Are We Here Yet Podcast: Recent Episodes
Scott M. Graves
We're telling the stories of entrepreneurs artists and other creative class warriors making a go of it in cities and small towns all over the country. The Are We Here Yet? Podcast blends topics of economic development, urban planning and arts and culture. We are the official podcast for SMGravesassociates.com.
Host and substack writer Scott M. Graves on the premise for developing a strategy to alight the regional economy with an industrial basis in solving the housing crisis. The Why, What and How to make this happen. Work to create this strategy was inspired by his earlier work with Dominic Endicott to develop a regional strategy for Western Massachusetts. Download their white paper and presentation by clicking here.
'My firm recently won the nod through a Request for Proposal (RFP) to build a 123+ unit mixed income development for the upscale town of Dorset, VT. In the midst of negotiating a development agreement, detractors for the project made themselves known. For several months and with our help, town leadership prepared to advocate for their efforts which had to that point totaled more than eight years and cost around $600,000.00.'
'A month prior to a second public hearing which would have featured yours truly and the SMG team to re-present the project and the principles behind our rural density concept, we received an email from the town's consultant: 'the award is cancelled, the town will proceed to a vote in 9 months in hopes to build 60 units of high-end single family housing. We will place the project back out to bid. This concludes our relationship.'
Our parent company, SMGraves Associates recently won the nod to build 123+ units of workforce and moderate income market rate housing in the town of Dorset, VT. This was slated to be a $90MM project and one of the first in Vermont to take advantage of new programming including the Communities Housing Infrastructure Program or CHIP. NIMBYs cratered the project before it even got off the ground and after the SMG team won the Request for Proposal process SMG founder and podcast host Scott Graves offers us what consequences there are to our institutions when a small group of wealthy individuals can impact a community in this way.
You can find out more about the SMG team and their Rural Density approach to responsible development by clicking here.
Don't forget to subscribe to founder Scott Graves Substack for more content.
We're joined by Culture Desk co-host and writer Joshua Michael Stewart to explore the work of some of America's great living poets. This is a great chance for our listeners to explore poetry and what's going on in the minds of some of our most capable and artistic writers for all ages. We explore among others: Joy Harjo, Charles Simic, Billy Collins. Find the work of our co-host by clicking here.
What Should Cities Do with Abandoned Properties? Today's Episode is taken from host Scott Graves 'Are We Here Yet? substack of January 2, 2026. The following is a transcript.
Explore the Are We Here Yet? substack
Our city completed a round of dispossessing themselves of properties they own this past November. These properties were acquired sometime in the past because their last owners failed to pay their property taxes, were abandoned after the death of an owner or other reasons. Our director of planning alluded to more than 220 such properties in our city of 16,500 people during our recent podcast. The city then acquired the properties through a tax lien foreclosure in the case of tax troubles. Some parcels have an abandoned home on them. Some are empty lots. All are no longer productive for providing housing or generating taxes for needed municipal expenditures.
All of these parcels sit on city infrastructure. They were all once productive from a property tax standpoint. They provided middle market housing while homeowners paid property taxes in support of the water and sewer lines, the sidewalks and other infrastructure surrounding their property.
I've had the opportunity to witness the process of dispossession of municipally controlled properties for many decades and in several of cities and towns in different parts of New England.
What's built into each municipal process tells us a lot about each community. Here we'll focus on my current location in Rutland, VT.
I had the opportunity to participate in our city's fall 2025 process as part of a partnership focused on incremental development.
The application to apply for one or more of a selection of five properties stipulated that the process was not competitive (highest bidder); 'The City is seeking to recoup the amount of taxes owed in addition to whatever carrying costs accrued since acquiring the property. However, the City may accept a lower offer depending on the circumstances…' that all applications are considered for all listed parameters including proof you can complete a development, the quality of your plan and its relationship to the city's long term housing needs.
Yet, the application asks each candidate how much they'd be willing to pay for each property and candidates can opt to pay any amount over the tax bill and city costs. The public meeting to review and vote in the presence of applicants began with our city planning director stating that the priority was placed on , 'making the city whole' through the process. It's not clear exactly how in practice these bids are considered against each other. During the public opening of all applications, the dollar amounts presented were announced. So is the point to achieve a highest bidder? Best plan to add housing units? Most likely to be able to pay?
The committee, made up of alderpersons selected for the purpose, debated the overall dollar amounts of taxes 'accrued while the property was in city hands'. The idea of a tax bill accruing without a private owner of the property is, to put it politely, a highly theoretical exercise. What would incentivize me to pay over and above the former private owners delinquent taxes when, by definition, I'm required to, 'make the city whole'. Second, in considering whether taxes accrue to a non-existent private owner after municipal acquisition reminds me of the adage, 'if a tree falls in the woods with nobody there to hear it…'
The application requests information as to how the applicant will pay for the property and development. If one indicates they will utilize a debt instrument from a local bank, proof of the loan is required. But how does one seek credible proof of a specific loan for a property for which one has no site control?
Let's look at the yield this process has had in the recent past. Despite efforts, a number of past applicants who successfully acquired properties have yet to develop them, leaving abandoned homes in place for, in some cases, more than five years. While there does not exist a comprehensive list of said properties, through our efforts at Partners In Housing, we understand there are a number of homes acquired by developers who, for strategic reasons only they know, are left fallow. While the taxes may get paid, the housing units people need remain elusive.
What was our own experience? We applied for an empty lot alongside one of the cities respected non profits. We were told the city had purchased the lot from a different non profit in the recent past for $1.00. To our knowledge no taxes were owed on the property . This was confirmed as the city planner presented information at the onset of the hearing.
The non-profit entity was allowed to review their application first. To our astonishment, the executive director's plan was frighteningly similar to ours, right down to the language used to refer to 'panelized or modular construction'. Same number of units. Same overall footprint. Same construction principles. Nearly same target markets. Difference between rentals vs ownership for the residents.
Ok, so it may be possible that two different developers have very, extremely similar ideas for the same lot. Said executive director than offered that, since their organization had recently come into a large donation, they were willing to pay $20,000.00 over the cities required $1.00 for the property. Since we were not willing to go over and above 'making the city whole' the property was awarded to the non-profit. One alderwoman stated that, theirs was the better deal for the city. After all, why should the city not accept the infusion of cash. Indeed, this refutes the rules within the city's own application.
Am I crying bitter tears? The loss of this project will not negatively affect our company. Was I happy with the process? Do I trust the process? Do I think all parties have the best interests at heart of myself or my neighbors?
I want us to focus on the singular question, 'how do we increase our tax rolls while increasing the local capacity to build and benefit from more middle market housing?'
All good outcomes stem from well thought out, consistently executed process. That starts with clarity for our priorities. So what should be our community priorities?
The community's singular priorities should be:
a) to return more properties back to tax roll productivity faster
b) seek to proliferate small scale development opportunities for its citizens interested in doing their part to solve the middle market housing crisis.
c) encourage a more vibrant local economy though development and the trades.
d) increase the public trust through consistent and effective processes.
The process itself can be automated through digital infrastructure, placing more lots before a public eager to get in the game. The internal processes and reallocation of human resources required for such changes can increase capacity while making for a more fair and transparent process, thereby increasing the belief in the common good.
It may appear to you that a city that works aggressively to garner as much short term, one time revenue for such properties is looking out for tax payers interests. I don't think so. Lots that aren't productive today aren't housing citizens and aren't providing needed tax benefit to pay for infrastructure. Taxes get paid every year a household is made productive, for decades to come.
Elected officials and their agents should understand there are only two ways a city makes money: new households that sustain needs while keeping per household tax bills down or the need to increase per household taxes as expenses rise. I wrote about this here. To support organic growth also presents an excellent opportunity for building political capital for those elected officials willing to participate in informing their constituents. Your tax rate stays put or reduces. We get more housing. We can fund increasing expenses such as new sewer and water lines when they pop.
A big picture emerges with stronger and safer neighborhoods full of new housing. Improved sidewalks, plantings and other placemaking infrastructure sustainably funded. Future improvements to sewer and water systems now be well funded making our city more resilient. All grand list expenditures become more feasible for decades to come.
And new households seeking an opportunity to stay in our great state of Vermont find the housing they need to make our great corner of the world thrive.
Report from the New England Beacon We're talking with correspondent Chris Brady of the New England Beacon for this AWHY? Episode. His recent article in the Beacon entitled, 'CVS calls Woonsocket, RI home. Do Residents Benefit?' explores the relationship of a $373B corporate entity and its de-industrialized, under capitalized home city. While Woonsocket lets dozens of teachers go CVS found ways to eliminate its obligation to pay property taxes. Its unique relationship to the state of Rhode Island's Economic Development Corporation allows them to reduce its overall tax burden on income.
While it's true this corporate entity employs thousands, many from Woonsocket and Rhode Island, we're asking what makes for a 'good' or effective corporate relationship between a company and its home community. When should a community consider it would be better to pursue a different corporate relationship? And we're also considering what a positive relationship looks like between a large employer and the region and city it calls home.
Asking these questions are essential in the work we do to build more resilient community's through better economic development and revitalizing a community's built environment.
Support Chris and the New England Beacon because they represent the new generation of solid local reporting from an independent source.
Connect with Chris on substack
Author Ryan Short's 2025 The Civic Brand: The Power & Responsibility of Place caught our attention for a singular reason. One of the books many underlying themes is to choose substance over shallow 'solutions'. Why do we hang new banners downtown every 5 years when we make no substantive investments in small business to fill those empty storefronts? Why do we collect data points to defend projects rather than define them? Ryan talks about taking action to discover the real issues at play, then solving the problems. Without this, do you have a civic brand? Here, at the 'Are We Here Yet?' Podcast and SMG we couldn't agree more.
Is our community's brand a swift-looking logo and color swatch and no more? Or should we demand more of ourselves?
Ryan co-founded his firm Civic Brand with wife Banner Short in 2008. Since then, the couple have assisted communities large and small throughout the country to realize more meaningful civic brands and civic life at the core of those new strategies.
Transcript taken from SMGtheHouser.substack.com
This week, a break from our work solving all the problems of small scale developers in rural America. Besides, our work relies on the success of tech entrepreneurs just as much as it does with municipalities, small business owners, manufacturers and advocates. So it's big tech and entertainment that's got my mind captured this time around.
Ted Gioia's recent Substack on George Avakian's entrance into the teenage idol craze circa 1958 left me in my own stream of consciousness, reliving then to now and our slip into idiocracy with MAMLMs (modern advanced machine learning models). What's specifically got me frustrated is our consistent habit of giving up so much agency over tech and the enshitification that ensues.
Is our society at large really ok with giving AI models a pass? If so, how did we get here? What began the slippery slope into permission for intellectual sludge which in our time might be on the precipice of being used to eliminate jobs, yours and mine, while further degrading the value of intellectual rigor?
Capitalism is good at placing monetary value on a product or service. What it can't do, what it never could do, is place a value on quality. It can't critique, it can't consider, it can't make you look cool in front of your lover while you make an obscure reference.
People like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis Warren understood plainly that the Revolutionary ideals that started it all, themselves bearing ideas as far afield from each other as those of John Locke, The Marquis de Condorset and the Haudenosaunee would not last unless the new country they helped launch waseducated. I'd like to believe they were really after a populace rooted in intellectual rigor.
People needed to be able to judge quality. They needed to agree on minimums of toleration while also being able to envision a future rooted in intellectual pursuit. They needed to think for themselves.
So, we created the teenage idol.
Not knocking you kiddos. I mean, it's adults who keep messing this stuff up.
Alongside the creation of a new suburban landscape that launched an entire literary and cultural onslaught based on boredom and depression, came the desire to create cheap art. It was supposed, this would be most desirable to teenagers, fresh to market and flush with disposable income. An advantageous feature for record labels and book publishers was this stuff could be made on the cheap. Why deal with sophisticated adult performers and writers who believe in the artistic process, have 'standards' when you can sign kids with desperate parents. Hell, let's do away with A&R departments. Don't need those anymore.
Stan Freberg saw it coming. It's quaint to hear, 'So long music parasite'. Surely, or so he thought, jazz would prevail over the trite. Here's his Payola Roll Blues:
Right side of artistry. Wrong side of history.
How does this relate to the here and now?
Roughly speaking, we've had artists from the mid century to now insisting to us through their art to pay attention. Zappa's Joe of Joe's Garage fame ended up a cucumber living inside his head because, even as the record business debased his fantasy society, faschistic forces were tightening the screws on the public, a public willing to go along in the name of morality. Of cleanliness.
We cut music and art programs for everyday America. We amped up the morality police running parallel with the desecration of industrial America. Manufacturing America. Working America.
We gave each other permission in a two-parent-working-three-or-four-jobs-household to cut corners on quality of thought. We stopped going out. We stopped having the money… 'not enough time for that'.
We stopped believing that our popular cultural pursuits should challenge our notions. Not enough time for that.
This led to the next logical conclusion. Don't like being challenged by your college professor, just declare you're triggered and start convulsing on the floor.
Let's face it, by the time we got ahold of the fact that suburbia can't pay for itself, and that we're really not sure what 'good' art or music is anymore, and that our kids are getting to college without having read a single novel, now AI is being sold to us as the next big thing, totally going to change the world, totally awesome BTW in totally vague terms. And likely , because it's all totally controlled by an elite who got pants-ed a thousand times in high school for being in the A/V club, is totally coming for your job while stealing your work content even as it can't totally do everything it's creators say it can totally do.
Totally indeed.
Totally needless. Totally worthless.
We've gone from giving permission for lower quality art to giving permission for companies to 'aggregate' art, for free, in order to feed the AI beast. After all, it's just content, right? Why develop the largest opportunity for blanket licensing payments when you can steal writ large across the entire creative class economy?
I'm reminded of what it was like as a teenage performing artist forty years ago. 'We can't pay but hey, it's a great opportunity for you to…. get your name out there.'
Now the corporate state takes your very identity and converts it into profit. Most folks are too busy surviving to understand how bad this is, let alone understand how we got here.
Because, after all, all those imaginary guitar notes, and other tasty thoughts, remain in the imagination of this imaginator. Watch your step, the white zone is for loading and unloading…..
Empowering Gig Workers Tamara Laine is the founder of MPWR, a fintech services platform launching in 2026 to serve the some 80 million global gig economy workers. This isn't the first founding experience for Tamara, here she is speaking with Nasdaq in 2023 regarding an earlier experience with Card Shop Live.
MPWR will focus on providing lending and support tools to gig economy workers who up until now face significant challenges accessing the financial services that W2 workers typically take for granted. Their reach could be vast, Tamara is focused on the domestic market but also has her eye on markets in Africa and Asia where gig economy workers proliferate.
This sector is one we've been following at the podcast for some time. Our parent company SMGraves Associates has been advocating for support opportunities by new services providers through their accelerators and economic development programming.
Tamara also gave us her perspective on artificial intelligence beyond just its beneficial use through her work, a discussion you don't want to miss.
Connect to Tamara
In her own words
'I started my career in documentaries and journalism, which taught me so much about human behavior and intent. Every day was fast-paced, but, more importantly, it was filled with talking to people about their problems, conflicts, or solutions. I learned that unique personalities brought unique solutions to every situation. Now as a team leader, I see the value of every teammate's perspective, insights, or roadblocks and how that could be something to utilize for growth.'
The Later Days of Big Bands: From the Culture Desk Join co-hosts Joshua Michael Stewart & Scott Graves on a musical look at just what all those Big Band musicians were doing decades after the end of the Big Band Era.
The popular culture phenomenon of swing music did not end when the record deals started drying up. The spectrum and synthesis of styles, the premium musicianship and the comradery between bands and fans continued to the present date.
We bring you more than a dozen recordings in their whole from the seventies to now including mostly musicians and bands still very much alive.
You'll experience the music of Buddy Rich, Clayton/Hamilton Big Band, Count Basie, The Either Orchestra and folks new to the scene like Omar Thomas.
And my co-host put together a larger playlist for those of you who want to swing the night away!
