Out and About: The Super Fans
You've seen them around. They're at all the gigs, their attention focused deeply on the bandstand, as much a part of their local jazz scenes as the musicians and venues. They know and love the music, and musicians love them back. These passionate music-goers are The Super Fans, and they are an essential part of the concert experience. "Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force... When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand." (Karl A. Menninger) Each month, AAJ focuses the attention back on one of The Super Fans to find out what it is they love about live jazz. By Tessa Souter and Andrea Wolper.
Meet Clifford Bass
by Tessa Souter and Andrea Wolper
Our newest super fan's first jazz record was The Best of Nat King Cole, which he chose at just ten years old! The bug bit him so hard that, by age 14, he was listening obsessively to A Love Supreme. He is now such a fan of improvisational, in-the-moment performance that he rarely listens to recordings, preferring to witness jazz live wherever he can find it: so far in 98 countries and counting. Tell us a bit about ...
read moreMeet Tony Gleeson
by Tessa Souter and Andrea Wolper
Tell us a bit about yourself. I'm an artist by vocation and a musician by avocation (I've played guitar all my life and picked up keyboards a couple of decades back). Music of all kinds has always been a major part of my life, but early on I made the choice to pursue the visual arts as my career. I spent my so-called formative years on the east coast, in upstate New York, jny:Washington DC, and jny:New York City. When ...
read moreMeet Abe Goldstien
by Tessa Souter and Andrea Wolper
You can have your “Dry Cleaner From Des Moines"--we're putting our money on our latest jazz Super Fan from Des Moines. Former adman Abe Goldstien lists his passions as his wife, his two children, and jazz. Retired though he may be, Abe doesn't show any signs of slowing down, keeping up a busy schedule volunteering for various organizations, freelancing as a writer and consultant, and doing everything in his power to make sure jazz thrives in Des Moines. As if ...
read moreMeet Jack Sirica
by Tessa Souter and Andrea Wolper
Self-raised on rock and roll, Jack Sirica's connection to music always comes back to rhythm. Sure, there was that teenage flirtation with a Fender Mustang electric guitar (which ended when his dad, worried about slipping grades, intervened), but Sirica credits Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts' swing feel on the ride cymbal for opening up his ears to jazz. Through the years of attending concerts and listening to recordings, Sirica's appreciation of rhythm has grown to the point that he's been ...
read moreMeet Michele Zousmer
by Tessa Souter and Andrea Wolper
Although she grew up hearing her father's beloved big band records, our first Super Fan of 2022 took a roundabout path to jazz. This artistic soul was more drawn to dance, photography, and humanitarian work than to music. It was only after a series of life changing events that she rediscovered jazz, realizing that improvised music and the people who make it spoke to her as powerfully as her other passions. And that led to some pretty interesting collaborations—not to ...
read moreMeet Kenneth Cobb
by Tessa Souter and Andrea Wolper
We suppose it makes sense that our latest Super Fan, a high-level mathematician—a contractor for NASA, no less—would keep meticulous records about, well, everything, from his massive CD and LP collection, to his personal road trip “mix tapes," to every concert he's attended. But applying his mathematical genius to fitting an entire week's worth of music into three days strikes us as positively Einsteinian. (You'll just have to read on to find out how he did it.) Tell ...
read moreMeet Jack DiMonte
by Tessa Souter and Andrea Wolper
As a teenager in central New Jersey, our newest Super Fan, Jack DiMonte, started listening to a twice-weekly all-Sinatra radio show and, without even realizing it, absorbing the music and lyrics of the Great American Songbook. Moving to New York as an actor, he soon found himself luxuriating in the city's vibrant jazz and cabaret scenes. Read on to discover why he'd like to open his own jazz club. . . or would he? Tell us a bit ...
read moreMeet David Beckett
by Tessa Souter and Andrea Wolper
Not many of our Super Fans can claim a Harlem Globetrotters game as their introduction to jazz. But it was at a game that young David Beckett first heard the team's famously catchy theme song, “Sweet Georgia Brown," and it set him on the Super Fan path for life. David tried his hand at guitar and even sang for a hot minute, but listening--especially to live music--is his passion. A true friend-of-jazz, he's found multiple ways to indulge, from volunteering ...
read moreCelebrating the 2019-2020 Super Fans
by Tessa Souter and Andrea Wolper
You've seen them around. They're at all the gigs, their attention focused deeply on the bandstand, as much a part of their local jazz scenes as the musicians and venues. They know and love the music, and musicians love them back. These passionate music-goers are the super fans, and they are an essential part of the concert experience. Every other month or so, All About Jazz focuses the attention back on a jazz Super Fan to find out ...
read moreMeet The JazzTwins, Arnold and Donald Stanley
by Tessa Souter and Andrea Wolper
For our first two-for-one Super Fans column, we present the JazzTwins, Arnold Stanley and Donald Stanley, who got started pretty young (just wait till you see who played at their high school concerts). All jazz Super Fans are VIPs, but these two take things to another level. From invitations to musicians' family dinners to being the inspiration for a composition on a Grammy-nominated CD, the JazzTwins are, in the words of that Grammy-nominated artist, “Fans who become friends who become ...
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