This Friday, March 2, Neil Lucas and Six String Theory return to the stage at The Loft in uptown Columbus, Georgia. Six String Theory is an experiment in blues guitar, played by Neal Lucas, wherein the blues meets jazz in the form of Impressions. The band Impressions is Tommy Embrich - drums, Nick Johnson - sax, Yair Ophir -bass and Donald Tipton on keyboards.

The Loft is Columbus, Georgia's home for live jazz music. It is the grooviest venue in the Fountain City with a full bar and menu, a great staff, and the best live music around. Each week, The Loft features a different area jazz band, including bands from Atlanta, Montgomery, Opelika, Tuskegee, and Auburn. Each concert provides moments of auricular enchantment that you just don't want to miss. Make plans to join us. It's always a blast.

Last week at The Loft featured the Reggie Sampson Quartet with Reggie Sampson on sax. I really enjoyed Reggie's playing, and his rhythm section was awesome. I apologize that I didn't get their names 'cause they need to be lauded. Hopefully, they'll return soon with their complete ensemble... their guitarist had to drop out at the last moment, and Don Tipton stepped in to save the day.

Reggie and his rhythm section are members of MCoE Band--the United States Army Maneuver Center of Excellence Band. For over 50 years, the United States Army Maneuver Center of Excellence Band (283rd Army Band) has taken great pride in entertaining the Soldiers, military families, and civilians of the Fort Benning, Columbus, and Phenix City communities. The MCoE Band's frequent performances promote esprit de corps among Soldiers and veterans, as well as patriotic spirit within the civilian community.

Because of a last minute cancellation that may not have involved Russian collusion, Don Tipton sat in on keyboard, so if you're wondering why Don is so ubiquitous, he does step in when needed. Unfortunately, we have limited number of area jazz pianist, especially locally, but we've got Mark Young in Hamilton (one of my favorites), along with Chris Helms out of Smiths Station (his main instrument is the sax, but he plays keys for Snakebite Six), then there's Kenny Banks, Kevin Bales, Tyrone Jackson, Etsuko Tomeda, Matthew Kaminski out of Atlanta, and Coleman Woodson III out of Montgomery, but they've got a bit o' distance to travel, and, of course, there's Lloyd Buchanan. The Loft prides itself in finding different area jazz bands with different styles. This is why Friday Evening Jazz at The Loft is so popular... why I dig it so much.

The next time you go see a live musical group, check out the stage. Does it have a wheelchair ramp leading from the audience to the stage or are their steps? Is there a wheelchair ramp backstage? Is there handicapped parking where the performers load and unload? Chances are that the venue doesn’t provide these accommodations. It’s like this: my biggest challenge as a quadriplegic jazz vocalist is finding accessible stages on which to perform. I was once raised up to a five-foot high stage using a forklift and a wooden palette because the stage was not wheelchair accessible. Fortunately, I didn’t die. Point is that there are

few wheelchair accessible stages; otherwise, I’d sing much more often.

It’s easy to see why this isn’t a mainstream problem: there are few “physically challenged” performers, but that’s merely an excuse encouraged by indifference. We handicapped performers exist and are eager to share our dreams with fans who dig what we do. But why are we unconsciously ignored? That’s easy: Being unable to perform even the most rudimentary acts of daily living is a major downer; the wheelchair, quite frankly, is a symbol of lost hope. Let’s face it; it’s a marketing problem, and this is where you come in to save the day.

Physical handicaps are wrapped in lugubrious imagery, but not every moment of life in a wheelchair is steeped in mournful decay. Believe it or not, I laugh every day… some days more than others, but if life were perfect, I, for one, would take a bite of forbidden fruit to find some excitement from the decay of entropy (the hypothetical tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity). What I’m trying so desperately to connote here is the fact that having a physical challenge can, at times, be fun and inspirational. What we need is positive imagery, and here’s where I ask for a favor from you, dear reader, and it has to do with social media, more specifically, using the ubiquitous #hashtag: will you help by coming up with a #hashtag meme that has positive connotations for the handicapped and send it to me. This could be fun. Maybe I can come up with prizes for creative contributions. Regardless, this could be the beginning of a social movement that witnesses an outcry of creative energy by talented people who have difficulty overcoming the obstacles that are hidden from people who can hop out of bed running full tilt. By the way, I’ve come up with a possible #hashtag meme that might work: #FantastAbility. What do you think?

