There’s a new music collective playing jazz on the local scene, and the players are sponsoring a holiday concert to benefit the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford on Thursday, Dec. 20, at the Pioneer Saloon in Woodside.
Menlo Park resident Jon Shalowitz started the Peninsula Jazz Society last August to “promote local jazz musicians … and music in the community,” he explains.
“I was hoping to form a more supportive environment for newcomers to play jazz in a live environment, to feel comfortable to get up on stage and play with their peers,” says Mr. Shalowitz, who plays alto saxophone. “The vision behind the Peninsula Jazz Society was to form a local community of pro and non-pro players — we’re open to folks at all levels of playing.”
The collective now has almost 60 musicians who have been getting together to jam every other week for the last five months. Throughout the summer, 10 to 12 musicians would show up at the Flea Street Cafe in Menlo Park for Sunday night sessions.
Currently, players show up every other Thursday night to jam at the Pioneer Saloon. And beginning in January, group members will be performing the first and third Sunday of the month at Domenico Wines in San Carlos.
Mr. Shalowitz says the ensembles “tend to draw a very diverse crowd — many folks from the local community, venture capitalists in suits and ties just getting off work, couples out on a date, young jazz musicians looking to come and jam.”
The collective also works as a network for the musicians, providing a forum to meet collaborators, organize gigs and workshop new pieces. The group’s Web site reads like a Craigslist or bulletin board for local jazz aficionados and players.
The Dec. 20 event at the Pioneer Saloon, from 8:30 to 11 p.m., will raise funds for children’s hospital’s “Breaking New Ground” fundraising campaign.
According to the hospital Web site, the campaign will raise money for a major expansion that will provide 104 new beds, new training programs, and increased research for new treatments, as well as providing funds to support services not covered by insurance.
Mr. Shalowitz and Peninsula Jazz Society members chose the hospital as the concert’s beneficiary because of its focus on the local community, he says.
“It is our hope that not only will we raise a little money for the hospital’s current fund drive, but that we can also raise awareness in the community for the important fundraising effort that is being done now right in our backyard to promote the health and well-being of the children in our community.”
The benefit performance will include jazz arrangements of holiday tunes.
JAZZ AT THE PIONEER
Members of the Peninsula Jazz Society will perform at the Pioneer Saloon at 2925 Woodside Road in Woodside from 8:30 to 11 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 20. Admission is $10 at the door; all proceeds go to the hospital. For more information about the event or other jam sessions, go to www.peninsulajazzsociety.org.
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