A great way to help area musicians in crisis

After an eight-year run of presenting mainstream jazz concerts in the Venice-Sarasota-Englewood area, the non-profit South County Jazz Club is dissolving this month because of organizational challenges. But its legacy will live on in a tangible way.

The club’s Board of Directors voted to donate its remaining treasury, more than $16,000, to the Jazz Foundation of America to establish and manage a dedicated fund to assist area musicians in need. The board stipulated that this Florida initiative be limited to an area from Tampa to the north, Naples to the south, and Orlando to the east. 

The JFA has a solid track record doing this sort of work. Its Musicians’ Emergency Fund provides housing assistance, pro bono medical care, disaster relief and direct financial support in times of crisis. It has been helping needy musicians for 30 years.  

If you dig music, dig a little deeper

The Jazz Foundation of America's Musicians Emergency Fund stepped up big time to help New Orleans musicians after Hurricane Katrina and its catastrophic flooding aftermath. And it is preparing to reach out to Texas jazz, blues and roots musicians affected by Hurricane Harvey.

The Jazz Foundation will help them rebuild, repairing homes, replacing belongings and treasured instruments and even replacing work.

Here's a link where you can join me and others in the music community in supporting this great effort.

Some background if you're unfamiliar. The Jazz Foundation brought over 1,000 musicians and their families back after Katrina by rehousing them, donating top-shelf instruments and creating paying gigs for hundreds. 

It also was there for hundreds affected by Superstorm Sandy. It also helped rebuild the homes of the musicians who lost everything in last year's devastating floods in Baton Rouge.

For 26 years, the Jazz Foundation has been keeping jazz and blues alive by helping the musicians who have played with everyone from Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday to Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones. It assists in more than 5,000 cases a year nationwide.

How to help musicians reeling from Sandy

Jazz angel Wendy Oxenhorn and her Jazz Foundation of America staff in New York have been put to the test once again, helping musicians who have been hit hard by the impact of superstorm Sandy.

"It's so much worse than one might have imagined,” Oxenhorn wrote in today's email. “Aside from the most obvious need of water, warmth, food and money, hundreds of musicians have lost gigs because of Sandy. Clubs are closed, and musicians haven't been able to travel out of town for work either. Lost gigs means no money for the rent. No money for the rent means the Jazz Foundation will be providing emergency assistance."

She tells it well, and shares a lot of heartfelt stories about the struggles here, and efforts that are underway by the Jazz Foundation  through its Jazz Musicians Emergency Fund.

There's also a link for those of you who care to join me in helping through donations from near and far at a serious time of need by musicians who have given so much to jazz throughout their careers.