Some years back local resident Hannie Wolf wrote to the Albion News decrying potential cuts in funding for the arts, observing that a ‘community that loses the arts loses its soul.’  As co-directors of the Albion Area Arts Council, my wife Lori and I agree, and I’d hazard a guess that the many individuals and businesses who either joined the Arts Council this season and/or donated during the recent Big Give agree as well.
The Albion Area Arts Council was founded in 1979 not only to bring a variety of quality performances to this area but to encourage local students and adults to participate in the arts.  Since 2005 when Lori and I took the helm, in addition to bringing in professional artists from as far away as Nova Scotia, we’ve presented readings of original works by local authors, exhibitions of original artwork and quilts, and concerts by local artists, the most recently this past Sunday.
This concert, which was organized by retired Boone Central vocal teacher Dawn Bussey and local pianist Jill Nore, featured both students and adults.  All were volunteers – including the sound man, Pastor David Frerichs — who had to make time in their busy schedules in order for this to happen.
And though none of the artists Sunday make their livings doing this, they were every bit as professional as any of the other performers we’ve brought here over the years.  Watching them rehearse was a great example of how like-minded people can come together to accomplish something that wouldn’t happen otherwise.  Everybody was there for the same reason – a love of music and a desire to share it not only with each other but with their friends and family members in the audience.  Questions were asked and suggestions were given and even though Dawn and Jill were in charge, decisions were made as much by consensus as anything.
Critics of small towns can recite a litany of things they lack, but talent isn’t on the list. Talent isn’t confined to cities – it can be found everywhere, and given how talented these local artists are and how well everyone worked together, it was no surprise that their performance was as good as you’d find anywhere.
And the audience clearly agreed – one woman even described it as “magical.” The audience plays an important role in every concert – if they are receptive and enthusiastic, the artists will perform their very best.  A good concert is a symbiosis where the performers and the listeners interact, and this was well-demonstrated Sunday.
I once overheard a businessman in a neighboring community comment that he “wouldn’t cross the street to hear a concert” and I know there are people like that.  To some people music means nothing.  But even the most tone-deaf person should still be able to understand that art nourishes the soul of a community and helps tie its members together.
It might be as apt to say that a community loses the arts when it’s lost its soul – the two are inextricably intertwined.  Hannie – who escaped the Holocaust as a teenager – knows first-hand the dangers a soulless community poses (the Nazis used art only for propaganda).  Keeping the arts alive isn’t just a nicety – it’s a necessity that does much more than we often realize to keep us both human and humane.  The soul of our community expressed itself wonderfully Sunday, and I would like to think the ties that weave us together are stronger as a result.

My father enlisted in the Navy in 1945, the peak of the Big Band era, and was classified as a musician since he played the piano.  Soon he found himself in a band made up of recently graduated music majors from the University of Washington.

He told me they gave him “charts” of the tunes they were going to play and to his dismay, these charts had no notes written on them.  Instead they had the names of the chords and he was expected to know what the notes of those chords were.  He had never seen a chart before and had no idea what a Dm7#9 was.  So he just relied on his ear and managed to invent piano parts on the spot.  He said it was a “sink or swim” situation.

He taught me to play jazz bass the same way.  I badgered him for months to get me a bass guitar and when he finally did he taught me what the notes were and then sat me down to play with him.  I was expected to figure out which notes to play, just as he had in the Navy.

I ended up in another sink or swim situation last week when I found myself playing bass with two of the best jazz players on the scene today, flutist Ali Ryerson and guitarist Stan Smith.  The Arts Council had hired Ali to do a two day residency at the school followed by a concert for the public.  Ali assumed she would be able to hire a bassist and guitarist in Omaha or Lincoln and they could come with her to work in Albion.  Unfortunately, though she’s played all over the world, she’d never been to Nebraska before and discovered about a week before the concert that the few jazz players Nebraska has either couldn’t – or wouldn’t – come to Albion.

So she asked her friend Stan to play guitar.  Stan, head of the jazz department at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, rearranged his schedule and drove 15 hours straight to be here in time for a first-thing Monday school concert.  Ali completed her combo by asking me to play bass and my 15-year-old son, Thomas, to help out on drums.

I had never played with musicians like Ali and Stan and hadn’t played at all for nearly three years.  And Thomas had never done anything like this before.  We did the school concert without rehearsal.  Monday evening Stan taught Thomas a variety of jazz drumming patterns and techniques, Thomas’ first-ever lesson in jazz drums.

Jazz is an improvised and interactive music where the musicians feed off one another’s ideas and energy.  Performing with Ali and Stan was an incredible example of this. Playing with such skilled musicians brought out the very best in both Thomas and me, and though we were neither one perfect, we both played way above our pay grade.

Stan and Ali’s ability to bring out the best in other musicians was really on display as they worked with grades 4 through 12.  In practically no time Ali had every group she worked with improvising, and it was really something to see the students’ faces light up as they began finding their own unique musical voices.  All were thrown into the water, and every one of them was able to swim — it’s a real testament to Boone Central’s music program that their students had the foundation necessary to rise to the challenge Ali and Stan gave them with such confidence and ability.