The gauntlet has been dropped. Do you accept the challenge? Please reply to this email with as many suggestions as you want, and challenge your friends as well. Let’s see if we can extend this conversation internationally. (Actually, when you send in your suggestions, include the name of your hometown city. We’ll see how far this request goes.) Let’s make the wheelchair a symbol of fun… or grace… or intelligence… or, dare I say it? Let’s make the wheelchair Sexy!

Make Concert Stages Wheelchair Accessible

On April 18, 1986, I was involved in an automobile accident, the results of which left me a SCI (Spinal Cord Injury) at the fourth cervical vertebrae. (I received the Last Rites sacrament.) I instantly morphed into a gelatinous blob of inert carbon from an active and healthy young man able to bench-press around three hundred pounds (which I maxed on only one occasion), a slightly arrogant bundle of potential misguided energy, a quirky smile, a nearly obscene ability to find humor in the most inappropriate situations, a goofy intern of Life ready to grab the world by its testicles (presumably near the Floridian panhandle). Instantly, I became a quadriplegic unable to perform even the most rudimentary acts of daily living. It should be obvious to anybody with basic skills in mathematics that I’ve spent the last thirty-one years totally dependent on somebody else’s kindness to remain alive… anybody else’s kindness. 

I am vulnerable.

Still I persisted (with apologies to Elizabeth Warren who had to endure the testudinal hubris of Mitch McConnell).

Since that distant Spring morning, I have completed a three-month Independent Living Program from the Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation (1986); earned a B.A. in English with a minor in Computer Programming from Mercer University (1991); became gainfully employed for sixteen years as a computer programmer/analyst for an international credit card transaction corporation (1992); was awarded Handicapped Employee of the Year for the city of Columbus, Georgia, presented by mayor Bobby Peters (1996); was wrongfully fired from my job (2008… for which I am eternally grateful); recorded a CD of jazz vocals entitled Southern Standard Time (2011); recorded backup vocals for singer/songwriter Ted McVay’s CD of original songs entitled Voices in my Head; began writing The Jazzonian, the quirky e-newsletter that you are currently reading; went into renal sepsis and nearly died… for the second time (2017); and have spent as much time as I can singing, dancing, and telling really bad jokes on stage in an attempt to show Donald Trump and his ilk (who believe it acceptable to mock the physically handicapped) that #WheelChairistocracy—people with physical and mental handicaps—can live more emulously than the ovine automatons who are blindly herded into religious, political, or familial cults that never interrogate questionable motives even when they approach the absurd. 

The Eighth and Rail in historical downtown Opelika, Alabama is the venue for a wildly groovy weekly jazz jam as hosted by the Jane Drake Jazz Band. It's a cozy celebration of life that has become a buzzing collection of jazz-loving fanatics gathered together in a coterie of peaceful, fun-loving positive energy. I am downright proud as a peacock with enhanced LED-flashing feathers to participate in the jam on a regular basis, and I really love it! Proprietor Mike Patterson makes the wonderful sushi and Miss Tiffany keeps the affable atmosphere at a lovely level of emotive satisfaction. Plus... they serve an awesome cheesecake that'll make you wanna slap yourself so hard as to tell horrific knock-knock jokes to mimes. No lie. We have really talented musicians come in from the bi-state area: Auburn, Montgomery, Tuskegee, Columbus, LaGrange, Fort Valley, et al. The jam begins at 7 pm and ends at 10 pm CT. Hopefully, I'll see you there.

Eighth and Rail Website

Venkman's is a nightclub in Atlanta, a venue that Joe Gransden uses for his weekly jazz jam. This is where the Who's Who of the Atlanta Jazz Scene come together to dazzle us mortals. It's free and starts at 8 pm ET. Fo' mo' info, click link below. I've participated in this jam a couple of times, and I love it as well. Joe Gransden always welcomes me with a smile that will melt antarctic glaciers in the middle of winter, which, oddly enough, is during June through August... when it's so hot and humid in middle Georgia that my toenails sweat. Nevertheless, Joe's band often includes keyboardist Kenny Banks (sometimes Kevin Bales), drummer Chris Burroughs and bassist Craig Shaw, and these cats kick it. When I find the transportation, I'm going.

Venkman's Website