Peace Day - September 21, 2008 - 57
PianiSt riCk dEllaratta SharES hiS Story After he left the dance, he was still stuck with that belief. And he was stuck with a huge problem. He believed that he just saw a genius play and that genius is black. Black people couldn’t even vote in his town. So it called up a lot of questions. Now he’s faced with one problem after another. If a black person can be a genius how come this, how come that? His life was changed in a profoundly positive way. When you look at what he did - he went to school, not to see how much money he could make, but to become involved in civil rights. He started doing things for achievement. Charles Black is the author of ‘Brown vs. the Board of Education’, as well as almost every civil rights bill. He was a US Senator and he’s had tremendous influence. He was asked once what was the turning point in his life and he said “It was Jazz.” I for one believe that what we need in the world is a thousand Jazz for Peaces. We’re partnering with everyone that needs it. We are a bank for any individual saying I want to be part of a Jazz for Peace event. Right now we can reproduce a Jazz for Peace event at any time, all anyone has to do is call our office. It’s not a loan, we give out grants. The bank comes from our donors. Go to the website to see the people who have sponsored us from Senator John McCain to Mayor Bloomberg. With everyone from Dennis Kucinich to Noam Chomsky in the middle. You’d never get these people together in one room but they all are supporting Jazz for Peace. So if a musician wants to do what we’re doing, we will fund it. This is an atomic bomb of beauty and wonderment. I’ll give you another example. We had a woman call us once who said my mother died of breast cancer some years ago. She was aided by a breast cancer society who worked with her. So we put on an event for her, so that she could raise funds for the breast cancer society in honor of her mother. That took place in Oyster Bay Long Island. We’ve just started our international benefit series, taking the concerts all over the world. We’ve been to Mexico, we’ve been to Canada, and we were just in Copenhagen, Denmark. It’s growing exponentially, but it has to grow by tenfold before we even get to half of one percent of the need. I’m looking for the person that has a dream, that wants to achieve and achievement comes first. It’s a bizarre myth, people have it backwards. When you have a person with a dream who says “Well, as soon as the kids are in college, as soon as I pay off the vacation, it’s always “as soon as”. It could be anything; they’re constantly putting their dreams off. The sooner you get on the right path, that’s the key. What I want is to help people get started on that right path. That’s why I’m saying that I don’t have a problem that we can’t handle everybody calling us. When we get to that problem, I’ll be glad to cross that bridge. Right now I have no need to cross it, anybody who calls us (or is chosen by our volunteers) that has a truly outstanding cause that is under funded and under publicized– we are putting on an event to help them. www.worldpeaceemerging.com 57
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