Get your dancing shoes on darlin, we're going out tonight

Last week I received an invite to see the Charleston Jazz Orchestra. I said yes, then realized it was for the 10 p.m. second set. Oh.

Now I love jazz. It's my main "writing" music, and I make a point to see some each year during Piccolo Spoleto. But I don't see it live as much as I say I want to. So I got off the couch, changed out of my Saturday night stretchy pants, put on some heels and made good on that orchestra ticket.

Best decision I made that week. My face hurt from smiling, responding to conductor Charlton Singleton's excellent direction and easy manner. The show was infectious, fun, and the 10 p.m. showing was open, loose, and more personal. Everyone that was there seem to feel it, including Stacy Huggins of Charleston Art Mag (who I missed seeing that night. I didn't look around really -- eyes mesmerized by the stage). Stacy's blog recap was perfect, check it out here, but I want to express how it made me feel.

It changed the course of my thoughts. I wasn't feeling great when I got there, and when I left, I was walking on air. It's the power of music, of a language that we all understand, of the joy that the musicians felt playing together. It washed over all of us, a gift.

I Heart Charleston Jazz

I've loved jazz as long as I can remember. I gained a closer connection with it when I realized in scholarly research (for teaching my American Studies 1920s class) that Charleston was just as much a hotbed of jazz as New Orleans.

And I live here. Woo hoo.

The "hotbed" really centers around the Jenkins Home for Children, and a concert this weekend centers around a benefit for that Charleston institution. Still in existence more than 100 years later, its legacy is much more than just music.

The great trumpet prowess of Joey Morant and the elegant saxophone of Lonnie Hamilton, III are just two legends that are part of that Jenkins legacy, and two names that have worked for years in their respective fields. Their thoughts on jazz are just as important as their music, and I was thrilled to get to talk to them one-on-one.