"Jam Session"

In case you think we are on a vacation, here is a first "action shot" of me actually working. Well, okay, maybe it is hard to call this work, but this is how I spend a couple of hours each week. This week, on Tuesday, under much happier circumstances than the previous weekend I opened an exhibition called Jam Session. This is a showcase of photographs of our Jazz Ambassadors that is on display here in the Wyśpiański Pavilion, here in Krakow.

This display is part of a series of cultural offerings under the title "Ameryka, Ameryka" and riffs on our joint exhibit with the National Museum called "American Dream", which you should check out here. http://www.muzeum.krakow.pl/?L=1

Anyway, having grown up in New Orleans and making feeble attempts at jazz on the trombone for a while, I felt at home here, but awed by the talent that showed up. In the picture above, to my right is Marek Karewicz, a celebrated jazz photographer whose works hung in the gallery. He has captured the images of some of our greatest talent for 55 years: from Duke Ellington to Winton Marsalis...in my hand in the photo is his book, which you can check out here http://www.myspace.com/karewicz. This is Jazz. He captured it beautifully and at some risk to his person in communist Poland.

During this reception I had the honor of meeting some very talented local musicians and our own Pulitzer Prize winner (poetry) Yusef Komunyakaa, originally from Bogalusa, La. Yusef has done great things here in Poland, reading his work to audiences throughout Poland. It was a great three-hour-long party, and I left feeling overwhelmed by the work of these great artists. It's a pretty good gig if you can get it ;-)