Health and Financial Fitness Fair will focus on jazz musicians
By STEVE PENN
The Kansas City Star
What’s the best way for a jazz musician to obtain health insurance? And how should musicians best invest and save their money in this economy?
On Saturday, the first Coda Jazz Fund Health and Financial Fitness Fair will attempt to provide answers to those and other questions.
Since the Coda Jazz Fund was formed in 2001, the foundation has addressed the end-of-life needs of area jazz musicians. In 2008 alone, the fund has assisted at least eight families of jazz artists with funeral and burial expenses.
On Saturday, the fund’s health and finance fair will take a proactive approach to broader health and financial issues.
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., musicians from across the city are invited to participate in the free event in the Blue Room and in the atrium of the American Jazz Museum. The fair will feature health screenings for high blood pressure, depression, diabetes, and kidney and dental problems.
The services are being provided by Swope Health Services, Truman Medical Center, the National Kidney Foundation, the American Heart Association, the National Council of Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of Greater Kansas City, the Kansas City Health Department and the Housing Information Center. The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation provided the funding that made the fair possible.
Joe Spease, a Coda Jazz Fund advisory board member, said the health and fitness fair will include a nonsmoking clinic and glaucoma testing.
“This is a free service to try to keep our jazz musicians healthy,” Spease said. “We want them to continue keeping our jazz scene vibrant around here.”
Two financial literacy sessions will be held on Saturday, one at 10 a.m. and the other at 11 a.m., at the American Jazz Museum. The financial sessions will provide musicians with information on budgeting, managing credit cards, investing, mortgages and making out a will. The first 100 musicians to show up Saturday will receive a free lunch.
Gregory Carroll, executive director of the American Jazz Museum, noted that the health and financial fitness fair is part of the museum’s Art Blakey tribute on Friday and Saturday. The tribute features workshops, master classes and concert performances.
Carroll has seen the benefits of similar health and financial fitness fairs for musicians in other cities. He has known several musicians who discovered health concerns after attending one, discoveries that saved their lives. And he knows a musician who received financial advice from a similar session that helped stave off bankruptcy.
“I would encourage the musicians to bring their families and their close friends as well,” Carroll said. “I would highly encourage all our artists to participate. Not only jazz artists are welcome, but our classical ones are as well. We’re ready to receive as many people as possible.”
Carroll would like to see the health and fitness fair become an annual event.
“Hopefully it will become a tradition,” Carroll said. “Ultimately we’d like to end up putting ourselves out of business in having to pay for burial expenses. People will have developed the skills and the healthy lifestyles to live longer. They will have the skill set to invest and make good financial decisions so they can afford their own burials. Hopefully, we can help them live longer so their music can be provided to us longer.”
Local saxophonist Horace Washington encourages his fellow musicians to come out Saturday.
“Forewarned is forearmed,” Washington said. “It could be a matter of just changing your diet or just being aware. Crossing over is a bad alternative.”
For questions, call 816-474-8463, Ext. 238, or go to
www.codajazzfund.org or
www.americanjazzmuseum.org.
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