Listen Now
Cohosts Ryan Munn and Scott Graves delve into what's on the horizon in Vermont tech in 2026. Talk of BETA Technologies recent IPO and its consequences on employment opportunities was high among the list of other companies mentioned that we're watching in the upcoming year. The list includes OnLogic, former podcast guest Rugged Micropower, Lightshift Energy and more. If you didn't make the conversation this time around, have no fear. We're watching YOU, too!
A look at the upcoming year cannot be had without some meaningful conversation on artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and cryptocurrency as well. Check out our insightful 2025 conversation with AI leader Peter Voss. We discussed current policy around these technologies and policy consequences for the workplace, for our country's position as an innovation leader and for society writ large.
Happy New Year from the guys at Innova802. Reach out to us with your feedback, give us a review and let us know if you have a great story to bring to the Innova802 or Are We Here Yet? Podcasts.
Rural Housing Report: New Ideas from Otis, MA We're joined by Dr. Stacey Schultze, a fifth generation citizen from the Berkshire hamlet of Otis, MA. After listening to Stacey tell us in detail about the town's greatest assets we're feeling good about the resiliency of small town New England. Alongside her neighbors Stacey is engaged in garnering new ideas to solve Otis's housing challenges in the most direct way possible, by listening to what your neighbors have to say.
We've been gathering some compelling stories of economic development and housing this year from Berkshire county, Massachusetts. Listeners may also find interest in interviews with 1Berkshire's Ben Lamb, PhD and Jenny Wright of the North Adams Partnership
Michael Cohen is a partner and founding member of Lean Real Estate, a successful investment firm buying directly from owners. The team at Lean applies lean manufacturing principles to real estate investment, which has helped the team of three stay focused and well disciplined in every aspect of their operation.
Learn from Michael how to apply lean principles to your operation in our episode, plus understand more about the Burlington, Vermont real estate market. Burlington is one of Vermont's highest performing markets for increasing value as is Chittenden county as a whole, which has been good for some and a challenge for those seeking stable and desirable places to live in what is a dynamic and very attractive part of the country, along the shores of Lake Champlain.
Taiese Hickman is a realtor who recently donned the hat of a developer and non-profit leader. What makes this remarkable is the model of her new venture, The New England Equity Collective. The NEEC is targeting families across a wide spectrum of backgrounds for co-living in pocket neighborhood developments combining services like art and music therapy with a more affordable and desirable place to live.
Listen in if you are a non-profit leader looking to discover how to refine your model. Listen in if you are a new urbanist looking for an intentional design to a pocket neighborhood. Listen in if you care about innovation through combining successful property development with programming that solves problems for our neighbors.
The Hill Country Blues is, in effect for many of us, a form of early american music that is hiding in plain site. Take one part, fife and folk from the british isles,another part west african polyrhythms. Mix european balladeering with caribbean hypnotic rhythms.
What begins as drum and fife music deep in the hills of northern Mississippi and Alabama blended with other blues from the region then heavily influenced the likes of Rock legends like Bo Diddley.
We're re-discovering what Hill Country blues is all about. I'm joined by 2025 Massachusetts beat poet laureate Joshua Michael Stewart.
Josh's Field Notes: A primer for you to engage the Hill Country Blues
YOU SEE ME LIGHTNIN': LAST OF THE HILL COUNTRY BLUESMEN (Documentary)
HILL COUNTRY BLUES Josh's (Spotify Playlist)
the originators:
RL BURNSIDE: see my jumper hanging on the line
MISSISSIPPI FRED MCDOWELL: shake 'em on down
JUNIOR KIMBROUGH: lonesome in my home
ROBERT BELFOUR: my baby's gone
Women pioneers:
ROSA LEE HILL: rollin & tumblin
JESSIE MAE HEMPHILL: streamline train
Fife & drum:
OTHAR TURNER: lay my burden down
Youngins keepin the flame alive:
RISING STAR FIFE AND DRUM BAND: Mississippi (sound like a pop band)
NORTH MISSISSIPPI ALLSTARS: meet me in the city (example of contemporary fife & drum)
KENNY BROWN: you don't know my mind
THE BLACK KEYS: coal black mattie (from Akron Ohio. Have a wide national following)
HANK WILLIAMS JR: Georgia woman (influence on country music)
OTIS TAYLOR: huckleberry blues (influence on new forms: Trance Blues)
Current record labels that record & promote HCB Artists:
FAT POSSUM RECORDS
EASY EYE SOUND
Joshua Michael Stewart is the author of Break Every String, The Bastard Children of Dharma Bums, and Love Something. His work has appeared in Modern Haiku, Massachusetts Review, Brilliant Corners, New Flash Fiction Review, and Best Small Fictions 2025. His latest book is Welcome Home, Russell Edson—a graphic novel & prose poem hybrid created in collaboration with illustrators Bret M. Herholz and Aaron J. Krolikowski.https://joshuamichaelstewartauthor.com
What they say about JMS:
There's a fearlessness in Joshua Michael Stewart's poetry—tough, tightly written narratives and monologues about living poor with broken people (some of whom are your closest relatives) in hard times. This heartfelt gritty work reminds me of the hardscrabble accounts of humanity in some of our best poets—the work of Ai, Bruce Weigel, and Linda McCarriston's landmark book, Eva-Marie. Stewart exercises the courage of truth telling and takes the revenge of real poetic craft. As Bruce Weigel says "Say it clearly and you make it beautiful, no matter what." Or as Stewart says, "Poets are the battered spouses of hope." You can't help but respect the maker of these streamlined vehicles, for his guts and his unsentimental, vivid poems. -Tony Hoagland
Robert Reich wrote on his substack for September 16, One study found that half of Americans expect a second civil war to happen "in the next few years," even if the specifics vary according to one's politics and imagination.
On the other hand, unlike the Civil War of 1861-1865, no particular issue — like slavery back then — pulls the nation apart. While immigration, crime, abortion, and LGBTQ+ rights are controversial, none of these seem to elicit the anger and passions that might generate civil war.
Nor are we enduring an economic calamity, pandemic, world war, or other national cataclysm that might force Americans to take sides.
While we are not experiencing a singular polarizing issue like Slavery, and though we can't point to a singular economic calamity that brought this on, it is in fact decades of economic factors and now a looming economic disaster that has put us here.
We've managed to create an economy over a half century that excludes, then isolates individuals by limiting access to everything from communications to housing, your home sitting at the apex of human need. Socially we tell the newly minted abandoned economic nomads that it's their fault. Our systems and our leaders constantly remind them in a myriad of ways that they don't have what it takes to 'make it'. Then we forget these individuals unless or until they commit a mass shooting, or we find them dead of an overdose behind the Walgreens. Maybe just maybe they are thought of by elected officials from time to time when their votes are needed.
My thoughts on our society have been shaped in part by my experiences as a youngster with poverty. My young life started stable and solidly middle class then descended, through family circumstance, into the grips of poverty. Don't get me wrong, I have countless fond memories from my upbringing. Here though, I'd rather for a moment focus on our experiences that represent the other side of growing up in America. Growing up poor in America.
A friend once recounted the quote, 'the only thing worse than a country full of have-nots is a country full of used-to-haves'. We are a country massed with people who know what they are missing. For decades, some of us were building a society based on creativity, positive energy, robust education…… for some of us while for others, we've built a society where resentment, economic fear, shame for your economic status; we took this underbelly of societal cancer and metastasized it. We've turned grief into grievance. We've given nearly all the worst in each and every one of us a voice and put it to work in the service of accelerating the downward spiral that enriches an ever smaller number of our neighbors.
I am the product of the 1980's. My life has occurred during the dismantling of the New Deal. I'm also proud of my family's immigrant heritage. I believe in the countless individual stories that make up the story of North America. That tell us the story of the American Experiment.
The community in central Massachusetts where I grew up was no stranger to global changes in the economy, albeit being in the northeast meant we were spared the very worst of de-industrialization until well into the early aughts.
Our family suffered a divorce, not an affliction caused by economics but one that significantly altered the economic trajectory of our little family. What's so striking to me to this day, is the dichotomy between those that were always there to help, with those community members who suddenly discovered, to my little mind, that we had committed a grave transgression. Did they think we'd give them the flu? Was it something Mom said? Do I have something on my shirt? You see it when people look just above your head into the distance when you approach. You begin to understand that some people still have what you once had and they might even be taking it for granted. People stopped talking to us at church. The farther we got away from affluence, the further folks seemed to get away from us.
I was learning a seminal point that we don't like to tell ourselves about ourselves. For all that Americans can be wonderfully gracious when called upon, there are just as many of us who long ago gave into the desire of self-preservation by blaming others when those others need help. By keeping a distance from the affliction of poverty. Maybe just maybe by doing so, we won't get any on us.
Except the churning economic deprivation knows no boundaries. Doesn't stop for anything.
Denying our systems have been kicking people to the side of the road, while kicking the Spector of debt, failed systems and social ills down the road, has left us in grave peril.
Frank Zappa said, 'The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater'.
I fear that the show is about to be over.
_________
History. It's what keeps me getting up every morning. It's what keeps me trying with all my might to build more housing, to build new companies and to write like this.
We've been here before. This isn't our first Gilded Age. We've lived with the presence of Jim Crow and widespread open bigotry and classism; tools used to split the populace to the benefit of the elite. The Klan marched 30K plus in Washington, DC in 1923. They also tried to march on my very hometown in 1924, immigrants including some family members stopped them in their tracks at the town border.
People get pissed, it turns out, when they know what they're missing.
If you think you can write, then write. If you can organize, then organize. Reach out to just one person, commiserate, and grow your group from there.
There is strength in numbers. When you see an injustice, you really should call it out. Remember the Zappa quote? Demand a refund on your ticket. Demand a free and fair election. Demand a more inclusive economy.
Participate in solutions. Create the right, instead of avenging the wrong. Most importantly, Love one another.
Darren Sherburne is Associate Broker of Four Seasons Sotheby's Fairlee VT office and an active houser developing a variety of properties in the Upper Valley region of New Hampshire and Vermont. Darren reports on the current housing challenges in his region and gave us plenty to think about regarding how to get more of your housers started, where the funding can come from, what policy measures could improve our situation in Vermont and Northern New England.
You'll appreciate Darren's focused intent on successful building, successful housing.
Andrew Overton is a founding member of Creative Land Strategies, where he partners with small developers and communities to make sense of the real estate process. From acquisitions and zoning to community outreach, my daily goal is helping others feel supported—especially those stepping into development for the first time. I've spent years coaching new developers, breaking down regulatory hurdles, and building education programs to empower people, because real success comes from informed decision-making that benefits both clients and neighborhoods.
Today we're speaking directly to you, small scale or first-time developers for a practical, accessible look at the realities and rewards of development.s
I’m joined this week by Ed Bove, the Planning Director for my hometown of Rutland, Vermont, USA. A year into his tenure Ed is leading the effort to refine our cities zoning regulations to reflect an effort to build 1000 units of housing in five years.
Listen to Ed’s 2024 interview for the Are We Here Yet? Podcast.
We discussed the inner workings of the ongoing regs themselves, what changes are needed and why and the vision for what our community desires for results. We discussed the shortcomings and challenges for building middle market housing in Rutland and solutions for proliferating projects and small-scale developers who focus on gentle density projects in neighborhoods. The potential is there: we have some 220 unutilized properties and empty lots previously occupied by houses.
Ed and his team have been challenged with recent changes to our planning commission, highlighted in our recent essay on substack. Host Scott Graves is one half of the leadership of local housers advocates Partners In Housing, who is currently encouraging the participation of more housers: people involved in housing, to represent on municipal bodies.
Listen in to stay informed on how you can help in Rutland or to learn from our local efforts to bring similar outcomes to your community.
The city of North Adams, MA is a great locale these days if your passion is transforming downtowns. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is slated to fund a complete reversal of urban renewal’s worst mid-century mistakes by eliminating the Route 2 overpass. There are myriad other improvements in the works, too. That’s why the folks who care the most about their city reinvigorated the North Adams Partnership, who is brushing off the dust on an otherwise vibrant long-term plan for the city’s next chapter and hired Jenny Wright to lead the effort.
If you are a developer, small scale ‘houser’ or if you’re sitting in your kitchen, right now, in North Adams pull up a chair and listen in to why you need to consider North Adams, in no small part to Jenny and her team.
We’re joined this week by tech founder and Real Estate professional Lilian Chen. She founded Proptimal in order to provide foundational knowledge for investors and developers who generally don’t get the attention they deserve from firms focused on established clients.
We talked about the inherent challenges in serving smaller clients and on the importance of your underlying analytical processes. Lilian guides clients to ensure their focused on the right processes based on their clear goals. Not about right or wrong, good or bad. But about can you work with the right context and can you replicate it project to project.
When I asked Lilian what we can expect of the short term, our conversation focused on artificial intelligence and its effect on people. It’s clear Lilian’s background, having grown up in a house filled with the creation of music, has a profound effect on her people-focused approach to business.
Lilian’s Bio: Lilian Chen is the Founder of Proptimal, building the 10X Real Estate Analyst with patent-pending tech that makes institutional analysis accessible to everyday investors.
She has advised on more than $2B in transactions across 200 firms — from first-time investors to institutions with billions under management — and has taught hundreds of high-net-worth individuals the fundamentals of real estate investing.
Outside of work, she’s traveled to over 40 countries and writes on how real estate, technology, and culture shape the way we live.
I’ve wanted to interview Ben Lamb for a few years now and he did not disappoint. We spoke on diversifying revenue streams for his organization's regional work and whether the rapid federal funding changes are having an effect. We also spent considerable time on housing challenges and what it could look like using a growing housing sector to improve the regional economy.
We made an argument against de-populating western MA (in fact, Berkshire county is re-populating) and we took a close look at the state of the region’s micro markets, some behind 2000 units or more and how this presents an opportunity. How codes designed for larger urban areas are limiting factors in a region like the Berkshires and where the biggest opportunities are for developers in sectors like senior living and downtown mixed use.
What does the current tech and manufacturing sectors look like today 40 years on after the shock of loosing core industries in cities like North Adams and Pittsfield?
There is a unique connectedness of rural communities here in New England and we had an opportunity to explore how Berkshire county is taking advantage of that.
We hope you enjoy.
The Innova802 crew sat down to take stock together on where we stand on Artificial Intelligence: Its effect on politics, creativity, industry, labor, culture and the possibility of global destabilization. Have no fear, rather than simply complaining as to the side effects of an inappropriately deployed plan by the tech sector for AI, we delve into each of our insights on how a beneficial future could be wrought through the use of AI.
This could be a highly informative episode for our listeners coming on the heels of the United State’s WHite House report, Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan
Resources mentioned in our discussion
Paul Krugman May 9: ‘is crypto still for criming’
This common dreams article on SA president and Trump meeting. Grok admitted to musk request to hide the fact musk wanted the bot to emphasize a fake white genocide.
Atlantic: Big Tech’s AI Endgame Is Coming Into Focus
Atliantic: One app to rule them all
Ted Goia The Honest Broker 06.15.25
In two essays recently published and formed here into a podcast, Scott Graves offers perspective on how to build for the benefit of our society. In We Didn’t Ask for Stupefied Star Trek he explores the perils of launching a nationwide AI technological effort that continues the predatory business models from our largest tech platforms that has arguably produced one of the more widespread detrimental results for our society and that of the planet. We didn't ask for it, we’ve clearly requested an alternative direction, so why can’t our tech sector respond favorably to what society truly desires?
In Construction Apart from Destruction Scott breaks down the meaning behind one of the most prescient quotes from writer and environmentalist Wendell Berry in order to discover the inner meaning behind the concepts that demonstrate for us why we need to get beyond our simplistic consumerism and how we may benefit from doing so. An exercise he performed recently with a group of high school students in Vermont.
Consorvia’s founder, Christina Fedor wants to redefine society’s relationship to the creative sector. With their latest client platform the company is fundamentally bringing the individual and the system together to serve people in their effort to self actualize.
Our conversation reached into the benefits of letting people young and old flex their deepest and most creative muscles. Some of the issues with how we interact with tech and the solutions to overcoming these limitations.
