This year’s Monterey Jazz Festival Camp has been amazing in so many respects — but one of the most amazing parts has been watching my daughter change before my very eyes. Some of my wonderment comes from thinking about that other important Mom — Shirley Kiatta — who left such a beautiful comment here on this blog and who is in our hearts daily. She had to have gone through this same magical process of watching her baby girl grow into a mature jazz singer. Last night when Katie took the microphone at the Jazz Jam at Monterey Live and hit those rich, robust notes … and did it with such mastery and control …I flashed back to kindergarten at Swallow School in Hartland, Wisconsin …when she suddenly ‘owned’ the gym with her rendition of ‘Bright Shining Star’ at the Christmas (oops…Holiday!) concert. I remember being stunned then just as I was last night.
And oh what joy to be surrounded by her fellow Jazz Fest musicians — the ever astonishing Zach Parkes (whose Mom used to be one of Katie’s babysitters!) on bass, the incredible Eddie Mendenhall on piano and Corey Watkins whose solo was a showstopper. This year’s Clint Eastwood Award winner at Carmel High, our dear friend ‘guitar god’ Alex Govan, was front and center. In the back of the room, beaming at his students, was Dr. Rob Klevan, who has done so much to make the Jazz Education program the stand-out it is today.
It’s funny – feel like I am reviewing a concert when in fact what I am really doing is reviewing the power of music in our lives. It deepens everything. I saw that on stage last night, in the dynamics between the musicians. I saw that on the Comments left by Leroy Downs and Shirley and Tom Kiatta and our friend Diana. In this 24/7 barrage of in-your-face messages, it is so easy to slip into living in a chain of shallow moments that merely skim the surface of feeling. That’s not what’s happening here with these intense and soulful lovers of jazz. Heartfelt can’t begin to describe it.
Stay tuned for tomorrow night’s concert at Steinbeck Center … and then Thursday night’s performance at PG Middle School.
I am posting this picture of Hydeus with her students because I just plain love these happy faces.
—Sarah Browne, Proud Mom of Katie Carroll
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