I'm happy to be back in The Perspective to talk about another Outpost Performance Space season. We started off with a bang in February at the Kiva Auditorium with the 15-piece Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra led by Wynton Marsalis. The JLCO featured the music of the great Duke Ellington—a terrific concert at which I was so happy to see so many Perspective readers. Let me recount one wonderful experience about that night. The band arrived on the bus at 3pm that afternoon, checked into the hotel, and were at the venue at 5pm for sound check, followed by dinner, and a two and a half hour concert. For all of us in the audience, that was the end of a terrific night of music.

I had never heard of this book, I was unfamiliar with the author and I was reluctant to read the book, because the cover reminded me of a Harlequin novel cover. However, I decided to delve in because, of course, “you can never judge a book by its cover.”

Jesse Spicer became intrigued with James Brown when he was 15 years old while attending a concert in Albuquerque in 1962 at the old Civic Auditorium. James Brown's performance that night mesmerized an entire audience that included a young man named Jesse. From that day forward Jesse has made James Brown his special hero. Jesse missed an opportunity to see what would be James Brown's final visit to New Mexico, when he was unable to attend the Santa Fe concert in 2002 because of an illness in the family.

As we celebrate Black History month in 2008, we should give thought to one of the genres that is a contributor to Black History. ‘JAZZ.'