Consorvia is an R&D ecosystem primed to answer the really big questions that seem to be converging on us at an accelerated rate none of us has experienced before in our lifetimes. What kind of AI do we truly desire to interact with? How does tech bring the most creative out of us? How do we build whole new systems for better leveraging tech?
Our Host Scott M. Graves and his essay offering personal and historical perspective; his take on the privilege of being alive to take part in reinvigorating our belief in the Constitution and the rule of law.
Part of a series of essays in the Democratic Capitalism Series.
Innova802 Crew Member Will Jeffries represented the team for the Burlington, VT premiere of a new and innovative funding organization, Compound good.
Compound Good is a nonprofit fund that allows donors to make impact investments with philanthropy, unlocking capital for social entrepreneurs. Founders include Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies (VCET), Sage Software and Lawson’s Finest Liquids while supported ventures include Little Patahka, Local Maverick and a company familiar to the Innova802 podcast, Shiki Wrap and founder Meagan Downey.
Following a viewing of their latest launch video, they sat down with Will Jeffries in front of a live studio audience.
I had the distinct pleasure to sit down with two leading voices from the Congress for New Urbanism this past spring for a frank conversation on our current housing crisis. Their different ages and life experiences offer us a wealth of perspective to learn from and leverage. Let’s dive right in to learn together in order to better each of our efforts to solve the issues of housing in America.
Todd Zimmerman and his partner Laurie Volk founded Zimmerman/Volk Associates four decades ago, to address the walkability and economic viability of cities and towns throughout the United States. They developed over that time their own methodology for completing the work they performed. Both got their start as journalists and like so many of us who came to development from a non-traditional background, leveraged their skills to bring fresh ideas to the realm of the built environment.
Carlos Sainz Caccia is a Mexican born Urban planner living and working in Boston Massachusetts for the leading firm Utile. His perspective particularly caught my attention in the fall of 2024 as I participated in a debate on the merits of CNU’s voice in solving the current housing crisis during CNU’s regional conference in Providence, RI.
We start our discussion with Carlos’s take on what’s driving housing’s unaffordability. These conversations often quickly stream into the social, financial, cultural and other worlds that contribute to the problem but inform possible solutions. We then move to a broader look at the issues contributing with Todd.
We’re going to present these conversations over several episodes. Thanks for our friends at the Congress for New Urbanism for suggesting these interviews and introducing us to Carlos and Todd. We hope you enjoy.
Are We Here Yet? Host Scott Graves chosen profession was as a performing artist. In this episode he pays tribute to two of his idols who recently passed away, Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone fame and Brian Wilson, songwriter and member of the California iconic Beach Boys.
When you connect with a born to be entrepreneur you know it. In our experience we place all creatives; the artists, the dreamers, the community builders in this category of human experience. Our guest for this two part episode exemplifies what we’re talking about. In a little more than an hour, Ron Rivers and co-hosts Scott Graves and Ryan Munn explored Ron’s development of digital solutions for aiding mission-driven organizations, really community building in Web3 that is meaningful to the human world, focusing on Ron’s work with AI for social impact (Nonprofit Navigator and Spirit DAO), philanthropy reform, and the challenges of synthesizing beneficial aspects of various traditions while avoiding past pitfalls. We talked about Ron’s work to develop The Church of Temporal Naturalism which we explored in depth, particularly in part II.
But what we loved the most about talking with Ron was how he has spent the time necessary to understand and allow others into his understanding for why? What’s behind the importance of understanding how and why we desire to respond to others needs. His work is asking the question ‘can we have meaningful connection and build a more spiritual, less transactional world through the digital realm? You hear us talk a lot on our podcasts about tech’s proper place in our society. Ron lives this every day.
This discussion was insightful, exhilarating and left us with considerable items for self-reflection. We hope it does the same for you as well.
When you connect with a born to be entrepreneur you know it. In our experience we place all creatives; the artists, the dreamers, the community builders in this category of human experience. Our guest for this two part episode exemplifies what we’re talking about. In a little more than an hour, Ron Rivers and co-hosts Scott Graves and Ryan Munn explored Ron’s development of digital solutions for aiding mission-driven organizations, really community building in Web3 that is meaningful to the human world, focusing on Ron’s work with AI for social impact (Nonprofit Navigator and Spirit DAO), philanthropy reform, and the challenges of synthesizing beneficial aspects of various traditions while avoiding past pitfalls. We talked about Ron’s work to develop The Church of Temporal Naturalism which we explored in depth, particularly in part II.
But what we loved the most about talking with Ron was how he has spent the time necessary to understand and allow others into his understanding for why? What’s behind the importance of understanding how and why we desire to respond to others needs. His work is asking the question ‘can we have meaningful connection and build a more spiritual, less transactional world through the digital realm? You hear us talk a lot on our podcasts about tech’s proper place in our society. Ron lives this every day.
This discussion was insightful, exhilarating and left us with considerable items for self-reflection. We hope it does the same for you as well.s
It was a high point for co-hosts Ryan Munn and Scott M. Graves when they were joined last week by AIGO.AI founder Peter Voss. Peter’s a long-time innovator, founder, advocate and thinker concerning Artificial Intelligence(he coined the term artificial general intelligence) whose insights shared with us are making us think further, dig deeper into our own advocacy for the best use of AI in order to realize a benefit to a maximum spectrum of the worlds’ population.
This is your opportunity to invest with one of the world’s most thoughtful innovation leaders in artificial intelligence. Find out more by engaging AIGO.AI.
So what exactly does Peter Voss think about the current state of Artificial Intelligence? Are our current tech sector leaders, politicians and business leaders making the most and for the benefit of all humanity?
Listen now for the answers to these and more questions. We hope we can offer some answers to you while helping you generate your own new and thoughtful questions on the subject of artificial intelligence.
Host Scott Graves is once again joined by Stephen Box, Scott’s partner in Partners in Housing, small scale housing developments in Vermont and columnist under the column header, the accidental activist. Stephen is also our co-host for The Housers Podcast.
Stephen and Scott explain for listeners how a more aggressive approach to building market rate housing in the US could benefit the affordable housing market. Our ideas are backed by research including the data we offered in the UpJohn Institute's working paper penned by Evan Mast.
We also touch upon why providing economic development programming to empower local residents, coupled with increasing home values in a given market is the antidote to gentrification.
Find Stephen’s column the Accidential Activist in the Mountain Times
Subscribe to The Housers Podcast
Subscribe to the Are We Here Yet? Podcast
Learn more about the Partners In Housing Fund
Vermont isn't just shrinking in population, its aging. The state has 30,000 fewer working age citizens between 25-40 then it did 25 years ago. This, while modest population gains during the Covid-19 pandemic has reversed.
For those of us at the Innova802 Crew, we see the effects every day. Many citizens on fixed incomes, who represent a larger share of the population, cannot afford increases to taxes for education, infrastructure and public healthcare subsidies.
For many, the gut reaction is to say, no new Vermont citizens, no new Vermont students, no new Vermont employers taking in public investment dollars. While this may seem intuitively correct, it is in fact the path to a downward economic cycle that becomes very challenging to reverse, especially for rural states.
We hosted Kevin Chu, Executive Director of the Vermont Futures Project during season nine of the Are We Here Yet? podcast. One year later, the Innova802 crew had him back to talk about the effort to get all Vermonters on the same page, writing a book of growth in order to create a more livable Vermont bursting at the seams with opportunity and the right balance between caring for our neighbors and having the ability to pay for it.
Listen to VFP on Marketplace
This Are We Here Yet? podcast is in association with the Innova802 podcast.
This conversation on rural development is so important, we're hosting it on The Housers Podcast, too!
Open Innovation has become essential to good science being completed by our institutions. Our guest this week, Steve Rader speaks with experience on how open innovation, rather crowdsourcing has and will shape good science work moving forward. Steven recently retired from NASA and is an expert in open innovation after 36 years with NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.
We discussed his experiences leveraging crowdsourcing and open innovation to achieve significant cost savings and accelerate technological advancements at NASA, including nearly 900 successful challenges within his career. He highlighted the importance of understanding a problem’s root causes before brainstorming solutions and the four "G's" driving participation (Gold, Guts, Glory, and Good) by thousands of our neighbors passionate about the work of science.
Our listeners can connect with Steve by clicking here.
This Are We Here Yet? podcast is in association with the Innova802 podcast.
Sharing the mic with Interchain.Live and fellow Innova802 crew member Ryan Munn brought Richard Lowe to our virtual studios for a discussion regarding Rich’s experience as a ghostwriter and author in his own right. The discussion quickly deepened to include his perspective on building the bionic worker: getting business to leverage tech to support workers as opposed to leveraging tech to replace them. The importance of leveraging older workers who are living longer and what experienced professionals bring to the table for companies and society.
Rich is a deep well of experience on a number of important topics that we encourage you to think more on after listening. Find our discussion on the Are We Here Yet? Podcast roster as well as Innova802 and Interchain Live.
Host and founder Scott Graves is asking some tough questions for all of us to ask in our own communities. How do we get beyond a place of manufactured scarcity and support all forms of private and public housing development to meet our middle market needs?
Find Scott’s Latest Essays from An Artist Audio recording on The Housers Podcast and the Are We Here Yet? Podcast. Find his housing advocacy work, along with Housers Stephen Box and Mike Waugh at partnersinhousingvt.com.
Athens, GA is home to Building, Inc and founder Matthew Schneider. Matthew is no stranger to a multi-disciplinary approach to solving some of the toughest challenges for real estate developers and tech leaders alike. Our discussion hit upon some real-world solutions-oriented work he and his team has done and sage perspective on software use in real estate, on raising and using capital, on building your business to be truly market-responsive.
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani has spent 20+ years working to understand what’s in a neighborhood by asking the question, ‘Where would you take someone on a guided tour of your neighborhood?’ In her 2024 book, The Cities We Need: Essential Stories of Everyday Places Viani walks us through the tours she participated in from dozens of her neighbors in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn and Mosswood in Oakland, CA, two cities she and her family spent time getting to know intimately. As a photographer, urbanist and keen storyteller Gabrielle brings to our attention important considerations that truly make you think hard about what makes a neighborhood. What it means to be a part of a place or really what makes our everyday lives worth living.
Our conversation made me think hard here at the Are We Here Yet? podcast about what kind of a society we want to build and who we want to be in the decades ahead. How can we learn from our mistakes? How can we appreciate the micro-moments that make our lives in a neighborhood worth living and how do we steward a place to provide that for all citizens?
You know a book and a conversation is good when it leaves you asking more questions than providing answers. And our conversation with Gabrielle was just such an experience.
Hosts Ryan Munn and Scott Graves are joined by Justin Loranger of web3iam in what we’re sure you’ll find to be an excellent primer on why blockchain is the key to transforming crypto into accepted currency, offering security and stability. Why should you anticipate the value of your name and that of your company in the digital realm? Lots to learn for building our rural economies (you don’t need to be in a city to leverage this tech to your benefit). In collaboration with Interchain Live and M the Media Project.
Production notes: Please add the following voiceover to end: Do download your copy of ‘Pioneer Valley Knowledge Towns Strategy Proposal’ go to https://www.smgravesassociates.com§/whitepages/
Dominic Endicott joins us for a second time on the AWHY? Podcast to discuss a white paper co-published by Dominic and AWHY? Host Scott Graves, detailing a $100 billion dollar strategy for transforming the regional economy for Massachusetts, specifically the western third of the Commonwealth. By focusing on two top components of their proposal, housing and venture capital growth, listeners will understand the real potential for the region and a bit of how to start working on their own plan for the place they call home.
Download our white paper on Knowledge Towns Strategy
Listen to Ep. 133 Knowledge Towns
Dominic Endicott is co-author of 2023’s Knowledge Towns: Colleges and Universities as Talent Magnets along with Prof. David J. Staley of the Ohio State University. Scott M. Graves is a real estate developer working in the Pioneer Valley and nationally in the youth urban and senior living markets.
Host Scott Graves is joined by fellow Vermont houser Stephen Box of Rutland. Our discussion focused on both the local discussion and a more global look at how parking is affecting housing in all of our communities in the United States. Stephan, a loyal resident recently received a parking ticket in front of his own house due to a winter parking ban (we know you listeners in Florida are scratching your heads). And our city is in the midst of discussion around a greenway parking ban to keep the sidewalks free of cars.
At the local level, how can we craft our parking ordinances to encourage housing growth? And with the global discussion including Minnestota’s 2024 landmark decision to ban parking minimums state-wide, are we at the vanguard of a more sane approach to parking nation-wide?
New Podcast announcement! Stephen and Scott and a few of their friends are launching ‘Housers’ for Spring 2025. A project of M the Media Project and Interchain Live. We’re telling the stories and featuring the heroes in our own small scale landlord and developer community in central Vermont because we know you’re out there making it happen in your own communities, and we could all use a monthly dose of smart solutions and moral support. Housers is in conjunction with Mountain Times which will feature our stories in print and the digital paper under the column ‘802 words’.
And in today's episode we show you some of the leading examples today.
We end our season ten with host Joan Watson Jones look into some of Jazz’s unsung heroes. Women representing a wide range of ethnic and social backgrounds have always been vital to the jazz community. With that said, most folks focus on the jazz vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughn.
In this Jazz Room we look to the women as instrumentalists and largely from current times including Carol Sudhalter, Linda Presgrave, Jan Lear, Marion McPartland, Shirley Horn (yes, she is a piano player of renown) and Emily Remler plus a host of their male counterparts. Join us once again in The Jazz Room!
As we enter the winter solstice, exploring the dark that inevitably comes before the light, we’re considering new ways to think about gifting, yes, and what of commerce? What of a community that reverses the epidemic of loneliness pervasive in our modern society? Can we do better? That’s up in the latest Are We Here Yet? Podcast to close season X and 2024.
I’m joined by Veronica Mangio, founder of the Minneapolis-based Gifting Grove and once again by my good friend from Grand Isle County, Vermont based Byron Garcia of Natural Designs.
Veronica is the inspiring founder of Gifting Grove, a company dedicated to facilitating community that can involve creating meaningful, sustainable, and handcrafted gifts that leave a lasting impact, sharing time, and skills. Her vision is rooted in promoting conscious gifting, empathy in an epidemic of loneliness, and supporting local artisans/organizations, fostering environmental and social well-being. Veronica has turned her passion for sustainability and community into a thriving business redefining how we think about giving.
Referenced in our episode
Braiding Sweetgrass Wall Kimmerer
Our episode on Biomimicry with Byron Garcia on the Innova802 series
The Giving Tree: Shel Silverstein (link to the youtube video)
Artist Neri Oxman
Strong Towns
Neil Mylet is a do-er. He’s a farmer, a tech advocate and connecting rod. Neil is also putting his money and his talents where his mouth is, funding his own project, Camden Castle and ensuring a wide spectrum of top-tier programming and connections for his 600 neighbors in the village of Camden, Indiana.
Neil sees great opportunity in a future rural economy leveraging AI, blockchain, among other tech and tech-enabled products and services yet to be developed.
Students and their families from this village of are given opportunities to intern and engage with organizations in the United States such as the Tulsa Innovation Labs and MIT and internationally with tech centers like the RDI Labs of Ireland.
"It’s very challenging in rural America to access a competitive advantage, resources, in a comfortable environment and we need to change that…" This conversation was all about how folks like Neil, yours truly, and you our faithful listeners build access into your own local projects; how do we stay the course on what is important to us as a project of economic development and physical space development despite all the challenges. Listen in to learn, grab some ideas and make them your own.
Mentioned in our episode: Camden Castle, Tulsa Innovation Labs, House of Lobkowicz, MIT, RDI Lab (Ireland)
We joined Ace McCarleton of Vermont-based New Frameworks to talk about their panelized building innovations for the housing marketplace. New Frameworks practices high performance natural building towards the construction of climate justice and regeneration. Innovation is expressed in their home construction products and processes, their sourcing of materials, for sure. But it’s also in their employee-ownership model, their steadfast dedication to inclusion and more.
Learn in two episodes their origin story, Ace’s thoughts on housing innovation, employee ownership and how to grow a company that consistently leads through example.
