LETTER: Jazz festival was great

Last Saturday was dreary and rainy, but there was a big ray of sunshine over the Dr. James Still Historic Office Site Education Center in Medford, which teamed up with the South Jersey Music Education Partnership to present what I hope will be the first of many Pinelands Jazz Festivals.

According to the literature, the latter is a group of dads who, as musicians, were concerned about the cutbacks in music, the arts and culture in our public schools. Unusually in today’s give-me, sit-back-and-complain-while-doing-nothing society, they took action and have raised funds to support music lesson scholarships for dozens of students during their summer vacations.

The festival was not only a fundraising effort, but it also was jazz in the old sense — fans informally wandering in and out and listening in the informality of the pine grove behind the Still site. Every hour a different group performed. During the breaks between sets, many of the talented jazz scholars performed in the woodshed.

I’m looking forward to the second annual Pinelands Jazz Festival and hope readers will keep an eye out for it next fall, so they, too, can support this valiant effort.

BOBBI STEELE

Toms River