Tickets to see BOTH performances ($150 value, 2 tickets to each concert).There is also a great interview with Ramsey Lewis by Stacy Nick of the Coloradoan and full event schedule of the Jazz Festival to fill every single day this week.
And, just in case you’re wondering, this is just the start….With thanks to [phil h] and FadderUri for their wonderful images!
Were it not for music, we might in these days say, the Beautiful is dead. ~Benjamin Disraeli
The Beet goes on!
Kirsten Broadfoot