Listen to Part I, Episode 174
Explore New Frameworks
New Frameworks Beam Embodied Carbon Calculator tool
Link to panels page
Link to the Casitas models
And the The Jazz Room… We celebrate the Saxophonists! Our episode includes the likes of Billy Pierce, Jackie MacLean, Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane.
We joined Ace McCarleton of Vermont-based New Frameworks to talk about their panelized building innovations for the housing marketplace. New Frameworks practices high performance natural building towards the construction of climate justice and regeneration. Innovation is expressed in their home construction products and processes, their sourcing of materials, for sure. But it’s also in their employee-ownership model, their steadfast dedication to inclusion and more.
Learn in two episodes their origin story, Ace’s thoughts on housing innovation, employee ownership and how to grow a company that consistently leads through example.
Plus in The Jazz Room we celebrate the Drummers! Host Joan Watson-Jones dedication to drummers. Though she did not have the pleasure of interviewing the great Roy Haynes who passed away last week, we have many of his friends to celebrate in this episode.
Glavel is a construction materials company manufacturing foam glass gravel, or in company parlance GLAVEL. CEO Rob Conboy sat down with the Innova802 crew to discuss what it took to bring this technology to market in the US. How are they leading in recycling and carbon sequestration, excellence in innovative construction materials how they plan for growth and what effect they can have contributing to solve the housing crisis. We recently toured their facility and give credit to the Glavel team for epitomizing what a Vermont rural innovation company should look like.
Shout out to those mentioned who helped this team and many other Innova802 guests along the way including Flexible Capital Fund, Fresh Tracks Capital and
Rural Works.
Stay on the line for host Scott M. Graves’s personal tribute to one of his inspirations, the legendary composer, arranger, producer and entrepreneur Quincy Jones. Jones passed away at his home in Los Angeles on November 3 at the age of 91.
Lou Donaldson passed away on November 10, 2024. In a career spanning more than seven decades, the alto saxophonist began as a stylist devotee to the bop of Charlie Parker, quickly evolving into a soulful and bluesy player which became his signature. Joan Watson Jones, host of the AWHY? Music feature The Jazz Room sat down to interview Lou in 2020 at Studio 952 in Harlem, New York City.
In Part 1 of their interview Lou tells us how he got started in the business and why he took up the Saxophone. In Part 2 he tells us about working with Miles Davis, Jimmy Smith and offers his own observations on the future of Jazz.
Our music feature, The Jazz Room returns for a feature of the great American composer George Gershwin. Host Joan Watson Jones features many great musicians from a long list of recordings featuring the work of George Gershwin, one of the most prized composers of the American song book. For jazz musicians, Gershwin represents an endless source to be mined to create great improvisations and has been for over a century.
Our guest is Noah Harper. I met Noah at the CNU New England conference in Providence, RI. We were tasked by the organization to debate whether the Congress is positioned well as a leading voice in the current housing challenge before us all. Thus sparked some great discussion.
Explore Noah's Substack here
Noah has been featured in Strong Towns. He is a community planner for the firm J.M. Goldson. Noah is a strong advocate for incremental development and we're sure you will find inspiration in his seamless movement through themes of design excellence, craftsmanship to equity and democracy.
In his own words,
We are, broadly, in a crisis of housing affordability, of which one notable piece is the lack of supply. The question to me then becomes: how should we solve the supply issue? We’ve been experimenting with a lot of different methods of building in the last century, but a return to a more traditional way of building might yield the best result.
I’m really interested in the work and writing of Christopher Alexander, an architecture professor working in the sixties and seventies who wrote a book called “The Timeless Way of Building.” It’s on many planners and architects' shelves, but I think some of the biggest ideas have been overlooked (at least until now).
I like to think of it in terms of music. How did we arrive at different genres? How do they evolve over time? By people playing them, innovating, copying off one another. A mutually agreed-upon structure, but also room to innovate, for participation, for call and response. Memes are another great example too—order and variation and innovation. And one of Alexander’s big ideas is that our places grew up in the same way, too. It’s why so many of our towns and villages have a certain quality, and yet they’re not quite the same.
This decentralized, memetic, fundamentally creative act is what motivates me as a planner and writer and advocate. It’s the way we achieve beauty and a more democratic order in our built environment, through more people building and taking part in their place. And, beyond the sort of beauty argument, I think you can make a really strong moral and economic case for it too.
We’ve had the pleasure of featuring Baritone Saxophonist Claire Daly twice in the AWHY? Music feature, The Jazz Room. Host Joan Watson Jones first sat down with Clare at Studio 952 in New York City to talk about her CD "Baritone Monk", recorded at the North Coast Brewing Company. In our second interview Claire spoke to Joan regarding her recording, "The Mary Joyce Project-Nothing to Lose" which tells the story of her father's cousin Mary Joyce who crossed Alaska on dog sled alone in the mid 1920's.
Learn more about Claire and her music at www.clairedalymusic.com
Our guest, Andrew Fitch is Communications Manager for Lever, a Venture Capital Source pioneered by founders and government in the city of North Adams, MA.
The last decade or more has seen a resurgence in young professionals rediscovering opportunities in the western half of Massachusetts. Opportunities in housing, urban development, entrepreneurship and life crafting.
Much of Andrew’s time is focused on developing the capacity of the Mass Founders Network, centered in North Adams. Along with other surging organizations working in collaboration, the northern half of Berkshire County is redefining its economy, with hopes that this will benefit those in place and encourage more relocation already in process.
Andrew walks the walk. He is highly engaged as an economic leader but also represents his neighbors as a city councilman in North Adams. He is investing in his city by purchasing downtown property.
We say Bravo, and encourage all listeners to get involved in this kind of bottom up, roll up your sleeves approach to rebuilding your community.
Kendall Fortney is an artist and designer based in Vermont who is currently the Program Director for UVM's VERSO the open-source program centered at the University.
Kendall spoke with the Innova802 crew on the power of the open-source community in shaping a society that delivers human-scaled, beneficial solutions in technology.
Find out more regarding the resources and community at VERSO
VERSO offers a vibrant community of problem solvers engaged in their accelerator. Find out more by clicking here.
Also mentioned in our conversation
farmhack.org
For our latest Are We Here yet? podcast we offer four perspectives sure to keep you contemplating on this upcoming Indigenous People’s Day.
Our Season III guest Doug Harris, retired archivist for the Narragansett Tribe spoke to us regarding New England’s Ceremonial Stone Landscape for episodes 87 and 88. We feature two clips here, the first focused on answering the question, ‘what is this place and who are we?’ The second which ends our podcast focuses on his groundbreaking work alongside Smithsonian documentarian Ted Timreck, our guest for episode 132, which has dispelled many falsehoods about the peoples of this part of North America. How they lived, traded and thrived for thousands of years.
Sandwiched between our clips of Doug Harris we offer contemporary native American poets and their work with poet and essayist Joshua Michael Stewart, a frequent guest of our show. We originally aired his reading of these six poems in 2021.
Joshua is the author of three books of poetry, his latest being 2022’s ‘Love Something’. His soon to publish ‘Welcome Home, Russell Edson’ combines the graphic novel with the prose poem. He writes for M the Media Project under the feature, ‘The Way of Wind and Stream’.
Listen to our episode on Kerouac at 100 from March 2022.
But first, our host Scott M. Graves reads from his 2020 essay ‘Borders’. Scott was investigating the early colonial New England period of King Philip's War for several years which led him to taking a deeper dive into the competing concepts over land ownership between indigenous and English colonial cultures.
‘It didn’t escape me at the time that I was doing this amateur investigative work while the question of immigration in the US was speeding into a raging crisis,’ he told us. ‘what results here are my thoughts on a very deep, very flawed piece of debris just underneath our skin that continues to leave scars on our culture. We can and should do better’. The issue h only become more polarizing and central to the presidential election in 2024.
CEO Kimmerly Nace is dedicated to changing the narrative on how we see our waste. She’s passionate about making this planet, or rather making its people work better for a sustainable planet for all of us, creatures large and small.
Imagine a world where our toughest waste issues become some of our most profitable revenue centers? Literally turning problems into profit; using our existing financial incentives for good and not greed.
We spoke about her team at Brightwater Tools of Brattleboro, VT and it’s origin story in the international mission organization she also founded the Rich Earth Institute.
Today’s discussion is on regenerative sanitation. Realizing better nutrient management by diverting the worst offending liquid, our urine, out of the water system and into our soils for crop production.
Or as I like to say, making our Pee pay. That’s the latest from SMG’s ‘Are We Here Yet?’ podcast.
…And in the Jazz Room…We met pianist/composer, Orrin Evans at the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival. In part two of this interview we talk about the origins of several songs featured on his CD “The Red Door” and learn about the musicians who are featured on this recording. Click here to learn more about Orrin Evans.
Startup founders: today’s audio plat savoureux from the Innova802 crew focused on our guest Matt Cropp, executive director of the Vermont Employee Ownership Center (VEOC).
We discussed why you need to consider your future exit now at the onset of your enterprise and why you should take a serious look at forming an employee-owned enterprise and how.
The history of tech and tech enabled companies since the post WWII years is a history of equity sharing so it’s often a short walk for companies to consider employee ownership (co-operative models, employee stock ownership plan (ESOP)).
We defined how these models work alongside equity-sharing and market-rate employment and what benefits come to founders and when. Most notable we’ll tell you how creating an ESOP and planning for a liquidity event are not mutually exclusive.
We tie the combination of tech business culture and employee ownership to rural development. How these elements can and should be used to transform communities throughout fly-over, USA.
BTW, Watch closely, that is if we see forward momentum in Congress, of an important piece of legislation for incentivising more employee ownership called the Employee Equity Investment Act.
Other work of note by MacKenzie Wark
Mentioned by co-host Will Jeffries : Slicing Pie(Fair Equity investment tool)
And in the Jazz Room…We met pianist/composer, Orrin Evans at the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival. In part one of this interview we talk about his CD “The Red Door”, the meaning of red, the Jazz Train and Jazz elders. Click here to learn more about Orrin Evans.
We examine local real estate markets and the unique mix of property and economic development components at the local level here at the ‘Are We Here Yet?’ podcast so our listeners can find inspiration for their own local efforts back home.
This episode host Scott Graves sat down with Ed Bove, Executive Director of the Rutland Redevelopment Authority in Scott’s adoptive hometown of Rutland, VT. Scott found resonance with Ed in their shared interest in incremental development and generally a ‘Strong Towns’ approach to neighborhood building.
Listen to our interview with Strong Towns founder Charles Marohn from 2021.
The discussion centered on how Rutland and the RRA are working to assist private developers to realize current Mayor Mike Doenges goal of 1000 units of housing in 5 years.
Given Vermont’s past as an often development-resistant region, this may seem like a tall order. There is little consensus on whether we need more housing at the broadest level, though municipal and state leadership understand there is a housing crisis affecting all of us, particularly working-class people in Vermont.
Additional housing needs range from the state’s number of 36,000 units, Vermont Futures Project estimate a bit higher and to those estimates by Knowledge Towns of 75,000 or more.
Listen to our interview with Kevin Chu, Vermont Futures Project
Listen to our interview with Dominic Endicott, co-author of Knowledge Towns
There is even more difference of opinion when it comes to what kind of housing and for whom it might be built for.
Far from a complaint session, our discussion centered on the solutions being implemented through Ed and the RRA’s efforts along with other municipal players.
Our conversation gave us an opportunity to discuss the efforts of Breaking Housing Matters, a national housing initiative working on a pilot in Rutland, VT.
Listen to our interview with BHM founder Peter de Krassel
Ed’s thoughts immediately went to the innovative parts of BHM in creating new streams of development capital, an essential part of creating more interest in Rutland and the state of Vermont from emerging developers both local and from afar.
And in the Jazz Room…We met with Orchestra Leader/Composer Maria Schneider at the Newport Jazz Festival. This show is a bit different as per Maria’s request she asked I play 30 seconds of music and one full composition from her project "Data Lords".
As you listen to this interview she talks not only about creating her music, but defending the copyrights of her work in this world of free music streaming and music distributors charging artist exorbitant fees for their use digitally. Click to learn more about Maria
Without getting to Jargon-ey, our guest Gregory Thomas and yours truly explored where and how we in the private sector and within institutions can support the journey from on-the-shelf research to marketplace success.
Gregory is The Executive Director and Lecturer for the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship, Isenberg School University of Massachusetts Amherst.
UMASS is a leader in cutting edge research for a number of Massachusetts tech sectors. The UMASS system which includes campuses in Lowell, Dartmouth, Boston and the Chan Medical School in Worcester offers a robust set of innovation-driven resources for students and community members.
How can the private sector better interact with programs like those at Berthiaume? How do we build a more robust, diverse and resource rich Pioneer Valley tech sector? How do we best access ideas in financial modeling, management and tech transfer so, in the end, we’re building an economy that is better at creating well-paying, meaningful work? These are the themes of our conversation this hour.
At SMGraves Associates, we’ve joined up with Living Local 413 to develop a series of mixed-use properties in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts as desirable locations for tech and tech enabled entrepreneurs to live, work and find important resources through our programming including access to venture capital, accelerators and top-tier mentors. We’re eager to work with and help our private sector partners leverage relationships with the region’s best institutions like UMASS.
The team at Innova802 enter the solutions-driven world of biomimicry with Vermont entrepreneur Byron Garcia. Byron is the founder of Natural Designs where he and his team study the natural flora and fauna of the planet for clues to solving some of industry’s most pressing issues. Projects include improvements to data center cooling systems through the mimicry of beetle wings and elephant ears and a whole new class of non-nicotinoid pesticides that prohibit the infestation of pests without killing them or any other organism.
And in The Jazz Room: Re re-visit Joan’s 2021 interview with the celebrated Jon Baptiste.
We had the distinct pleasure of engaging in conversation with two very special professionals.
In their report, Integrating Inner & Outer Systems Change, authors Stephen Posner & Kim Nolan offered us insight into the importance inner perspective within each of us plays in the necessary task of reimagining how we collectively survive and even thrive on the planet.
Our conversation was vivid. I have to say I personally enjoyed these interviews, taken over two months this past spring, for many reasons.
Our solutions based conversation offers a number of internal and external applications each of us can engage in to make our lived experience together more meaningful while engaging in better systems practice.
People mentioned during our conversation Indy Johar post about the Pathways Forum we did with him recently: https://www.garrisoninstitute.org/the-common-good/ Arawana Hayashi: https://arawanahayashi.com
Bill McKibben: https://thirdact.org
Applied work mentioned in our conversation Federal policy memo on Regenerative Agriculture. https://fas.org/publication/a-national-initiative-to-revitalize-american-farming-and-advance-regenerative-agriculture/
Research papers on natural capital accounting for business:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212041621001170 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212041622000304
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212041620300413
https://www.wbcsd.org/Archive/Assess-and-Manage-Performance/Resources/Guide-to-Corporate-Ecosystem-Valuation
Doug Merrill is Regional Innovation Officer for UVM in Burlington, VT.
Doug is leading the charge for the Vermont GaN Tech Hub, a regional reshoring initiative spurred on by the CHIPs legislation.
Doug joined the Innova802 team to discuss the project's progress and its potential impact to the regional economy.
We also talked about what's so fab about gallium nitride microprocessing chips.
From a rural development perspective the state of Vermont is eager for this reshoring of technology-based manufacturing and research to benefit more than just Chittenden County. This decentralization of economic benefit is something many of your rural communities are facing where you live and work.
Many top technology providers were mentioned in our podcast including Global Foundries.
Innova802 is a series of SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' podcast. We're delivering solutions-based audio content on rural development of tech and tech-enabled companies. We bring you useful stories with a Vermont perspective to bring to your town.
For more than five years Travis Benson has represented the interests of citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a policy advocate, primarily working on issues of transparency.
His article, "Dissecting the 'Toxic' State House Culture", published May 25 in Commonwealth Beacon recounts the current dysfunction of the state legislature of Massachusetts.
The issues we discussed are not unique to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a state near and dear to host Scott M. Graves, the state of his birth and upbringing.
