I'M BACK...HERE'S MY TAKE

[Kevin Amos]

For the past few months I have been away from the Jazz Network. I have not posted comments, photos, videos or events.

 

I have been making observations however at events and talking with music fans and musicians. People have been asking me why I left the network. It's personal. Our lives take strange twists and turns and that is what I have been experiencing. No ill fellings directed toward anyone.

 

When commenting about the turmoil in the Pittsburgh market I am not happy as many of you already know. I continue to have the LONGEST running program that features Jazz on the radio. I have been doing this for the past 33 years in case some of you are aware of that fact. I have also hired many musicians in the are when I successfully programmed, MC'ed and marketed the Stars at Riverview and Reservoir of Jazz series for CITIPARKS from 2002 through 2007.  Efforts to save a radio station where wrong. That came too little and about 10 years too late. Yes the wheels were set in place that long ago. It's about creating a self sustaining Jazz community. It's about saving the music and the culture surrounding it. If you can't get with that then you simply need to just go away. 

I have worked with many in the Jazz community including MCG Jazz and WDUQ and will continue to work with others in the future. I would have really wanted to give Tony Mowod a big sendoff when he decided to retire from his radio duties but he did not include me. Like my Jamaican friends say, "I feel no way". He chose to do what he wanted to do. That tells me a lot about friendship among so-called colleagues.

I have also worked very hard to promote Jazz on and off the air. The downtown Jazz scene would not be flourishing now at certain hotels if I had not  approached them first about getting their patrons to come to Little E's when I was doing the Jazz Fan Appreciation series of events. I even looked into purchasing the 1902 Landmark in Market Square. It is now...Nola. Despite my efforts on numerous fronts I get you know what. And that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I don't have an attitude but I get tired of dealing with racists in 2011 and so do other people around the world as we see daily. I don't have time to play games.

I continue to produce and host my Sunday morning radio program at WRCT featuring Jazz, Blues, Gospel, Rock, Reggae and other musics of the African diaspora. I am currently working on my rescheduled music and radio conference at the Union Project on Saturday, November 19 from 8:30AM-4PM.

In addition, I will continue to work on other outside projects with sensible , respectful people. Over the summer I had the opportunity to talk with Bernard "Pretty " Purdie, Chyp Davis, Mtume, Clarence Burke Jr., Jason Miles and Garland Jeffries at the Soul Patrol Convention along with many others. I am ready to get busy.

 

Stay tuned.....Jazz Lives...stay in the pocket

 

The creator has a master plan,

Kevin