No, it's not a sock hop! Six of Austin's best jazz musicians played an instructional concert at a local elementary school yesterday morning. Michael Melinger, the tenor sax player, is the president of Austin Jazz Workshop, which reaches out to kids in grades 3-5 with music and talk about the various instruments. The hope is that the kids will be inspired to take up playing an instrument themselves. This year's featured composer is Henry Mancini. They played songs like Moon River, Theme from Peter Gunn, Baby Elephant Walk, Charade, and Dear Heart. The kids were in awe and I heard one of the teachers telling a colleague afterwards, "That was world class!" Thanks to tireless work from Michael and support from the AISD and some loyal donors, they play in virtually all of the local schools each year.
