KSDS GM Ken Poston (at right) interviews (from left) Alan Broadbent, Joshua White, Gilbert Castellanos, and Bill Mays on stage at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in La Jolla before KSDS’s Bud Powell Centennial Concert on Friday evening, Sept. 27, 2024.
Dear Jazz88ers,
It’s been a 12-round, knock-down, drag out brawl of a Fall Membership Drive, but after ten grueling days and unspeakable amounts of pizza and Italian beef sandwiches and enchiladas… after our gastrointestinal systems have begged for clemency and prevailed upon us with reflux and the other unmentionable weapons at their disposal, we’ve laid down our swords and returned to programming as regularly scheduled.
For the last week-and-a-half, we’ve asked every which way for support — we’ve pitched, we’ve implored, we’ve beseeched, we’ve exhorted. And now our watch has ended. We shan’t unduly interrupt the music for fundraising purposes again…until the next time.
But if all that pitching has had the reverse effect; if it’s actually turned you off to giving, maybe ceasing to ask and returning to business as usual is the impetus YOU NEED to pledge.
That’s the thing: You don’t have to wait until the next membership drive. You can pledge your support for this station and become a member for the first time or renew your membership AT ANY TIME at 619-388-3000 or jazz88.org. I’d like to envision a future world where our financial viability no longer depends on membership drives. That doesn’t feel very realistic in the short term; then again, nothing accelerates aspirations quite like jazz.
Alex the Intern hit the campaign trail hard this season. Here he is, stumping for Dizzy Gillespie. Alex’s efforts were not in vain; Dizzy Gillespie prevailed as the favorite artist in the Fall 2024 Membership Artist Poll.
However you supported the station this time around, we’re grateful to you. We’ll continue to show our gratitude by presenting expertly curated local and national programming and world-class live concert events. If you were with us last Friday night for our Bud Powell Centennial concert, you know this description is no exaggeration; “world-class” might actually be underselling it.
Joshua White’s solo rendition of “Round Midnight”; Alan Broadbent’s dreamlike, decadently textured reimaginings of Bud Powell’s catalogue; and Bill Mays’s unalloyed joy and unrestrained physicality at the piano… the moments these artists created in that hall…that’s the supernatural stuff this music allows you to touch, if just for a moment.
There’s nothing else like it.
If you do nothing else, share your account of these experiences with a friend, with several, with your acquaintances at work or at the gym or in line at CVS. It may not realistically make things that much better in the short term; then again, nothing accelerates aspirations quite like jazz.
With reverence and gratitude,
Matt Silver and the KSDS Membership Team
