The Great JFA Auction

[Lois Gilbert]

Dear Wonderful People:

This Wednesday at BB King's, will be out very first Jazz Foundation Nov. 16th Auction!

B.B.King Blues Club & Grill • 7:00 pm - 11:00
237 West 42nd Street, New York City (bt. B'way & 8th Ave)


Even if you can't make it, you can still participate and help us to save the very people who have already made our lives so rich — the jazz and blues musicians.

Thanks to our Angels at E*TRADE Financial Group, we have already been housing New Orleans jazz and blues artists, as well as clothing to their children.

We've secured over $120,000 of DONATED instruments and are getting them to many of New Orleans most beloved senior and junior musicians.

Thanks to the magnificent Agnes Varis, we are able to employ displaced New Orleans musicians in five states for six months, allowing them to perform in schools in Louisiana, Texas and Georgia. We are also employing some of our elder jazz and blues pioneers in Chicago and NYC.

You can come to the auction at BB King's Wednesday Nov. 16 and hang with Danny Glover, Chevy Chase, Dick Parsons (Time Warner), Jarrett Lilien (E*TRADE), Prince Max of Schaumburg-Lippe, the young Prince Aga Khan, Martha Nelson (People Magazine) Hugh Hildesley, Dionne Warwick, Oksana Lada from the Sopranos and many more surprise guests…. and of course... there would be YOU.

But if you can’t make the auction, YOU CAN BID ON-LINE!


The great folks at Gotta Have It Auction House are making an Online Auction for us with a few special items from November 10 to November 22.

www.gottahaveit.com

There you will be privy to a special online auction featuring extremely rare, one-of-a-kind jazz collectibles from the biggest performers in the history of jazz music.

Items up for bid On-line include:

· The Famous Blue Note Club’s Gerhard Feldman Bösendorfer Grand Piano, played by all the Legends

· Freddie Hubbard's Trumpet

· Cyndi Lauper’s Costume worn onstage.

· Jimi Hendrix’s original “Band of Gypsies” Rhythm Section will lay down one track on your own CD

· Frank Foster’s Gold-Plated Selmer Tenor Saxophone

· Clark Terry’s Eterna Silver-Plated Cornet used on the Tonight Show, by the very man who taught Quincy Jones. PLUS... a PRIVATE LESSON from Master Clark Terry himself.

· Remo Palmier’s Early 1950’s Custom-Designed One-Of-A- Kind
Proto-type Vega Guitar

· Buddy Rich’s Drum Sticks

All these amazing items are available online at www.gottahaveit.com


We need you now. This is to keep us going.

Help us give them back their instruments, their homes and their lives.

And in return, they will be giving us their music, again.

RSVP: For tickets TO THE EVENT, or donations AND SPONSORSHIPS call 212-245-3999 Ext. 26 or email lorin@jazzfoundation.org See ticket prices at bottom of email

ONLY THOSE WHO RESPOND WILL BE ALLOWED IN: YOU MUST RESPOND IF YOU WANT TO ATTEND! You can pay at the door but we're nearly full up now-

Special performances include: Aside from our NY Pioneers, you'll hear some of New Orleans greatest local brass and blues

· Clarence "Frogman" Henry, one of the original kings of Rock 'n Roll, who headlined the Madison Square Garden Relief Concert with Elton John, with Benny Powell, Junior Mance, Shelton Gary and James Andrews of New Orleans!

· The Legendary Harlem Blues and Jazz Band with special appearance by Junior Mance

· Sweet Georgia Brown (as recently written about as the "Lady Who Sings The Blues" in the NY Times!)

· The Legendary Louisiana Queen of Soul: Carol Fran

· Danny Sinoff Band (The next Harry Connick Jr., Chet Baker & Ray Charles all rolled up in one. This kid is amazing...) with David Fathead Newman

· The Famous New Orleans Hot 8 Brass Band! They are amazing!


Major Sponsors: E*TRADE Financial Group & TIME WARNER

You won't just have a great time, you will be doing so much for so many. (But if you can't make this one, then stay tuned for our
May 4th Great Night In Harlem at the Apollo.)

