Behold, the power of Jazz

Touching story sent to me from the folks at webjazz.net

My friend, Carol Comer teaches jazz workshops in K-12 schools. It is quite a specialty. She just had some fantastic results from one of the students. See below - she is highly touched and should be.

Carol wrote . . .

This was forwarded to me by the FANTSTIC music teacher at Ray March (Stefanie Adams) where I spent last Friday doing jazz workshops with the 3rd graders. The letter is from 3rd grader Marlaina's momma. The rest is self-explanatory. THIS IS WHY I DO WHAT I DO. As I told my buds yesterday, I am VERY blessed. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXOOOOOOOOO

Letter from student's Mom. . . .

Subject: Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Ladies,

Thank you for making Marlaina's day on Friday (and mine over the weekend). Typically, I have to drag information out of Marlaina about her day. Friday, she leapt into the car, bubbling about the jazz workshop and how she got to play bass guitar, how she learned the strings ... and said, "If he were here, Dad would have been proud of me." She's never said anything like that about her dad in the 21 months since he's been dead.

In his free time, my late husband played bass guitar. In fact, he played in our church praise band five days before he died. Marlaina would hear and see him play at least two or three times a week between church and practicing at home. After he died, I packed up all of his guitars so they would be safe until my kids became interested. Now Marlaina's interested and wants to take lessons!

Today, out of the blue, Marlaina said, "The last few days I've been thinking about dad a lot."

So, thank you for unknowingly providing the springboard for Marlaina ... for us ... to reconnect with memories and thoughts about her dad. This is huge for a little girl who has expressed little to no emotion about her dad's death. I feel like we've turned a corner. Now, I need to find the right instructor to help this musical connection with her dad flourish.

Thanks again,
Thelma Markwart

P.S. Mrs. Adams, I'm taking an informal poll ... would it be better to help Marlaina develop some sort of musical foundation via piano or guitar before tackling that big, heavy bass? Any recommendations for where to go for lessons? Thanks!