{"id":214,"date":"2009-08-04T16:17:18","date_gmt":"2009-08-04T20:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/000af36.netsolhost.com\/wordpress1\/2009\/08\/04\/an-evergreen-story\/"},"modified":"2009-08-04T16:17:18","modified_gmt":"2009-08-04T20:17:18","slug":"an-evergreen-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/2009\/08\/04\/an-evergreen-story\/","title":{"rendered":"An Evergreen Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

No, it\u2019s not a story put on the shelf to run when real news is short. It\u2019s about Evergreen, Colorado, our home away from home.<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago when told about Evergreen, the husband of our former English aupair thought it was a delightful name. Great Britain didn\u2019t seem to have such autological names.<\/p>\n

Evergreen is not exactly ever green. It is this year due to heavy spring rains, but it can be pretty brown this time of year. In fact, what I like about it is that it is dry. The humidity is low and it claims more sunny days per year than San Diego.<\/p>\n

Perhaps more precisely, Evergreen is ever white. No more so than many small towns in America, but it is striking to someone who lives in the ethnically diverse Washington, D.C. suburbs. The people who work at Home Depot, McDonalds and all manner of businesses are always white. It\u2019s odd how odd that feels when you are used to something else.<\/p>\n

What drew us to Evergreen, however, were two specific people \u2013 my brother and sister who moved there about seven years ago. My wife, worried that I\u2019ve had one too many biking accidents where I jarred my brain, wanted us to have a fall back residence for the time when I will need to be wheeled around while drooling. We bought a place in Evergreen so my younger siblings could share her burden.<\/p>\n

It is a delightful change of pace, though not one I\u2019m prepared to commit to forever. The town is bifurcated.  The northern part of town lies adjacent to I-70, about 20 minutes from downtown Denver.  There are many well-appointed and large homes there.  And I\u2019m told those folks never make it to downtown Evergreen, which is a collection of funky restaurants like the Wildflower Cafe and craft shops populated by tourists on the weekends and refugees from the 60s during the week.  The town attracts many bikers.  The bicyclists usually just pass through.  The Harley riders often stop at the Little Bear Saloon, a honky-tonk with its own unusual history<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The move there did introduce me to a wonderful surprise — the Evergreen Jazz Festival<\/a>, which just completed its eighth annual edition. Being a jazz fan, I\u2019ve become involved, acting as its media relations contact. It\u2019s fun and rewarding to promote a music I think is wonderful.<\/p>\n

But true to its venue, the Evergreen Jazz Festival is homogeneous. Among about 40-50 musicians performing there, only one is black. How can you have a jazz festival without black musicians. When you think about it, that\u2019s pretty hard to do, I would think. But then you look at its audience. It\u2019s all white.<\/i> I saw maybe one or two Hispanic looking folks, but no African-Americans that I recall.<\/p>\n

The musicians are chosen by the festival\u2019s founder. I have no reason to think he\u2019s biased. And it may be that because the festival focuses on \u201ctraditional jazz,\u201d it doesn\u2019t attract a lot of black Americans. I\u2019ve heard that is typical of trad jazz festivals. A quick survey of some festival sites does reveal a disproportionate number of white musicians<\/a> and audience members<\/a>. Why that is I\u2019m not sure.\"evergreen<\/a><\/p>\n

Absent evidence that I\u2019m involved in some kind of white supremacy conspiracy, I\u2019ll continue to help out the Evergreen festival. It\u2019s an all-volunteer effort with really great musicians and a beautiful setting. <\/p>\n

One of my favorites is a guy named Carl Sonny Leyland. I had arranged for him to appear on a radio show the night he got into town. He didn\u2019t even have to time to eat when I showed up at his door to take him to the studio. He has sideburns and combed back hair, looking every bit a 50s rockabilly star. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Not a colored t-shirt with a logo or graphic on it. No, just a white t-shirt. And that\u2019s how he went to the radio studio. But he played the hell out of that piano.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t say I\u2019m a trad jazz diehard. I like much of post-war (WWII) jazz. But my annual 10-day sojourn to Evergreen was again a joy.<\/p>\n

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No, it\u2019s not a story put on the shelf to run when real news is short. It\u2019s about Evergreen, Colorado, our home away from home. A couple of years ago when told about Evergreen, the husband of our former English aupair thought it was a delightful name. Great Britain didn\u2019t seem to have such autological… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[99,100],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}