For those listening in Massachusetts and other states, discover through our discussion some insight as to countering the issues Travis recounts. Issues you might also be facing in your home state.
If our efforts in community development, economic development, rural and urban alike are to take hold, we must get right with our political leaders and the daily requirements of governance.
My guest today is Ilana Preuss, founder of Recast City, LLC which she’s led for 10 years.
To date, Ilana has worked with 60 communities throughout the United States.
Her commitment is to apply her expertise in smart growth, community reinvestment, real estate analysis, and stakeholder engagement to create more opportunity for more people in more places and to create strong, inclusive, and resilient economies.
Her core beliefs navigate this approach.
Ilana is the author of 2021’s, Recast-Your-City: How to Save your downtown with Small Scale Manufacturing
Today’s subject: how we build stronger communities through small scale manufacturing.
Those of us involved in redevelopment of downtown property and/or economic development generally should pay keen attention to today’s conversation.
Also mentioned in our conversation was the work of author Rachel Slade
And in The Jazz Room…
In Part 2 Arturo O'Farrell expands his thoughts to discuss the ”Still, Small Voice” that we, as a people, share and the non-profit organization he formed to benefit out-of-work performers of all genres during the Covid 19 quarantine.
Learn more about Arturo.
This latest Innova802 episode had the crew of Scott Graves, Ryan Munn and Will Jeffries exploring different sides of the question, 'Who owns this?'
We explored the issue surrounding last spring's decision by Spotify to set limits on how they pay royalties to artists, something Scott takes issue with since his days in the industry. This affects all creatives utilizing Spotify as a platform, including many local Vermonters and other rural artists.
Will and Ryan offer a look at two Vermont-centric areas to take more advantage of. One is to apply the principles of employee ownership to more entrepreneurial pursuits such as they are in Vermont.
Ryan takes us into the world of captive insurance. This risk specialty marketplace is a true emphasis of Vermont's economy and a unique opportunity according to Ryan to expand upon as a strength of ours.
Three ways to ask, 'Who Owns This?' are up next in our Innova802 series on rural tech with a Vermont perspective.
Thanks to show sponsor Black River Innovation Campus for hosting our episode session.
Up End This is a custom modular housing solution, a startup located in Johnson, VT. It’s founder Michael Zebrowski is the kind of entrepreneur that everyone can both connect with and look up to. He and his family have weathered the recent floods and the more daily mundane challenges inherent in owning your own business.
Learn More from Up End This
They are looking to grow with a smart strategy and an eye towards the future of de-centralized housing solutions.
We spoke about how decisions made on materials and design can offer solutions to the challenges of building in our current environment. We discussed the challenge of contemporary vs. traditional vernacular in the marketplace and a whole lot more that folks in the trades and consumers alike can find connection to.
We begin our episode with an interview co-host Scott M. Graves held with Vermont State Rep. Monique Priestley (D-Bradford) regarding the latest on the bill she is co-sponsoring. VT. House Bill 121 was vetoed by Gov. Phil Scott at the end of the 2024 legislative session and upheld by the Vermont Senate.
We offer our listeners the latest on the future of the bill from Monique, who used the opportunity to engage our audience with information via her new web presence Let'sDoPolicy.com.
Many citizens and small business leaders are not informed on the importance of data privacy rights to their lives and businesses. Further, many people do not have a comprehensive understanding for what's at stake and exactly how their information is used and potentially abused every day.
We offer our listeners some definition around the issue and perspective from both the voters, small business professionals and technology companies.
Since 1975, Tom Fox has been at the forefront of urban park and waterfront development primarily in New York City.
His creative thinking, commitment to community engagement and coalition building, use of unique funding mechanisms, and knowledge of government and the media have resulted in revitalized waterfronts and waterways, new parks, greenways and community gardens that have made the city a more desirable and sustainable place to live, work, and visit.
A working class kid from Brooklyn, Tom’s work has required a lot of creativity when it comes to financial planning. It’s required knowledge of government, media and it’s also required an ever-refined sense for relationships and how to keep things moving.
Tom’s also been resilient. He’s seen the development of the Hudson River Park from the outset and he knows how to win, lose and just keep going. On top of also being a successful entrepreneur.
Tom is the author of ‘Creating the Hudson River Park: Environmental and Community Activism, Politics, and Greed and it’s the story he tells us here that’s why Tom is joining us today.
... In The Jazz Room We met Pianist, Composer Arturo O‘Farrill after his set at the Newport Jazz Festival. We talked about his Grammy winning album “Four Questions”. In part 1 we talk about the influence of Dr. Cornell West and the ”Four Questions” as the inspiration for his album. Learn more about Arturo at https://www.auturoofarrill.com.
Erica Von Kleist is performing artist, educator, businesswoman, colorful commentator on any number of the more ridiculous intersections between art and modern life and wouldn’t you know, she plays the saxophone to top it all off and we have to acknowledge, just had the premiere of three new arrangements at no less than Carnegie Hall.
Find Erica on the Web
I’ve admired her work for many years now and thought about asking for an interview for the AWHY podcast, it was the commentary of many of our peers in and out of music to a social media post by a third party some months ago that finally brought us here.
It seems that within music education circles, art is certainly imitating life. With one comment by a young-ish undergrad regarding the behavior of collegiate faculty in music departments that we got a whole lot of ‘Boomer’ and ‘kids these days’ type of repartee.
So what gives when we’re all just trying to get along? Wouldn’t we be more useful to each other by crossing the threshold of generational divides? I thought that was what Jazz was all about anyways, we’re hoping Erica can set us straight.
And in the Jazz Room… We had a fun interview with Grammy nominated, singer/composer Claudia Acuna at the Newport Jazz Festival. She talks about the inspirations for her songs. You’ll hear cuts from her albums “Duo” and ”Turning Pages” . Learn more at www.claudiaacuna.com
“Rural communities do not exist solely to be extracted from. They are also generative, they can host tech, sic (the example from) our radically Rural biotech (program) is to not just bring (biotech) to but grow from the people and places we already have.”
Julianna Dodson, Director of Radically Rural and Deputy Director for the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship spoke with us regarding the well documented need and regenerative benefit of our relationships in order for community development, the kind that is lasting and has a net positive effect, to develop. It was clear from our conversation Julianna has a deep commitment to her work and that of countless others bringing people together for business and social benefit in her community of Keene, NH. For those of us building local economies through tech or creative class industries, building a socially cohesive environment is essential for realizing a desirable city to live in.
Engage with the Radically Rural Summit in September 2024
Listeners, what’s your experience in bringing tech to your communities and how has it affected the social fabric of your community? We want to hear from you.
...And in the The Jazz Room: We met with singer/composer/arranger Jazzmeia Horn at the Newport Jazz Festival. We talked about her CD “Dear Love” and her big band, ”Noble Force”. Learn more about her work by clicking here.
"I DON’T THINK THE ‘MONTANA MIRACLE’ IS A ONE-TIME FLUKE. I THINK IT CAN REPRESENT A NEW PARADIGM OF POLITICS IN MONTANA, WHERE THE LEFT AND RIGHT JOIN TOGETHER IN COMMON BELIEF THAT MONTANANS MUST BE FREE TO BUILD, INNOVATE, AND PROGRESS IN ORDER TO OVERCOME THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FACING OUR STATE."
So we opened our Season Nine here at the ‘Are We Here Yet?’ podcast with this quote from Kendall Cotton. He is Executive Director of the Frontier Institute. We met earlier this year after Kendall was interviewed by the New York Times. What caught my attention and compelled me to reach out to him was his thoughts on the housing crisis.
In our discussion we focused much time on how the current housing market is affecting Big Sky Country and especially on the solutions this rural state has brought to the table including re-thinking zoning and passing Montana House bill 819 which offers developers funding in order they may pass savings on to the future homeowner.
Additionally, Kendall and I spoke regarding other initiatives important to the institute and to Montana’s 21st century economy including #artificial intelligence, #dataprivacy and the government and how these sectors affect each other in the rural places we call home.
The similarities with our other rural states abound. The bipartisanship baked into the efforts of the Frontier Institute are an example to others working on substantive solutions to our rural development challenges.
You’ll find Kendall on twitter @Cotton_MT
And in The Jazz Room…
We enjoyed our conversation with singer, Christie Dasheil. She talks about her CD “Journey in Black” and what it was like growing up in a musical family.
Learn more about Christie by clicking here
Many rural regions of the US appear to be at the vanguard of a de-centralization of venture capital. Specifically, we are seeing a gradual increase in interest on the part of those controlling venture capital streams to ensure we go beyond Boston, New York, San Francisco and Austin.
So can Venture Capital ignite rural economies? What other critical mass changes are necessary to realize resilient rural economies capable of creating well-paying and meaningful jobs in innovation? This is the focus of our conversation.
Our guest and is Lauren Bass, Executive Director of LaunchVT in Burlington, VT. LaunchVT is a project of the Lake Champlain Chamber and Lauren is a seasoned and cosmopolitan entrepreneur with experience in multiple innovation sectors.
And in The Jazz Room…We met with many artists at the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival. We talked with saxophonist, Chelsea Baratz and her dog King. She talks about growing up in Pittsburgh and the musicians and teachers who encouraged her, and, her CD “In Faith” Find Chelsea on the Web here.
We had the distinct Pleasure to speak with Daniel Parkins with a rather broad question to answer: What does the way we assign value to commerce, global policy, culture and just about everything else in our community tell us about our society. Does it reflect our weaknesses or our strengths? What does it say about the health of our communities, about the health of our inner self? In an era where most of us question globalization, where students are questioning our values while taking to the streets in protest, just what are we getting right and what are we getting wrong? That’s next here on the Are We Here Yet? Podcast.
Daniel Parkins is founder of Community Wealth Development LLC (CWD), a grassroots consulting firm, dedicated to generating local community ownership over economic initiatives and social programs intended to generate wealth in their community. Through expanding access to justice and creating new economic opportunity for local residents, CWD is committed to building strategic partnerships that foster strength through diversity and that are formed for the sake of equity building within communities and for the benefit of communities. He helps businesses and local civic leaders work with communities to transform conflicts, launch impact initiatives, and achieve sustainable growth. Daniel and I spoke with on the subject of Peace in episode 135 of this podcast.
And In the Jazz Room…
We met pianist/composer, Orrin Evans at the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival.
In part two we talk about the origins of a couple of songs featured on his CD and learn about the musicians who are on this CD with him. Find more on Orrin Evans right here.
Our Vermont tech team was joined by Joshua Moses. Josh works with individuals, organizations, and communities to cultivate vision and resourcefulness in the face of uncertainty and socio-ecological transitions. He is currently on the faculty of Haverford College. Josh is currently visiting faculty with us in Vermont at UVM.
He joined our conversation dealing with why and how our tech sector requires the perspective of the fine and performing arts and other, broader disciplines defined as humanities. Is there a Vermont way when it comes to the tech sector? What of Ryan Munn's contention that rural sectors have never in history worked well for its people and we're perhaps on the cusp of that changing through rural economics rooted in latest technology. (Extractive vs. non-extractive economics).
It seems as of late no matter the subset of ideas we're recording about these days the ever-present issue of our changing climate enters the lexicon. So too a discussion towards democracy and what it means to be a valuable citizen.
This recording was no different and our guest provided plenty for the group and you, our listeners to consider as we all consider how Vermont and our tech sector could lead with smart, balanced and informed solutions to work within our complex adaptive environment.
Big thanks to our friends at the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies (VCET) for hosting our recording session.
Find the VCET Podcast, Start Here
...And in the Jazz Room In part two of our interview Gary Burton tells us about his work with George Shearing and Stan Getz.
He also talks about the "inner player" that is within us all.
Follow Gary on Facebook
The folks at Vermont-based medtech startup Aprexis are no strangers to the definition of persistence. This is the just the start of why the podcast desired to talk with co-founders Mike Howe, Rob Squire and Carrie LeCompte.
In this episode you’ll learn the importance for rooting a medtech solutions company from the clinicians perspective. We spoke at length regarding the challenges unique to medtech software firms, namely the challenge to working in an iterative technology that comes up against regulatory imperatives for launching fully developed. We defined MTM or medication therapy management and discussed the growing marketplace as professionals in pharmacology work with a growing geriatric population in an ever-expanding pharma-marketplace.
And in The Jazz Room… We met pianist/composer, Orrin Evans at the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival. In part one of this interview we talk about his CD “The Red Door”, the meaning of Red, the Jazz Train and Jazz elders.
David J. Neff serves as Operating Partner at Austin, TX based Ecliptic Capital where he works with portfolio companies on people, process,, marketing, strategy and culture. he spearheads the fund’s concentration on climate change and energy transition as part of ecliptic Capital’s deep tech thesis.
Our conversation is focused on the recent report Ecliptic released offering a comprehensive look at considerations for the consequences of Artificial Intelligence called, ‘How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Our World at Hypersonic Speed’.
Find David On LinkedIn
Find Ecliptic on Twitter
Find David on Twitter
And we talk with Vibraphonist, Gary Burton. We were able to catch up with him at the 60th Newport Jazz Festival. In the first in our two part interview, Gary tells us about when he started playing the vibes and about his Autobiography that was published in 2013.
It was so interesting to talk with pianist, David Haney. Based in Portland, Oregon David travels often to NYC to perform at Joe’s Pub. Since 2012 he’s been the publisher and contributing editor of Cadence Magazine Online.
In this two part interview we listen to performances of Improvised compositions featuring David and his friends. David discusses how he became publisher of Cadence Magazine Online. Learn more about Cadence Magazine
Kevin Chu is Executive Director of the Vermont Futures Project People from throughout the United States can access their thoughtful and well researched information in order to make the case for workforce, middle market, affordable and any other form of housing needed.
The core goal driving the work of the organization is to increase Vermont’s population while providing good housing to a more diverse population. The information provided by the project goes well beyond just addressing housing.
Like many rural states Vermont’s demographic changes are placing pressure on communities and every system that drives a population.
Our conversation brought us together to discuss not only housing from a development and economic standpoint but from a perspective of what’s fair and what’s right for rural citizens of Vermont, immigrants and those US citizens eying Vermont as their land of opportunity.
Join Vermont tech leaders Will Jeffries, Ryan Munn and Scott Graves as they discover the best this Brave Little State has to offer in technology-driven entrepreneurship.
Maybe you’re local, maybe you have a rural project in another part of the country, maybe you just love to talk technology and tech policy.
We want YOU to come with us, listen in and join the neighborhood. #ruraldevelopment #techinvestment #ruralinnovation
Like what you hear? Have a episode topic you want us to tackle? Let us know.
The housing crisis gripping the United States is gaining a disconcerting momentum in the Northeast, as it is in many regions of the United States. In this episode we’re speaking with Worcester, MA developer Jackson Restrepo regarding the challenges to the housing market in this, the second largest city in New England and one of the fastest growing cities there, as the Biotech sector continues to grow in Massachusetts. This is the second in our ongoing series of episodes focused on the housing crisis in the US for Breaking Housing Matters.
Also, meet pianist, Bertha Hope. She talks about her husband Elmo Hope and her CD "Nothing But Love" featuring drummer Jimmy Cobb as part of her ensemble. For more information Bertha Hope's Biography click here.
We all hear about the importance of international talent to the US technology sector. We understand how an open set of arms to international trade, travel and immigration plays a role in our country’s success. But our historic relationship to immigration tells a much more complicated story and with the recent threat of closed borders as posed by a possible Trump 2024 administration, we wanted to take a closer look at the lived experience of those plying the waters of our current international tech sector to really find an explanation for why an open society is so very important.
Our guest represents the human personification, the energy that comes to us and makes our tech sector vibrant and our country great. Davide Dantonio is with us for this podcast. He’s a Class of ’22 Venture for America fellow and currently plays program lead on no less than 2 Indiana-based gener8tor accelerators. He’s also a podcaster in his own rite. You can find him and his crew at the Young Outcast’s Podcast.
Davide is also Program Manager for two Indiana based programs for gener8tor, a rural-focused technology fund operating more than 223 accelerators nation-wide.