Yours in Service,
Wendy Oxenhorn
Director/Jazz Foundation of America



RSVP: For tickets TO THE EVENT, or donations AND SPONSORSHIPS

call 212-245-3999 Ext. 26 or email lorin@jazzfoundation.org


Please make all contributions payable to: Jazz Foundation of America, Inc.
322 West 48th Street, 6th floor , New York, NY 10036 USA

[Lois Gilbert]

This was an awesome event. I was honored to be there and watch the money roll in for the Jazz Foundation of America's Jazz Musicians Emergency Fund. I'll have some photos and highlights later today.

The important news is the auction ain't over

there are 9 items including Clark Terry's cornet, a painting by Ornette Coleman and 7 other items that are online at

http://www.gottahaveit.com

The other option for those that don't have that much cash on hand is to go to http://jazzcares.com. There are now about 350 cds available with a portion of the proceeds going to JFA

Most are $16 including shipping and autographed and the artists get the money directly and send you the cds and you and JC contribute to JFA. A win win situation

You can also donate directly to JFA by going to jazzfoundation.org - a site we're proud to have designed and produced.

[Lois Gilbert]

Terrell Batiste has no idea where his grandmother is - or even if she's alive - more than two months after hurricane Katrina.

All the 21-year-old trumpeter has now is a temporary home, a donated horn and a chance to eke out a living by playing New Orleans music in other parts of America. On Wednesday night, the Jazz Foundation of America held an auction to help Batiste and hundreds of other hurricane-displaced musicians with food, clothes, housing and jobs.

Among those playing at the fundraiser was 95-year-old tenor saxophonist Max Lucas, who once performed with Louis Armstrong, and 91-year-old alto saxophonist Fred Staton, who played with Art Blakey, Count Basie and Billy Strayhorn.

On the auction block were more than 50 jazz treasures ranging from Miles Davis' boa constrictor snakeskin jacket to the Boesendorfer grand piano from Manhattan's Blue Note club. The auction raised more than $300,000 US Wednesday night, with Davis' jacket fetching $13,000; bidding on some items, including the Blue Note piano, was to continue online for another week.

A 1961 New York Times photo showing Armstrong playing for his wife in front of the pyramids in Giza, Egypt, sold for $1,600. A vocal coaching session from Roberta Flack went for $5,000, and a jazz piano lesson from Billy Taylor went for $2,500.

The presale estimates ranged from $200 for the Times photo to $65,000 for the Blue Note piano.

The online component of the fundraiser also offered the chance to record a track with the bass player and drummer for Jimi Hendrix's original Band of Gypsies.

Members of the Hot 8 Brass Band - Batiste and nine other young men whose edgy new jazz was at the heart of pre-Katrina New Orleans - were flown in for the evening at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in Times Square. The band previously performed a New Orleans-style funeral procession at the Halloween parade in Greenwich Village.

The New York-based foundation, which fields up to 20 requests a day for help, already has delivered more than $120,000 worth of new instruments, from accordions to banjos and pianos. More than 100 musicians have been relocated into new homes or helped with mortgages on destroyed homes.

A New Jersey hospital provided free care to members of Hot 8; one has diabetes, another chest pains.

Trumpeter Alvarez (B.I.G. AL) Huntley was treated for a leg gash suffered while escaping his house. He waded through toxin-filled water with the open wound. "He doesn't have anywhere to go when we're finished on the road," said Batiste, who lives in a Red Cross-sponsored apartment in Atlanta.

Batiste's grandmother, Ethel Anna Herbert, 82, was floated on an air mattress from the family home to safety, suffering a stroke at the sight of the destruction and bodies in the water. She was airlifted from New Orleans' Superdome in a helicopter.

"Nobody could go with her, and the people on the chopper wouldn't take her medical file," said her grandson. "We've been looking everywhere for her."

Batiste keeps on playing with the Hot 8 band, which is getting a motor home from a Pennsylvania woman to travel at low cost, said Jazz Foundation executive director Wendy Oxenhorn.

The foundation, with money from the band Pearl Jam and other donors, will pay 126 New Orleans evacuees to perform in the next six months for schoolchildren in Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Illinois and New York.

"People are hearing a lot more of what was just in the streets of New Orleans," said Hot 8's manager, Lee Arnold. "It's a good opportunity both for the country and the musicians."

[Lois Gilbert]

Dearest Wonderful Beautiful People:

Well, between the silent auction and the live, and with the folks who bought tables, and this does not count the people who are sending in donations who did not make it to the event, or what we will raise from the online auction at GOTTAHAVEIT.com ... the count so far is:

over $325,000 from our very first auction.

