(exciting music) - Welcome to Music Matters.

I am your host Apolonia Davalos.

We build community through music as we meet the artists of Innoskate.

(group cheers) Innoskate Sioux Falls was a free festival with skateboarding, invention, creativity, and fun.

(upbeat music) Revitalizing and energizing (trumpet band begins) our musical history on every stage.

The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra reminds us of America's national treasure.

Joined by artistic director and conductor, Charlie Young, and executive producer and drummer, Ken Kimery.

We learn how to love and why we love jazz.

Music Matters is proud to present the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.

- [Charlie Young] There's a reason why we like what we like, musically.

You have to almost go look for jazz, look for this thing that you know very little about, and educate yourself, but very oftentimes, once you educate yourself about jazz, and it might be just a function of just, being sitting still and listening, and try not to put anything else on it except just listen and be willing to repeat that.

You'll find that sooner or later things start to, because of the spiritual nature of it and the emotional component that's inherent in all jazz, it grabs you, it has the potential to grab you (trumpet music) and then you, once it does, that investigation really becomes kind of pronounced for individuals.

But it's a constant challenge, but that does not diminish our efforts to continually get on the bandstand at every opportunity to get together and engage with other the musicians and give it a thousand percent.

- [Ken Kimery] But I may add to that also since I also work at the National Museum of American History, and we have three to four thousand visitors come to the museum on an annual basis there, that a good majority of them have not encountered and experienced jazz, I have a unique environment or setting there where I can once again use that platform to provide that access point there and bringing it to life, animating it through the Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.

- [Charlie] Jazz will, because of its historical relevance and because of the dynamic nature of the music itself, it's going to last, it's going to be here, very much like Bach and Beethoven will be here.

To see some of those young students, young kids, little babies, standing up at that gate in the front, just standing there.

They left there with something, even though we might not be engaging in the conversation, they left there with something different.

They were changed as a result of that and oftentimes we get an opportunity to see those, to hear those changes, realized and see those changes over the period of years, seeing some students from when we first got started, turn into adults who now are able to be able to potentially play with our orchestra.

You know, so now lives are being changed.

- There's a lot of basic foundation that you have in any area of interest that you have to acquire a language, a knowledge that gives you that foundation to be able to then express yourself.

Skateboarding and jazz is no different in that way.

That you learn from those who come before you, their way of expressing themself, be it on the skateboard, be it on an instrument.

So there's a language that's developed and then you take that language and you continue to evolve the language and develop the language.

There's a level of exploration, of experimentation, of improvisation, and I can see that both in jazz and skateboarding.

- [Charlie] It was kind of cool, also Ken, with that, I was talking with one skateboarder in particular on the other town talking about, I ask the question, well when you're not in events like this, what are you actually practicing?

What do you actually do when you're by yourself with those skateboard?

And he talked about having a particular routine or particular thing that he's working on that he repeats over and over and over and over.

And in jazz music, as much as it looks like we're just making it up when we're actually, you know, in the process of playing music, very little is being made up, except the spontaneity of the moment, but we're utilizing, to Ken's point, tool sets that we've have gained, some expertise with as a result of lots and lots of repetition that comes together in a spontaneous creativity.

(jazz band begins) - [Ken] The Jazz Masterworks Orchestra is an interesting in-residence ensemble at the National Museum of American History, and it's really, its core performances are in Washington, D.C., we use that as a springboard, then for touring, we're telling the story of America through the jazz program.

And in looking at that, we will then determine where our energy and efforts will go, and it doesn't necessarily mean that we're on the road every year.

A lot of it really stems from what we do in Washington and then we see, like we are here in Sioux Falls, that this is an opportunity to take what we do and extend it beyond.

- [Charlie] To have an opportunity to come here to South Dakota and go to the couple towns that we've been to, so they've been kinda life-changing, to have gone out to the reservation and work with the young students there and to see all these amazing skaters and engage in things that I'm really not so familiar with, I was not so familiar before being invited to be a part of this Innoskate.

I mean, I've been on skateboards, but I didn't know very much about this.

But, so they have the opportunity, once again this symbiotic relationship between, I mean everybody has something they do.

You know what I mean?

We know what we know, but everybody knows some stuff, you know, so it's always educational for myself and jazz allows me to have the opportunity to have done all these cool things and being here in South Dakota has really been a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to learn about a way of life, an amazing artistic art form as well as some amazing people that I've had a chance to meet.

It's been just absolutely magical.

And if jazz can provide that for me, I can imagine doing this until the last days, so it's been wonderful.

- Jazz for me has been, like Charlie too, it's been a journey, a lifelong journey, and will continue until that last breath.

It's given me the opportunity to play music in a way that has fed my soul.

It's helped me to grow as a person.

The opportunities that have been afforded to me is working with Charlie, being here in Sioux Falls, traveling the globe, meeting some of those icons that I've listened to on records in person and talking to, helping spread the gospel of jazz and hopefully bringing more people into this community in a way that we can have even greater dialogue and share in a way that we all grow and become more familiar, not just about the music, but of each other, 'cause I think that's really what it's about, is that community of coming together and learning about each other that feeds into us and in our expression of who we are, be it through jazz, be it through whatever medium that you're looking for.

We're fortunate to have jazz as that vehicle, but that really is a food for us to continue to grow as human beings.

- My man, yeah I would absolutely agree.

I mean, jazz is really just a tool that helps to perform, helps to provide an opportunity to create these relationships that once again speaks to living a life.

And it's absolutely wonderful, magical, it really is.

- Charlie and Ken, ladies and gentlemen, South Dakota, I am in the presence of greatness.

We are!

Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us today.

Learn more!

Jazz is for all of us and it's a way to live life anew.

Visit their website, americanhistory.si.edu/smithsonian-jazz.

Thank you to our sponsor, the Mortimer and Mimi Levitt Foundation.

I am your host Apolonia Davalos and I love you.

Muah!

Thank you, thank you.

- We - We love - We love the Levitt!