We’re talking multiculturalism and the lived experience of young entrepreneurs living and working in America.
Scott M. Graves, host of the ‘Are We Here Yet? Podcast speaks to us regarding the importance for small cities and towns to take advantage of the opportunity recently presented to solve some of the most pressing economic and social issues of our day.
‘For we are, I’m sure of this, at the start of a national movement to decentralize the map. For placing venture capital where it’s needed most, for updating outmoded zoning laws so we can start rebuilding our built environments to serve all of our neighbors and financing policies so more Americans can access the housing they desire. Here’s to transforming our cities and towns for a new generation.’
The Jazz Room w/ Lakecia Benjamin
Meet saxophonist, composer, Lakecia Benjamin. We met briefly after her set at the Newport Jazz Festival. She talks about her CD, “Phoenix” and the story behind the project. Learn more at Lakecia’s Website.
With a background in housing policy, law and international business, author and business leader Peter de Krassel has witnessed the long arc of bad housing policy across the globe.
He is launching Breaking Housing Matters as a novel means to solve the global housing crisis, one that is designed to address the impasses our current system of financing and policy has created over the last half century or more.
More on Peter’s Book, Custom Maid Housing for a New World Disorder
Breaking Housing Matters (BHM) is a grassroots movement dedicated to delivering affordable housing profitably. We believe landlords and developers must get a reasonable return on their investment while people must be able to afford decent housing.
Our proposed Housing Subsidy Solution (HSS) could become a public-private model for local communities to achieve affordable housing profitably around the world.
Full disclosure: AWHY? Podcast host Scott Graves is now agent to BHM.
Working with SMGraves Associates, Breaking Housing Matters intends to develop its program to proliferate throughout the United States beginning with the leadership of the city of Rutland, VT, USA.
Connect with Peter de Krassel
Engage BHM through SMGraves Assoc.
The Jazz Room welcomes Kurt Elling
Our interview with Kurt Elling at the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival includes stories about the people who have lifted him up through the years and his personal observations of The Jazz Room during his visit. Learn more on Kurt’s Website
We’re launching a closer look at Artificial Intelligence; how it has and will shape our society. How you can shape an informed perspective around what’s sure to play a significant role effecting all of us for centuries to come.
Rather than do this investigation from a good/bad standpoint, we’d rather treat all of YOU, our listeners as the smart and curious people that you are! So away we go!
Our guest, Dr. Meltem Ballan, Ph.D. has decades of experience in digital technology, data science, and AI. She is a leader, entrepreneur, and advisor who is passionate about creating innovative and impactful solutions for complex problems.
She is the principal and founder of Concrete Engine. Additionally, Meltem is a Venture Partner with Greenlight Equity Partners. She holds a PhD in complex systems and brain sciences, with a focus on computer vision, visual cortex, and natural language processing.
She is committed to fostering true diversity and inclusion in the STEM domain, especially AI and data science.
We’re looking at AI and neurodiversity in today’s podcast.
Click here for Meltem's All Things AI Newsletter
Regional Artist and VSU Castleton student Julie Griffin fills us in on the artist response to the latest attempt by Vermont State University to curtail budget constraints by consolidating fine and performing arts programming between its campuses.
Find out what was the response to the proposed change by artists and students alike, get inspired by their response for when you need to organize and constructively show your dissatisfaction with institutional decision-makers.
Mentioned in this podcast: MINT Makerspace, Vermont State University, Griff Art Studio
The Jazz Room featuring Singer / Songwriter Jose James
Meet singer/songwriter Jose James. We met with him at the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival. We talked about his CD “ON and ON”, the challenges of interpreting the songs of songwriters and his work as singing on the sound track for the movie “50 Shades Darker” Learn more at www.josejames.com
A Definition of Peace from Daniel Parkins. He helps businesses and local civic leaders work with communities to transform conflicts, launch impact initiatives, and achieve sustainable growth. Find Daniel here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielparkins/
and in The Jazz Room: we were able to chat a bit with bassist, Dave Holland just before his set at the Newport Jazz Festival. We talked about the musicians with him on that date and he answered questions from our friend Dave Zox. Learn more about Dave at www.daveholland.com
In an age of decentralizing the map when it comes to venture capital, place takes center stage for an increasing number of communities whose neighborhoods benefit from innovation centers, coworking space, workforce development space and the like.
Our guest Robert Pieroni has his own story to tell in founding Downtown Launchpad in Houston, Texas.
He’s a successful VC and is currently Director – gBETA ITA & Director of Italian Business Development for our good friends at gener8tor and he’s with us today to recount his experience building space and the programming to ignite it.
Learn More about gener8tor
Dominic Endicott believes we can redraw our maps for the 21st century. He has a vision for how knowledge-based ecosystems can create the proliferation of entrepreneurship, jobs, real estate and services in demand for a wider spectrum of rural and urban communities. He spoke with us to talk about his vision as expressed in ‘Knowledge Towns: Colleges and Universities as talent magnets’ which he co-authored with David J. Staley of Ohio State University.
Dominic is a partner at NorthStar Ventures and an advisor at the MET fund.
Find out more about the book
To spend some time re-imagining the story of what came well before us on the North American continent has importance for understanding our future path towards a more equitable and just society. Our modern obsession with consumerism and modernity, emphasizing technology to solve our key issues isn’t working because people, not machines are at the core of our solutions. Our discussion with award-winning documentarian Ted Timreck invites you, our listener, to more closely examine epigenetics in a re-consideration for the cultures of the peoples who once shaped our continent. Consider the importance of environment in shaping us and our world, perhaps in doing so we, the technologists building for tomorrow can build that future to include more of us while building sustainability and meaningfulness; technology in its proper context.
Three for the Price of One: We had to take a brief break for summer vacation. So M the Media Project is giving you three for the price of one! Joan’s two part interview with our generation’s progenitor of the great American Songbook, none other than Michael Feinstein plus we feature Claire Daly, all in the latest Jazz Room.
Authors John DiCicco, Ph.D. and Robert Cuomo, Ph.D. of ‘The Authentic Leader’ have shared their wealth of experience honed in business ownership and academia in order to complete a crusade of sorts. A crusade to make change where it counts.
Engage with The Authentic Leader
John and Bob will join Startup Rutland (anticipated fall 2023) in developing a program to engage emerging business leaders to better prepare them for the moral hazards sometimes inherent in complex business models. They are at the vanguard of creating a more consistently moral and clear-headed technology business community. This is also aimed at StartUp Rutland’s priority on creating better informed, morally sound technology-based business for our new regional economy to come.
From her 2021 Interview from the summer phenomenon known as the Newport Jazz Festival, host Joan Watson Jones spoke with the fantastic alto saxophonist Tia Fuller. Enjoy as you imagine the Newport bridge view, the sea salt air and the magic of thousands of friends gathering to hear their favorite jazz artists.
Click here to learn more from Tia Fuller
Host Scott M. Graves sat down with Dan Cummings and old pal Steven Harnois from PermaGrin, the fantasmic music project that originated as a pandemic project which has resulted in the album, ‘Ode to Entropy. We entice you to listen in with four aural excerpts from said album.
From the moment I heard this album I was enthralled and wrote a friend, ‘Brah, it’s like these dudes went to sleep with Hot Rats and The Grand Wazoo on repeat and then woke up the next day to the rest of their lives…’
We hope our interview with Perma Grin represents a new start for you, too. Listen in and let us know what you think in the comments.
I spoke with Ryan Munn, tech professional and devotee to trends in emerging technology about what potential we have in northern New England, particularly Vermont-centric possibilities in industries such as financial services, building materials, renewable energy and climate tech.
Ryan is a resident of White River Junction, VT and works throughout the central VT region.
Garner ideas and reach out to us and let us know your new ideas. Join the conversation in our comments section.
Click here to find out more about Ryan
In Part 2 of this feature Eddie tells us about the many musicians he has collaborated with through the years to make his music not just Latin and not just Jazz but his own brand and style. He also shares stories about his performances across the globe.
Learn more about Eddie Palmieri at www.palmierimusic.com
When is it useful to study an outlier? While we may find phenomena that represent an extreme less useful at times, there are times that discounting an outlier would prevent us from a highly valuable opportunity to explore, to discover and to learn.
Dr. John Schlictman takes outliers seriously. When he first came across the city of High Point, NC two decades ago, he had to see it for himself. Thus began a near two decades relationship John has cultivated with the people and places in High Point, resulting in 2022’s ‘ShowRoom City: Real Estate and Resistance in the Furniture Capital of the World’
The story that unfolds from this Central North Carolina City is a story not only of deindustrialization, class, real estate development and more. The experience of High Point forces us to consider how it is we derive value in business, who gets the benefit of this value and even more to the point, who decides how a city defines itself.
John Joe Schlichtman is associate professor of sociology at DePaul University. Schlichtman is an urban sociologist who is motivated by the potential of equitable, just, and productive community development. His research has focused on understanding the dynamics of macro-level processes such as globalization and gentrification: how stakeholders resist or exploit them, the decisions residents make in navigating them, and their influence on the urban landscape. He is co-author of the book Gentrifier, and received his MA and PhD in Sociology with an emphasis in urban sociology from New York University under the supervision of Harvey Molotch (NYU) and Neil Brenner (University of Chicago).
For more information, please visit http://urbanistchronicle.com/showroom-city
We have a spirited conversation with Latin Jazz Legend Eddie Palmieri. In Part One, of this feature he tells about his early beginnings and about his brother Charlie Palmieri getting him started in music. He also tells us who were his major influences in Jazz.
Learn more about Eddie Palmieri at www.palmierimusic.com
We recently hosted Vermont Small Business Development Center’s ‘She Means Business’ event for women in business at our headquarters The Hub CoWorks in downtown Rutland, VT. THis event hosted women business leaders, entrepreneurs in the making, banking professionals and other concerned stakeholders who wish to advance the work women are doing in our region to build our economy.
We garnered perspectives from a host of attendees including Sarah Nadler, newly appointed Community Development Specialist at StartUp Rutland, La'Keiah M. Batista Sanchez, Owner of Euphoric Hair Experience, one of the newest BIPOC and women owned downtown businesses. Also Rutland City Alderwomen and marketing entrepreneur Kiana McClure and Mayor Mike Doenges, fresh from completing the first 60 days of his first term in office.
Our event was produced in partnership with the Vermont SBDC, StartUp Rutland, The Hub CoWorks, Chamber and Economic Development for the Rutland Region (CEDRR) and a host of other important regional organizations.
Another in the series "Kitchen Table Chats" from Studio 952 in New York City. We talk with Vocalist Judi Silvano. She talks about her CD "Women's Work" .
Judi talks about her husband Saxophonist, Joe Lovano, improvisation and personal style in jazz. Learn more about Judy at judisilvano.com.
We met with Orchestra Leader/Composer Maria Schneider at the Newport Jazz Festival.
This show is a bit different as per Maria’s request she asked I play 30 seconds of music and one full composition.
As you listen to this interview she talks not only about creating her music, but defending her copyrights of her work in this world of free music streaming and music distributors charging artist exorbitant fees for their use digitally.
Click to learn more about Maria
When Al Wakefield, Bob Harnish, Barbara Pulling and Bill Cohen set out to encourage the 247 Vermont cities and towns to adopt their Declaration of Inclusion the goal was rooted in economics, class and above all doing what’s right by people.
‘Vermont has started to see people moving here,’ said Wakefield during this episode, ‘but (sic) other young people have been leaving and they’re not coming back.’ This draws on what many of us in economic development already know. People of all ages and backgrounds want to live in a place they can love and that means for many a place that is materially inclusive of all people.
Our episode traces the pandemic-bound effort that began in 2020 and has since led to adoption of the Declaration by 109 communities to date.
Click for complete information regarding the Declaration of Inclusion
Vermont is generally considered a place where so many others who don’t fit in can find a home. But not unlike any other part of the United States we’re still working through the issues caused by a lack of economic opportunity for some, the institutionalized racism and other facts of modern American life that we can all involve ourselves in improving.
This month we present two interviews that take you behind the scenes in the music business. Meet Artist Manager Judith Humenick and Jon Catherwood-Ginn, program director for the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech.
Judith Humenick is from Ottawa, Canada. She an Artist Manager who was at the Newport Jazz Festival representing The Royal Bopsters behind the scenes. She talks about a few of the artists she manages and you’ll hear a bit of their music.
Learn more about Judith
We met Jon Catherwoord-Ginn at the APAP Conference in NYC. He’s the program director for the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech.
You’ll hear the music of a few of the artists who have performed at the center and learn about the work and challenges of being a program director who brings all forms of art to the community.
Learn more about the Moss Arts Center
In this AWHY? Podcast Scott is joined by two new friends made since relocating to Vermont in December 2022. Bill Ramage is a professor emeritus of Art, Castleton University and founder 77Art, established to help affect Rutland’s well-being in preparation for what he believes could be a post-retail economy.
His collections can be found in, among other places, The Williams College Museum of Art; The Wexner Museum, Ohio State University and Northern New England Museum of Contemporary Art (NNEMoCA), Burlington, VT.
Al Wakefield worked in New York City for a number of Fortune 500 companies, including: Mobil, Celanese, Singer and Avon. In 1984, he moved to Mendon and made Rutland County, Vermont his base for Wakefield Talibisco International, a global executive search firm. He is an accomplished business professional. Al was born in 1938 in Harlem, NY and spent much of his childhood in Columbia, SC.
ALong with Bob Harnish of Pittsford, VT Al plays an ongoing and instrumental role in ensuring the Vermont Declaration of Inclusion is adopted by all 251 communities in the state of Vermont.
They sat down, two octagenarians and a Gen Xer to learn, to express their concerns and hopes for their community and embody the meaning of this podcast, to explore the cultural inertias that have a profound effect on the decisions we make in designing and building our communities, our economy, ourselves.
Meet saxophonist, Stan Chovnic and pianist, Linda Presgrave.
Stan talks about his CD “ Love Vibrations for Planet Earth”.
Learn more about Stand and Linda at Metropolitan Records - An independent jazz record label located in NYC (metropolitanrecordsnyc.com)
This month we pay homage in memory of Jazz Legend, Pianist Ahmad Jamal. This interview at the Newport Jazz Festival in 2010 was my very first interview with a major artist! It was loads of fun to meet someone I had listened to and admired since I was a teen.
In part 1 he talks about his latest CD "A Quiet Time" and the use of his own compositions.
Learn more about Ahmad Jamal at https://www.ahmadjamal.com (updated since this interview)
In Part II Jamal gives advice to Jazz musicians as to how to survive in this current music business environment. He also talks about his future plans for his music.
Devon Neary is the Executive Director of the Rutland Regional Planning Commision (RRPC) of Rutland County, VT USA. We spoke about the need to orchestrate the viable connective opportunities between rural towns for solutions in infrastructure, financing, technology, broadband access and new business. Devon kindly spoke to the ways his organization is helping project management for towns without such capacity, for stewarding small towns from a bottom up rather than top down approach to capital and decision-making. Where are the areas of growth and where we need to take a second look at our actions. That’s our latest interview from Rutland City, VT USA!
This is a special show as it’s one of our first with half hour features. Pianist Frank Wilkins joined us in the studio with his keyboard to play live , talk about his projects at the time and our first project together.
Yes, we even jammed a bit together. While you listen you’ll hear about the many well known, and up and coming artists at that time.
Learn more about Frank at WeJazzUp (bandvista.com).
In today's audio essay we're focused on Artificial Intelligence. Entrepreneur, incubator director and community developer Scott M. Graves is pondering the future, more specifically how we build a better one.
'Could we create a great tipping point where a society, devoid of the means for cultivating its great creative class warriors, cease to provide the know-how to create more ‘tech’ to feed the AI revolution. How Ironic.'
'Revolution? Or de-volution. It’s for us to decide.'
About Scott
Scott M. Graves is founder of M the Media Project and SMGraves Associates. As contributing writer to M, he writes under the series Politics, Done Local and Democratic Capitalism in addition to Essays from An Artist.
