ReelAbilities' ReelMusic 2022 concert

ON THURSDAY, SEPT. 7 at the Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston (MATCH), composer David Harris takes a break from his job as a financial consultant to present An Evening of Original Jazz Benefitting ReelAbilities Houston, a special concert of music from Harris’ new album You Loved Me Then performed by several of the city’s most talented and in-demand jazz musicians and singers.

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Kelly Dean (far left) and and Josh Sheiman (far right) with Shearn Elementary fifth-graders and donated instruments

SINCE 1972, THE Summer Jazz Workshop (SJW) has schooled more than 15,000 middle and high school-age students in the art of playing jazz, a music Duke Ellington once described as “freedom of expression.” Saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Kelly Dean, who teaches music at Houston’s Emery/Weiner School, has been an SJW faculty member since 1994, and his commitment to the workshop — co-founded by the late great drummer and educator Bubbha Thomas and Thomas’ mentor Conrad O. Johnson — remains strong.

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Sebastien Boileau (photo by Aisha Khan)

FOR THE PAST three years, due to COVID-19, Houston’s artists’ advocacy and support organization Fresh Arts has had to cancel its popular annual fundraising gala, which accounts for around 20 percent of its operating revenue. And this year’s gala was nearly derailed by a devastating fire at Winter Street Studios in December, which destroyed several artist studios and displaced all of its tenants, including Fresh Arts.

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