“Evening of Jazz” is an annual fundraising concert series for the purpose of bringing today’s top jazz artists together and benefiting kidney donors, kidney disease patients, their family members, and supporters. The event was created by philanthropist Mike Jones as an expression of gratitude to God, jazz, and to the thousands of brave organ donors who impartially and willingly give away a part of themselves. It all started when Mike Jones, a Christian man, received a kidney from Pat Abdullah, a Muslim woman, just two weeks after 9/11. The doctor told him that it would take over a year to go back to normal. But within that year, he was cycling for charity marathons and helped start the first public dialysis center in South Africa. Two years after that, he started the One Miracle Celebration of Life Foundation, the purpose of which, no doubt, is to celebrate life. OMCOL also seeks to provide assistance to organ donors and recipients both before and after the transplant and to the millions who are suffering from kidney ailments without proper treatment. “Evening of Jazz” first started when Jones wanted to celebrate the founding of his organization with a musical event featuring Paul Jackson Jr. at Spaghettini’s in Seal Beach. This year will be the 6thannual “Evening of Jazz” event.
The event will be occurring at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center, located at the California State University, Long Beach campus from 7 to 9pm on Friday, September 9. The guest performer is none other than Greg Adams – Grammy and Emmy nominated arranger, composer, producer, and trumpeter. With his exotic masterpiece “Burma Road” and his stylish adaptation of Sade’s “Smooth Criminal,” Greg Adams was skyrocketed to fame with his 1995 album Hidden Agenda and could very well be credited with founding a new genre – urban jazz – that is, smooth jazz with an edge. His latest project, East Bay Soul, is based on the most instinctive rhythms and starts with “Survival of the Hippest”, which is in fact the definition of all that is hip, with mixtures of funk, jazz, and instrumental soul.
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