Blues in the Schools Goes Mainstream in Saskatoon
Fruteland Jackson**
I am sponsored by the Saskatoon Blues Society and will visit 10 classrooms and perform at Third Annual Saskatoon Blues Festival.
This was my first time speaking to civic leaders regarding Blues Education and its remedial effects. I was honored by the invitation. I was the only person of color in this large banquet hall at the Bessborough Hotel (where the Prime Minister and other dignitaries lodge. There were business leaders and leading church officials. The only officer I saw and met was the Chief of Police. This Rotary club has adopted one of the inner-city schools that are pre-dominantly aboriginal.
Their support Blues in the Schools programs was quite remarkable. I am being chauffeured around in a new Ford Explorer provided by a local dealership. The local music store has provided my sound equipment. Other sponsors include The Cherry Insurance Company, The Cameco Company (a large uranium mining company that was the first to come on board after watching my video produced by Mako Funasaka of Talkin' Blues". They sent an advance camera team to Toronto to interview me for their local television.
The Saskatoon Blues society has been successful in developing their reputation and credibility in their city so that when they put on a shows the people will come (even if they are unfamiliar with the artist), and when they need sponsors, sponsors line up.
It has been my experience that when a blues society with structure and outreach and an active commitment to blues education, they can get the ear of mainstream civic organizations and large corporations. More artists who can present the programs in a school environment are also needed. Blues in the Schools is not simply playing live music in a school. There should be a strong educational component put together with teaching standards. The remedial effects include:
Provides Education and entertainment
Enhances students creativity
Increases thinking and problem solving ability
Enhances literacy both academically and socially
Helps develop aesthetic judgment
Develops self-esteem (removes self-doubt)
Brings about cross-cultural understanding
Improves school attendance
Provides career opportunities
Valuable teaching tool for students with special needs
Instills a sense of pride, music potential and self-accomplishment
Breaks down social barriers (teaches tolerance)
Works well with children from all walks of life.
I spoke for about twenty minutes and took some questions. I was asked to sing the St. Louis Blues by a stately elderly lady who shared that she was 87 years old lady and her husband was 92 years old. I was also asked to sing a field holler (to my surprise). I received a standing ovation and was gifted with a fine writing pen. This would not have happened with the Blues society's integrity.
I wish we would put our energy into broadening the future of the blues instead beating up on the only organization we have (The Blues Foundation).From where I sit the blues is not dying it is spreading. How about some more help? No whiners need apply.
Fruteland Jackson
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Fruteland Jackson
Fruteland Jackson** <frut...@fruteland.com> wrote:Today I spoke at a Rotary Club luncheon today in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and consider this a notable event in my career.
Provides Education and entertainment
Enhances students creativity
Helps develop aesthetic judgment
Develops self-esteem (removes self-doubt)
Brings about cross-cultural understanding
Improves school attendance
Provides career opportunities
Fruteland Jackson
Fruteland Jackson
IT TALENT AGENCY
3473 S.King Drive #221
Chicago IL 60616 773-400-6341
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Chip Eagle
your attitude will spread. We're as dead as we wanna be!
Chip Eagle
Blues Revue/BluesWax
gtr...@prodigy.net
they have going on Like Chicago for instance Every house need some
organization . Like the old saying To many Indians And not enough Chiefs can
be very unorganized.
People need to know about all forms of blue whether it's Chicago .Delta
.Urban Etc, With out Knowledge one can be very limited.
Guitar Mac.
http://www.guitarmac.com
http://pages.prodigy.net/gtrmac
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/7/guitarmacandhisbluesexpressmusic.htm
Chas Winans
Fruteland Jackson's booking agent is essentially himself. He travels extensively and gains a great deal of repeat business because he develops, nurtures and earns it. We all wish we could sit by the phone, and just wait for it to ring with work. The fact is that it's a bonus when that happens. It's icing on the cake for all but a very, very few in this business. Those who want the work badly enough -- regardless of how talented they are -- will go score the work or die tryin' to get it.
Someone asked me recently why Fruteland Jackson doesn't stay home and do his Blues In The Schools presentation more often in the Chicagoland region. I don't know the complete answer to that question, but my wife is a Chicago public school teacher, so I've seen the behemoth of a bureaucracy this large city public school system can be.
As a photographer who is always seeking work, I looked briefly into photographing school children in the Chicago school system. I knew going in that the vast majority of the students who attend public schools in the neighborhood where my wife teaches cannot even begin to afford to have their pictures taken by those companies who normally perform such services. I thought it would be a great idea to offer my services to some of these schools and students, digital and cheap.
Unfortunately, I can't do it. Not because the schools do not want cheaper portrait services for their students -- but because the Board of Education has a contract with certain large photographic companies that covers the entire Chicago school system. Among other things, the contract has a no-compete clause. Individual schools cannot hire portrait photographers not affiliated with the contracted company, regardless of what's affordable.
And so, my friends, students who live below the poverty line continue to get portrait photo services foisted upon them that they cannot afford because of the politics and a bureaucracy involved with this very large public school system.
I don't know for sure -- and I would ask Fruteland Jackson to chime in on this if he would be so kind -- but I would imagine that Fruteland has run into similar difficulty. The public schools in Chicago cannot often act independently of one another -- and they often do not have the money it takes, even in minimal amounts, to have Fruteland Jackson come to their schools to present his very worthwhile Blues In The Schools program.
When you're an independent contractor of any kind, as most musicians are, you go where the work is. You do what it takes to keep yourself fed, housed and clothed. If that means Fruteland Jackson sets up a vast tour of schools in Saskatchewan instead of staying home during Black History Month, trying to perform at schools in a system whose politics are as thick as a dozen copies of War and Peace, so be it. Good for him.
You go where the work is instead of sitting at home, complaining that there isn't any, waiting for the phone to ring. If the phone isn't ringing, you get on the phone and make the calls.
Or -- you get a day job.
Bully for Fruteland Jackson 100 times over. Not only does the early bird get the worm, but here's a tremendously nice guy who, in his own special way, is determined to not finish last.
Chuck Winans, President
Portraits In Performance Photography, Inc.
Chicago, Illinois
www.pipphotography.com