He is Director of StartUp Rutland, a technology business incubator re-defining the economy for Rutland, VT which he and his family recently moved to. StartUp Rutland is housed in The Hub CoWorks.
His work at SMGraves Associates focuses on building value in real property by considering the commercial and social ecosystems that play out within our built environments. Community Development that seeks to build pride in place and create economic opportunity for more citizens of our cities and towns.
Meet pianist Bertha Hope.
She talks about her husband Elmo Hope and her CD “Nothing But Love” featuring drummer Jimmy Cobb as part of her ensemble.
For more information Bertha Hope’s Biography (thehistorymakers.org)
This show we remember pianist, Onaje Allan Gumbs. We chat about his CD “Sack Full of Dreams” and his experiences working with jazz legends during his long musical career.
Sadly, Onaje passed away in April of 2020.
Learn more at Onaje Allan Gumbs, Jazz Arts – Onaje – New York, New York (onajejazzarts.org)
To watch the Onaje story Learn more by clicking here.
Nattie Hussey is Director of Business Acceleration for the Brattleboro (VT) Development Credit Corporation. The organization has participated has recently worked with the Center on Rural Innovation (CORI) to develop its programming targeting the development of rural Windham county’s business ecosystem.
Nattie is no stranger to small business development as both his parents and his grandfather owned a multiplicity of small businesses over the decades.
Nattie shares the idea with our host that creating regional relationships between our local rural locations will play a significant role in the future success of economies like rural Vermont.
Our conversation reviewed the ways the BDCC is focusing on supporting existing, small business and how that work will play into the greater goal of providing a bedrock of well-paying jobs that further support more small business; for a community without enough people with the time and funds to support their neighbors is a community in distress.
We further discussed technology’s role in developing our region through the efforts of StartUp Rutland being implemented in our home base, The Hub CoWorks in downtown Rutland, VT.
About Nattie
Natty has worked with distressed businesses across the country, assisting them in strategic turn around and distressed sale scenarios. Prior to that he worked in public education where he found the entrepreneurial type creativity exuded by his students. During a 3-year stint in Macedonia, as a Peace Corps volunteer, Natty worked in the Community Development sector as well as taught English as a foreign language.
We talk with drummer William Hooker.
He came to visit us at Studio 952 in NYC for one of our Kitchen Table Chats.
Not your typical drummer he describes his presentations as an installation and experimental.
Listen to his vision for performing drums and be amazed. Learn more by clicking here.
Evolve Rutland is focused on an effort to recognize exceptional business leadership with across the gender spectrum. The organization, now re-energizing following the global health crisis, was formed when women in the Rutland (VT) regional business community saw a need to recognize women in leadership while also encouraging more entrepreneurship and leadership of organizations by women.
We spoke with Kiki McShane, founder of FarVision Consulting regarding Evolve Rutland’s current efforts and why this work is key to the continued momentum building in the Rutland region. We place a spotlight on the organization's interest in ensuring that all stakeholders are brought to the table. Only when everyone is part of the conversation and resulting solutions can a new path forward be forged to benefit all genders who are represented in the Rutland region’s business community.
Meet vocalist, Jackie Lennon who is president of the non-profit organization International Women in Jazz. Jackie and I talk about IWJ, it’s purpose and various projects they plan for members and those who love Jazz. Learn about IWJ at www.internationalwomeninjazz.org.
The Entrepreneurial Legal Lab is a new resource that, when coupled with other offerings unique to the Green Mountain state, makes Vermont ever friendlier to those who wish to deliver innovation to the economic ecosystem from the great state of Vermont.
Learn more about VLS's Entrepreneurial Legal Lab or schedule a referral
We discussed the program within a greater discussion regarding the challenges of small businesspeople in determining when and how to engage an attorney or navigate a legal relationship. For those in the innovation sector we discovered at length the unique focus areas for founders.
The Legal Lab is a powerful resource providing seminars, referrals and legal education for business owners from competent attorneys affiliated with the program.
StartUp Rutland is partnered with the Entrepreneurial Legal Lab beginning March 2023. Inclusive of this new relationship is the first of a series of seminars taking place March 23, 2023.
We talk with Todd Bryant Weeks. We had a conversation about his best selling Biography about Trumpet player "Hot Lips" Page titled “ Luck’s in My Corner” You may find Todd's book at Amazon.com.
On this episode of The Jazz Room we meet, drummer Bruce Jackson.
We chat about his CD "Don't Step on Your Dreams" Bruce talks about being a Bandleader and the emotions that go into creating a CD.
Also we talk about our mutual experiences with Singing legend Joyce Bryant.
To open the sixth season of SMG’s ‘Are We Here Yet?’ podcast we’re joined by Pulse Magazine’s 2023 Person to Watch, it’s Worcester’s own Rebekah Etique. We’re delving into the issues being faced and solved by young professionals in the workplace.
You can’t discuss issues between the generations in the workplace without hitting upon how generations perceive each other, not to mention the effects our media-soaked society has on how young professionals are perceived and how they perceive each other.
Rebekah did not disappoint with her perspective and clear sense for what’s needed to be successful in our current workplace. More to the point, like many of her peers Rebekah is working hard to re-define our priorities for where work fits into the greater context while refining those skills that make for a more meaningful workforce experience.
Read Rebekah's Thesis on Pubic Education Standardized Testing, " The Hushed Industry of Cultural White-Washing"
I met Rebekah in 2022 while she was campaign manager for the James AMorello State Senate campaign. She is a graduate of Clark University where she made a shift from education to public policy when her concern for limitations being leveraged upon educators made her consider a more direct involvement in setting policy. She currently works as a paralegal and remains politically active in Massachusetts. She grew up in Waterbury, CT and appreciates the challenges inherent in a mill town in the 21st century.
This show we remember Bassist, Bob Cranshaw. We interviewed him at a Jazz conference in NYC. Long time Bass player for Sonny Rollins, Bob talks about his work with Sonny and his work on "Sesame Street" and other television programs.
Video Jazz Guy Bob Cranshaw Talks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX6BhvatEeY
When we take a break for the holidays, our MsJazzKitty (aka Miribel) takes over as Jazz DJ.
She has exquisite taste so we let her chose the holiday music for you.
Best wishes for a Happy Holiday Season!
We wanted to end season five on a high note. Our fellow podcaster, Joan Watson-Jones is host of The Jazz Room here on M the Media Project and a seasoned composer and performer of Jazz, America’s great artform. We know you’ll enjoy part I of host Scott Graves’s interview with Joan taken in October of this year. She was just coming off of her performance in Cambridge, MA at the Lily Pad and getting ready for more recording in 2023.
Our friend Composer /Pianist Linda Presgrave stopped by to say “Hello”.
We talked about what she had been doing since we last spoke in the Jazz Room. She gave us insight into her compositions on her most recent CDs and talked of composing more and plans for a CD of all her own work.
Learn more about Linda: Linda Presgrave – Jazz Pianist, Composer, Arranger, Metropolitan Records Recording Artist (metropolitanrecordsnyc.com)
We remember the day R&B Singer Lee Genesis stopped by Studio 952 in NYC to chat.
We talked about his CD “The Soul of Lee Genesis” and his life journey as a Minister and a R&B singer.
Based in New York City, Lee traveled the country performing his music – R&B with a jazz infusion. Learn more about Lee here: (5) LEE GENESIS & THE GABRIEL WILLIAMS SINGERS – I Want You – YouTube
We’re joined this episode by Miguelina Peralta. She is Executive Director for EforAll Greater Worcester. For a decade EforAll has been growing its program dedicated to providing the opportunity, relationships and resources that underserved citizens need to sustain successful businesses of their own. EforAll provides long-term mentorship and connections often missing in our underprivileged neighborhoods.
We launched with the question, ‘Is economic renewal in Worcester a win if it doesn’t include all of its citizens?’ Worcester is the second largest city in the Northeast and is located in the center of Massachusetts. Like many cities in the United States it is experiencing a resurgence through a local economy based on 21st century industries. Its people are experiencing both the positive and negative effects of that growth. A rapidly restrictive housing market. Outside investment competing alongside citizens for local commercial opportunity. The negative effects of gentrification at the expense of current community members.
EforAll works to reverse such effects by providing for its participants. Since it began in Lowell, MA the program has grown throughout the Commonwealth and now boasts locations in Buffalo, Colorado, Arkansas and Rhode Island. It provides programming in both English and Spanish.
Find out how you can become a mentor, a candidate or general inquiries by clicking here.
Full disclosure: host Scott M. Graves has participated in the summer 2022 cohort and can attest to the value EforAll provides.
We chat with Poet and Spoken Word Artist Jessica Care Moore at the APAP Conference.
After discovering that we had actually lived one block from each other in NYC at one time, Jessica talked about her poetry and her first CD adding music to tell her stories about people she's met in her time in Harlem and in Detroit.
Learn more about Jessica at jessicacaremoore.com
During our recent discussion on young entrepreneurs and true community development, Amy Mosher Berry discussed possible solutions to our challenge of bridging political divides between us. Our political differences and the 'politi-ci-zation' of our lives is affecting business and social threads, blocking positive dialogue and turning young people off to engaging in thier civic responsibility.
Amy demonstrated one possible solution which she has presented on called, the Purple Platform.
Amy Mosher Berry is founder and CEO of Visions Internships. Amy has an extensive background in entrepreneurship, academia and in service to others doing meaningful work.
Find out more about Amy Mosher Berry
Visions Internships provides opportunity for young professionals to find and retain work providing social impact while growing as individuals.
We chat with Poet and Spoken Word Artist Jessica Care Moore at the APAP Conference.
After discovering that we had actually lived one block from each other in NYC at one time, Jessica talked about her poetry and her first CD adding music to tell her stories about people she's met in her time in Harlem and in Detroit.
Learn more about Jessica at jessicacaremoore.com
Margie Breault is Business Development Manager for the Executive Office of Economic Development, City of Worcester, MA. Her work is focused on the small business sector, in providing resources and programming intended to mentor and sustain small businesses.
Margie is rooted in mentorship. She is dedicated to work that broadens the opportunities for our economically disadvantaged neighbors, neighbors of color, the LGBTQ community and others.
According to Margie part of Worcester’s on-going climb up the economic ladder of New England communities has been its response to small business needs, informed by a robust and consistent effort to engage the public in steering their work.
Our discussion will be of interest to those working in the field and for those interested in small business development. You will find our discussion particularly interesting if you are a dedicated fan of the city, current or former resident.
We Love You, Woo-town!
We met with singer/composer/arranger Jazzmeia Horn at the Newport Jazz Festival.
We talked about her CD “Dear Love” and her big band,”Noble Force”.
Learn more at www.artistryofjazzhorn.com
Jonah Richard didn't intend to return to Orange County Vermont after graduation.
But return he did and with skills, an entrepreneurial attitude and a new resolve to position himself for success helping his neighbors solve the middle market housing challenge effecting so many of us in northern New England.
Find Jonah on Substack
His firm Village Ventures is a developer and general contractor based out of Fairlee, VT.
After a moment taken to understand the path to his current endeavor, we focused our attention on just what it takes right now to find success as a developer in our current market.
Small contractors exist on a precarious fence post. But it is small developers that are driving both an interest in working on appropriately-scaled middle market housing for rural environments and the desire to use innovation in materials, construction process, design and financial modeling to make a real difference for their neighbors.
Listen for the ideas, the experience of others and choose for yourself your position in solving our housing challenges.
Pianist and Jazz legend Monty Alexander returns to The Jazz Room.
This time we met after his set at the Montclair NJ Jazz Festival.
We talked about his adding his own vocals to his work on his CD “Love Notes” and listen to a cut from and earlier CD Wareika Hill Rastamonk Vibrations.
Click here for more on Monty Alexander
Our guest this week helped us to understand the deeper definition of Community Development. We often toss around this term and for many it has little meaning. But our guest can attest to why this is not the case.
Amy Mosher Berry is founder and CEO of Visions Internships. Amy has an extensive background in entrepreneurship, academia and in service to others doing meaningful work.
Find out more about Amy Mosher Berry
Visions Internships provides opportunity for young professionals to find and retain work providing social impact while growing as individuals.
We spoke to the unique need post-global health crisis for the work Amy and her team are doing, work that has been in high demand for some time.
Whether helping young people find meaning and fulfillment in a challenging world, businesses to recognize the unique strengths in their young workforce; the work at Visions is building the relationships (sometimes repairing the connections) that must exist in order for our society to grow, to heal, to realize all measures of success.
This is true community building.
It was so interesting to talk with Pianist David Haney. Based in Portland, OR he travels often to NYC to perform at a place called Joe’s Pub.
Since 2012 he’s been the publisher and contributing editor of Cadence Magazine Online.
In this two part interview we listen to performances of Improvised (on the spot) compositions featuring David and his friends, and tells us how he became publisher of Cadence Magazine Online.
Photo provided with permission –David Haney
The culture around taxes in the United States generally encourages a game of avoidance whenever and wherever one can. It’s a game of reduction. Yet, citizens expect better outcomes at the local level for schools, infrastructure and programs for small business with the additional pressures of de-industrialization and a changing economy weighing on our municipal budgets. Scott M. Graves speaks to the need to allow our town planners and economic development professionals to focus on new, organic property tax growth at the commercial sector to stabilize public funding and take pressure off of the retired and the economically challenged all while retaining young people in your town to ensure the next generation of civic engagement.
Learn more at smgravesassociates.com
It was so interesting to talk with Pianist David Haney. Based in Portland, OR he travels often to NYC to perform at a place called Joe’s Pub. Since 2012 he’s been the publisher and contributing editor of Cadence Magazine Online.
In this two part interview we listen to performances of Improvised (on the spot) compositions featuring David and his friends, and tells us how he became publisher of Cadence Magazine Online. Learn more about Cadence Magazine Online at www.cadencejazzworld.com
In our season five on-going look at different ways entrepreneurs and citizens alike can mitigate the challenges to building prosperity in our current economy, we're joined by Roy Balfour of CBC Retirement Partners.
Roy learned the hard way as a highly successful entrepreneur that building wealth and maintaining wealth are two different challenges.
We discussed the concept of leverage; using leverage the same way people of high net worth to accelerate your retirement savings. Roy teaches us it’s about more than defense, you need to generate more revenue in order to achieve your goals.
Link with Roy
Our video on Leverage
In our AWHY? Rotary Extra, Roy Balfour and host Scott M. Graves shared their passion for Rotary International with a focus on the current humanitarian efforts underway since the inception of war in Ukraine.
Massachusetts Rotary District 7910 has played a lead role in Ukraine, having assisted in the formation of Rotary clubs throughout the country nearly 30 years ago following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Play your role in helping the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine
Find out more about Rotary International
We go back to JVC Newport Jazz Festival 2007 for an interview with
Alto Saxophonist Donald Harrison and Singer Henri Smith.
They talk about their long friendship in New Orleans and their journey after
surviving Hurricane Katrina.
Learn more by clicking here
The story of the Quabbin Reservoir is a story we’ve encountered in the past at SMG’s ‘Are We Here Yet?’ Podcast. Season one guest Levi Baruch and yours truly spoke of the on-going consequences of the forming of the Quabbin and questions of land-use that permeate to this day.
The Quabbin is a utility. It is the public drinking water supply for Boston and the Metropolitan District. The Quabbin is a place. It is striking how beautiful it is when one encounters its vastness and seeming purity. It is also a place of pain. If you believe a place can have a soul, the feeling that comes to mind when in the midst of the former river valley is: loss.
More than anything the Quabbin is people. Our guest Elena Palladino intends to tell the story of the people of the Swift River Valley through the lens of three of those people. Her book, Lost Towns of the Swift River Valley Drowned by the Quabbin tells the story of Marion Andrews Smith, daughter of the largest industrial family in the valley. Willard “Doc” Segur was the valley’s beloved country doctor and town leader. The third voice heard from in her book was Edwin Henry Howe, Enfield’s postmaster and general store proprietor.
Learn More about the Quabbin House
Elena came to their story in a very personal way. Her family resides in the Quabbin House, developed by Marion Andrews Smith which includes parts taken from her family residence in Enfield, MA prior to its destruction to make way for the massive water management project.
