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| Old friends: with George Wein at the gala. photo by Deborah Ross |
Last Thursday, Sylvaine and I attended the grand opening gala for the George & Joyce Wein Heritage Center on N. Rampart, the new headquarters of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation. The new multimillion dollar center, including a state-of-the-art concert hall, was officially inaugurated that afternoon by George and Mayor Mitch Landrieu. In addition to great food and drink, and some funky music by John Cleary, George Wein himself played the piano and sang an improvised blues narrative about the history of Jazzfest, which he founded in 1970. He brought down the house. For me it was a particularly moving occasion, as George, now 89, has been a friend of mine and my family's since this first visit here in 1962. It was great to meet up with him on Thursday night and an honor to show him a photo by my wife Sylvaine, which was acquired by the Foundation as part of their permanent collection.
[See Keith Spera's article about the new center in the Times-Picayune:
http://www.nola.com/jazzfest/index.ssf/2014/12/multi-million-dollar_george_an.html]
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