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PRESIDENT’S CORNER<br />
STEPHEN MATLOCK<br />
Always Supporting Jazz<br />
The Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors (KCJA) extend a giant<br />
thank you to Dr. Doug and Karen Burton for hosting a wonderful<br />
evening in early August to benefit the Ambassadors’s Tommy<br />
Ruskin Memorial Scholarship Fund. The event added nearly<br />
$5000 to benefit students attending jazz studies programs in<br />
the Kansas City area.<br />
This is what the Jazz Ambassadors do. We work for Kansas<br />
City’s jazz community. The Tommy Ruskin fund is named<br />
for the beloved KC jazz drummer who mentored and inspired<br />
musicians for decades and who backed most jazz artists who<br />
passed through town. Through this fund, aspiring musicians<br />
are assisted in pursuing an education and a career in Tommy’s<br />
name. We were delighted to see Tommy’s wife, Julie Turner,<br />
and his son, Brian Ruskin, at the event.<br />
The Jazz Ambassadors also maintain The Musicians Assistance<br />
Fund, or MAF. This serves as a confidential resource<br />
for musicians and others closely tied to Kansas City jazz in<br />
times of unique needs. It provides help in meeting medical<br />
bills, housing and living expenses, or funerals.<br />
We’ll also show up at other events to promote jazz. For<br />
instance, we could be found at the Nelson-Atkins Museum<br />
Happy Hour the same evening as the Scholarship Fund fundraiser.<br />
We assisted KC Jazz ALIVE with the annual Charlie<br />
Parker graveside celebration on the August weekend prior to<br />
Bird’s 96th birthday. We manned a table just past the entrance<br />
of September’s Prairie Village Jazz Festival.<br />
And, oh yeah, for over thirty years we’ve published this<br />
bi-monthly Kansas City jazz magazine that you’re reading right<br />
now.<br />
Our mission is simple: KCJA is here to help preserve the<br />
rich cultural heritage of jazz in Kansas City and to support and<br />
promote the musicians, students, businesses and fans of the<br />
Kansas City jazz community.<br />
Kansas City Drinking Liberally<br />
“Promoting Democracy<br />
One Pint at a Time”<br />
A lively, welcoming, progressive-minded<br />
discussion group<br />
meeting regularly in KC since 2005<br />
Get on our mailing list at<br />
www.livingliberally.org<br />
and find us on meetup.com<br />
2<br />
OCTOBERNOVEMBER•JAZZAMBASSADORMAGAZINE
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