With deepest appreciation to E*TRADE Financial Group and Time Warner with great affection particularly to Jarrett Lilien, Dick Parsons and Agnes Varis... and the 15 other sponsors, as well as Prince Max of Schaumburg-Lippe who gave us a stay at his 33 room town house in Salzburg which in the auction, raised $36,000 alone! And to Beautiful Danny Glover, Ivana Trump, Denise Rich and all the jazz royalty who came that night... the magnificent Auctioneer: Hugh Hildesley, he made the evening so fantastic ...


And thanks to BB King's and the ever amazing Blue Smoke Catering from the people who also created the Jazz Standard, BETjazz the 24 hour channel, WBGO jazz 88, and Gwen from HotHouse who donated the printed program, the people who bought tickets, tables and bid on auction items, to Lupe Todd of Dan Klores Com. who did our PR and the amazing staff at the Jazz Foundation, and the beautiful board members and Committee Members and there friends and companies, and the precious volunteers, and the fabulous Feldmans for their Bosendorfer Blue Note Club Piano, Ellington's Jazz club on Sanibel Island and Dave Brubeck for the Dinner with Dave Weekend, and to all the great photographers who donated their work, especially Hank O'Neal, Enid Farber, Carol Friedman, William Gottlieb, Arthur Elgort, Herman Leonard, and Ann Ruckert who gave up her beloved Billie Holiday print that hung for years at one of the greatest clubs in NYC, and to Tony Bennett for his artwork... the folks at the Algonquin Oak Room, Anne Bowen, Earl Davis, just to name a partial list of those who gave... and the pro bono doctors at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, who never turn down our musicians in need... and all the musicians who gave their instruments to the auction and their lessons!

* * * * * * * *
Here's why we need you right this minute more then ever:

The monies coming in before the auction these past few months were keeping us going. To accomodate the new emergencies generated by the Hurricanes, caused us to have to hire many new employees and part time social workers in order to handle the tornado that hit our office... with so many New Orleans musicians still coming in for help...

The challenge now, is to be able to keep up all we are doing for them AND our regular 35 a week, nationwide elderly jazz and blues pioneers who still suffer from sickness, lack of employment, eviction, and homelessness...

we must be able to make it to our next fundraising event, which will be our beloved Annual GREAT NIGHT IN HARLEM at the world famous Apollo Theater on May 4th 2006 hosted by the one and only Bill Cosby.

You can make this possible right now...

You can still bid at the online auction!

The folks we love at Gotta Have It Auction House , the Fantastic Bobby, Pam and Pete ... on 153 East 57th Street are keeping the items in our on-line for a few more days!
You can bid on the internet right now !!!

So go to Gottahaveit.com and see the one of a kind $130,000 Bosendorfer piano that was played on at the Blue Note Club these past years, by all the legends...Frank Foster's gold plated sax, Clark Terry's silver cornet,
and now, thanks to Paul Simon, we have his signed Yankee baseball jacket going up online as well!

and... believe it or not...
a chance to win the unbelievable moment of recording one track with Jimi Hendrix's original rhythm section from his Band of Gypsies!!!

Run, don't walk to their website: WWW.Gottahaveit.com


And most of all, thanks to the musicians who gave us their music the whole night reminding us of how we need them, and how rich they make us every day of our lives... especially ten year old Glenn Hall who played his trumpet and reminded us that New Orleans must have a future ... and David "Fathead" Newman and Junior Mance, Benny Powell, Ron Carter, Clark Terry, the unforgettable Frogman Henry, and the Hot 8 Band, your favorite and mine: Sweet Georgia Brown, and the Diva from New orleans, Miss Carol Fran and the Hot 8 Brass Band and Danny Sinoff Band.

And let's not forget YOU for what you do to make all our hard work possible...

You all made me us proud. If you haven't stepped up to the plate, then please take the minute to do so now.

In the past 9 weeks, we housed, we fed, we got instruments to, we employed we clothed, we comforted and we rescued these great musicians and their children. Over 457 emergency cases. The way we always do it ... One musician at a time.

What we cannot do alone, we can do together.

From our hearts, you cannot know what you make possible...

Yours in service,
Wendy