Saturday, June 20, 2009

KCSM Benefit at Yoshi's in Oakland: Recollections of Dr. Denny Zeitlin

The world's finest jazz radio station, KCSM Jazz 91 in San Mateo, CA unfortunately fell short of its spring fundrasing goal. Personally I think the drive did surprisingly well considering the current economic climate--but the station also needs more financial support from listeners because of budget cuts at its host college and other factors.

Fortunately, Yoshi's--Oakland--one of the great jazz venues--is graciously hosting a fund-raiser for KCSM on June 30 to help close the funding gap. And what a program!! Three of today's greatest jazz pianists--(Dr.) Denny Zeitlin, Jon Jang, and Taylor Eigsti, are generously giving a benefit performance (two shows, 8 and 10 p.m.) to help out!!

The co-appearance of these amazing jazz talents provides a great example of the universality of jazz. Jang has woven both cultural and musical threads from his Chinese heritage into his music; Eigsti has adapted modern recording techniques to enrich his jazz performances; and Zeitlin continues to excite audiences with new musical insights that may well spring from his deep understanding of the role of creativity in the human psyche.

I have a special fondness for Denny Zeitlin. He and I are both alumni of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, graduating at about the same time. I got reacquainted with him after he moved to UC San Francisco for his psychiatric residency and, later, a faculty position. I vividly and warmly recall Denny playing jazz piano to soothe strung-out, psychically lost young people who had taken refuge in a space he created at UCSF in the late 1960s. The facility required no registration, had no bureaucratic barriers, and those who came were free to leave at any time. It was just a safe place for these waifs to escape the chaos of Haight-Ashbury for a little while. I was deeply moved by what this haven revealed about the extent of Dr. Zeitlin's unselfish caring for these young adventurers as they tried to cope with the turbulence of those long-ago days.

These three wonderful musicians also show how jazz appeals to us no matter our ages. Zeitlin (and I!) are in our eighth decades of life; Jang is a generation behind us and Eigsti is in his twenties.

I salute these gifted musicians for their generosity, their willingness to use their gifts to attract support for KCSM. I thank Yoshi's for hosting the event. And I encourage all jazz lovers who can possibly do so to attend this never-to-be-repeated event. But...that's the way jazz is, isn't it? Always fresh, always new.

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