Our conversation paints a vivid picture of their involvement in the end of their community and how they and subsequent generations chose to move on following the flooding of the valley to form the Quabbin. We spoke about the road to get there which began in earnest in 1895 and the elements of the Quabbin story which resonate into our time.
Where can I order Lost Towns of the Swift River Valley…
Connect with the author on Facebook or Instagram
Meet Saxophonist, Frank Tiberi.
Frank is the current leader of the Woody Herman Legacy Band.
He tells us of how he became the leader of the famous Big Band. He also talks about his CD’s.
Click here to learn more about Frank
Bruce Share is a mentor and business advisor with nearly four decades of banking and business advisory experience.
His recent book, Maximizing Cash Flow: The Path to Prosperity' takes the reader back to fundamentals, not an easy task once you are in the throes of launching and maintaining your business. In the day to day our business plan and a focus on cash flow become lost while putting out fires and responding to the stimuli that are life as a business owner.
- How can you stay focused?
- Why is a focus on cash flow paramount to your success?
- How do you leverage a well-laid business plan to help you stay on track?
- What are the concrete steps to pivot when the data from the marketplace is telling you a change is required?
Learn More about Bruce Share
Bruce is a member of the Business Triage team of our parent company, SMGraves Associates where Bruce's work has lead to a significant improvement for our post-Covid clients.
You can find his book at many major outlets including Barnes and Noble and Amazon.
Bruce Share is a mentor and business advisor with nearly four decades of banking and business advisory experience.
His recent book, Maximizing Cash Flow: The Path to Prosperity' takes the reader back to fundamentals, not an easy task once you are in the throes of launching and maintaining your business. In the day to day our business plan and a focus on cash flow become lost while putting out fires and responding to the stimuli that are life as a business owner.
- How can you stay focused?
- Why is a focus on cash flow paramount to your success?
- How do you leverage a well-laid business plan to help you stay on track?
- What are the concrete steps to pivot when the data from the marketplace is telling you a change is required?
Learn More about Bruce Share
Bruce is a member of the Business Triage team of our parent company, SMGraves Associates where Bruce's work has lead to a significant improvement for our post-Covid clients.
You can find his book at many major outlets including Barnes and Noble and Amazon.
We take you to the Newport Jazz Festival 55.
We meet and talk with Saxophonist Joe Lovano in this 2 part series.
We talk about the history of the Newport Jazz Festival, the musicians featured on this project and communicating his wisdom to young artists.
Learn more about Joe by clicking here
Playlist: Joe Lovano “Us Five Folk Art” – Blue Note Records 2009 All compositions-Joe Lovano
1-Powerhouse
2.Us Five
3. Dibango
4. Eterno
We take you to the Newport Jazz Festival 55.
We meet and talk with Saxophonist Joe Lovano in this 2 part series.
We talk about the history of the Newport Jazz Festival, the musicians featured on this project and communicating his wisdom to young artists.
Learn more about Joe by clicking here
Playlist: Joe Lovano “Us Five Folk Art” – Blue Note Records 2009 All compositions-Joe Lovano
1-Powerhouse
2.Us Five
3. Dibango
4. Eterno
Bill Cole has operated Tiger Web Design as a member of the greater Springfield, MA region for more than three decades.
In that time Bill has proven himself as a proponent of supporting local business activity in meaningful ways. That is to say spending money and making money with your neighbors. The kind of business activity that you can touch, taste, see, hear and feel.
His latest venture is Living Local 413. With 44,000 businesses in the pipeline, representing the business community of Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties of western Massachusetts, the premise is simple: to provide resources and bandwidth to businesses large and small. The segments are well laid out: Media, Municipalities, Consumers and Businesses.
Our discussion offers core principles underlaying this non-profit organization and how those principles lead to solutions that offer real assistance, especially to those businesses who typically are left out of major media, marketing and support.
Living Local 413 is a graduate of SMGraves Associates Business Triage Program. Yours Truly is a member of the organizations advisory group as I feel this organization is on the leading edge of defining how the non-profit sector should steward the business and municipal sectors.
Bill Cole has operated Tiger Web Design as a member of the greater Springfield, MA region for more than three decades.
In that time Bill has proven himself as a proponent of supporting local business activity in meaningful ways. That is to say spending money and making money with your neighbors. The kind of business activity that you can touch, taste, see, hear and feel.
His latest venture is Living Local 413. With 44,000 businesses in the pipeline, representing the business community of Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties of western Massachusetts, the premise is simple: to provide resources and bandwidth to businesses large and small. The segments are well laid out: Media, Municipalities, Consumers and Businesses.
Our discussion offers core principles underlaying this non-profit organization and how those principles lead to solutions that offer real assistance, especially to those businesses who typically are left out of major media, marketing and support.
Living Local 413 is a graduate of SMGraves Associates Business Triage Program. Yours Truly is a member of the organizations advisory group as I feel this organization is on the leading edge of defining how the non-profit sector should steward the business and municipal sectors.
We take you to the Newport Jazz Festival 55.
We meet and talk with Saxophonist Joe Lovano in this 2 part series.
We talk about the history of the Newport Jazz Festival, the musicians featured on this project and communicating his wisdom to young artists.
Learn more about Joe by clicking here
Playlist: Joe Lovano “Us Five Folk Art” - Blue Note Records 2009 All compositions-Joe Lovano
1-Powerhouse
2.Us Five
3. Dibango
4. Eterno
We take you to the Newport Jazz Festival 55.
We meet and talk with Saxophonist Joe Lovano in this 2 part series.
We talk about the history of the Newport Jazz Festival, the musicians featured on this project and communicating his wisdom to young artists.
Learn more about Joe by clicking here
Playlist: Joe Lovano “Us Five Folk Art” - Blue Note Records 2009 All compositions-Joe Lovano
1-Powerhouse
2.Us Five
3. Dibango
4. Eterno
Thomas Greeley of Northwestern Mutual joined us this week in our discussion on the new reality for retirees in the 21st Century.
Our conversation focuses on the place where retirement needs and the pressures of economic instability collide.
More than 55% of retirees have not recovered their full retirement since the last recession, placing the value in the homes they own front and center for having the cash they'll need. Their needs are increasingly higher because we are all living longer. Since more people are staying in their homes longer for multiple economic reasons, this places more pressure on the housing stock which, in the United States is already under-built compared to need.
Thomas gave us several solid fundamental considerations while helping listeners to set reasonable expectations in a more instable economic world on the retirement funding side. We supplied some solutions and indicators relevant to the housing sector.
We hope you enjoy the latest from SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' podcast.
Thomas Greeley of Northwestern Mutual joined us this week in our discussion on the new reality for retirees in the 21st Century.
Our conversation focuses on the place where retirement needs and the pressures of economic instability collide.
More than 55% of retirees have not recovered their full retirement since the last recession, placing the value in the homes they own front and center for having the cash they'll need. Their needs are increasingly higher because we are all living longer. Since more people are staying in their homes longer for multiple economic reasons, this places more pressure on the housing stock which, in the United States is already under-built compared to need.
Thomas gave us several solid fundamental considerations while helping listeners to set reasonable expectations in a more instable economic world on the retirement funding side. We supplied some solutions and indicators relevant to the housing sector.
We hope you enjoy the latest from SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' podcast.
This week’s show is part of the series “Kitchen Table Chats” from Studio 952 in New York City. We talk with Vocalist Judi Silvano.
She talks about her recent CD ” Women’s Work”. Judi talks about her
husband Saxophonist, Joe Lovano, improvisation and personal style in
jazz. Find Judi on the Web by clicking here Find Judi on Youtube
This week’s show is part of the series “Kitchen Table Chats” from Studio 952 in New York City. We talk with Vocalist Judi Silvano.
She talks about her recent CD ” Women’s Work”. Judi talks about her
husband Saxophonist, Joe Lovano, improvisation and personal style in
jazz. Find Judi on the Web by clicking here Find Judi on Youtube
We're joined this week by our guest Edith Murnane, Executive Director of Massachusetts Farmers Markets.
For his sophomore appearance, season four guest Steven Nutter of Place Practice and Green Cambridge also joined us.
We're celebrating Farmers Markets during National Farmers Market Week and Mass Farmers Market Week.
Our discussion explains what role farmers markets play in invigorating our food systems and in supporting local economies both for local farmers and in keeping money local.
We discussed the HIP program, one of the most successful economic development programs of thr Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Steven included mention of the Farm Cube program, supported by Mass Farmers Markets and developed by Steven and Sarah Howard at Place Practice.
Can Farmers Markets help re-invigorate your local economic ecosystem?
Mass Farmers Markets is the 501C3 non-profit organization that supports, promotes and advocates for the over 230 farmers markets in Massachusetts. They are dedicated to optimizing the farmers market experience for vendors, market managers and customers. They are passionate about ensuring that farmers markets are accessible to all, regardless of income level.
That's this week on SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' Podcast.
A chat with Vocalist Dee Alexander We met Dee at the Newport Jazz Festival 2013.She took time to talk with us before her show. She tell us about her Mentor, Henry Huff, and her CD's "Wild is the Wind" and "Songs My Mother Loves". Learn more about Dee at www.deealexander.net
We're joined this week by our guest Rob Hunden, President and CEO of Hunden Strategic Partners of Chicago, IL.
Rob discuses with us a topic that has as of late been top of mind for many of our listeners. 'How do we turn our community into a' destination town?'
Perhaps the better frame of question to provide is, 'What key components come together to make a place worth living and working in?'
Through Rob and his team's extensive background in providing data, community outreach and other key support for projects throughout the Unites States we got a complete sense for pattern; the key factors that you can bring to your community or that are required to exist in order to encourage the growth of a neighborhood around a sport, a fine or performing arts center, a mixed-use district that is energized with the life and work habits of a wide spectrum of citizens.
Find examples of Hunden Projects here
That's this week on SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' Podcast.
We begin the two part series of our interview with Trumpeter Jon Faddis. He talks about his long relationship with Dizzy Gillespie and the many influences in his career.
Learn more at www.trengajazz.com
Craig Della Penna is the Executive Director with Norwottuck Network, an Associate Broker with The Murphys Realtors, Trailside Team, as well as the Owner of Sugar Maple Trailside Inn in Florence, MA.
For 12 years, Craig marketed rail freight and operated New England’s largest and most successful railroad-owned, transloading facility—Railroad Distribution Services, Inc. For seven years, he worked for Rails-to-Trails Conservancy as their New England Field Representative focusing on the policy end of building rail trails as well as public outreach. Today he is a successful Realtor, the fist realtor in the US specializing in the sale of property near to rail trails.
He spoke with us just before their annual conference being held this year in Gilbertville, MA.
In talking about the history and his pivotal role in progressing multiple trails in Massachusetts, we get the story that leads us to this pivotal 'Are We Here Yet?' question: Do Rail Trails Bring Wealth to Neighborhoods.
In countless examples, such as the Erie Canalway Trail the state of New York surmises the completed trail has created $250MM USD per mile of trial of economic development.
By incorporating other important priorities of more sustainable and human-scale development into trialside projects, such as this one in Falls Church, VA, communities are solving middle-market housing challenges as well as bringing important parcels back live on municipal tax roles.
Click here for Norwottuck Network's latest Newsletter
Our episode is a trail map of sorts, guiding you on how to optimize your trail space for maximum momentum.
On this episode of SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' podcast.
We begin the two part series of our interview with Trumpeter Jon Faddis. He talks about his long relationship with Dizzy Gillespie and the many influences in his career.
Learn more at www.trengajazz.com
We've tackled the social and political implications of Dobbs v Jackson on our sister podcast, On The Rocks Politica.
We've written essays on what it means to communities and to women from a broad spectrum of experience and socio-economic backgrounds on this podcast and at 'Essays from An Artist.
So it was important here at M the Media Project that we tackle the economic implications on this week's 'Are We Here Yet?' podcast.
Our guest, Chanel Dubofsky is an author, educator and advocate who shared with us a multiplicity of information regarding the economic implications for women and for society as a whole due to restrictions placed on women to access reproductive healthcare.
Chanel's Lilith Article June 24 2022
About Chanel:
Chanel Dubofsky's writing on reproductive health, abortion access, religion, and pop culture can be found in New York Magazine, Lilith, and others. She is currently working on a novel about American Jews in Israel and Palestine in the aftermath of the 1967 war, and appears in the new documentary 'My So-Called Selfish Life', about the choice to be childfree. The movie is streaming beginning July 29. She has an MFA in Fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
For those in need you'll find resources mentioned in our episode and then some here. Thank you to Chanel for providing both resources and insight to empower us all. We have a generations work to accomplish.
Abortion Resources
Learn about the difference between abortion pills (mifepristone and misoprostol) and emergency contraception (Plan B, Ella). What's the Difference? The Abortion Pill vs. Emergency Contraception
Give to abortion funds in states that will absorb abortion seekers from states where abortion is banned (New Mexico, Illinois, Colorado, Minnesota). If you can't give, spread the word about abortion funds. www.abortionfunds.org
Spread the word about abortion pills. Find out more at abortionpillinfo.org
Consider how you may hold and perpetuate abortion stigma, or negative attitude and wrong information about abortion by anti-choicers. Everyone has been impacted by abortion stigma, even if you work for abortion justice. Some examples of abortion stigma:
"I would never have an abortion, but…"
"No one wants to have an abortion."
"Only cis women have abortions."
"Abortion leads to infertility, cancer, depression (etc)."
You might not know that these 4 statements perpetuate abortion stigma, but they do
Let's talk about the stigma of multiple abortions
Just 5 Things that are More Dangerous Than Abortion
Learn about Crisis Pregnancy Centers - anti choice medical clinics which use religions coercion and shame, as well as lies about abortion, pregnancy, and birth control to steer folx (particularly young people, queer people, and BIPOC) away from abortion care.
Reproductive Transparency Now
Pro-Truth Home - Pro-Truth (A map of CPCs in New York state)
Crisis Pregnancy Center Map
How to Spot a Crisis Pregnancy Center Before You Walk in the Door
CPCs in New Hampshire: https://www.instagram.com/p/CforFxMuvJH/
Follow abortion justice and reproductive justice activists on social media: WeTestify, Indigeneous Women Rising, Shout Your Abortion, Yellowhammer Fund, SisterSong, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice,etc.
Plus:
The Turnaway Study
Abortion Finder
_____
Massachusetts Abortion Laws
New Hampshire Abortion Laws
The Reality of Accessing Abortion in the Bluest of States
____
No More Coat Hanger Imagery
____
For Pro-Choice/Pro-Abortion People of Faith
You can be a religious person and support reproductive rights
Abortion's Religious History—Forgotten Job of Clergy Pre-Roe
Rev. Warnock blasted for being a 'pro-choice pastor,' but his position isn't uncommon
Why Some Progressive Christians Support Abortion Rights
Characteristics of U.S. Abortion Patients in 2014 and Changes Since 2008
Resources:
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, National Council on Jewish Women, Catholics for Choice, Exhale Pro-Voice, Planned Parenthood's Clergy Advocacy Board, Faithfully Radical, Chloe Specht, Spiritual Alliance of Communities for Reproductive Dignity
We met the Royal Bopsters at the Newport Jazz Festival last year. We talked with each member of the group and their special guest legendary Singer, Shelia Jordan. We learned about the beginning of the group and their support from Shelia Jordan. Sadly in early 2020 the alto, Holli Ross passed away.
Learn more about the Royal Bopsters at https://www.royalbopsters.com
Pianist, Composer, Photographer, Arranger Henry Butler
We were able to chat with him for a bit at the Newport Jazz Festival. Sadly we learned that he passed away on July 2, 2018. Blind from birth, his story is inspiring. Learn more about Henry Butler at www.henrybutler.com .
See his photography at Henry Butler –The Photographer https://jazz24.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/henry-butler-the-photographer/
We’re only just coming to terms with the decision to rescind Roe v. Wade made by our Supreme Court. And with the assumed decision on West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the same states’ rights vs. federal jurisdiction argument will be applied to New Deal and post New Deal legislation and the resultant agencies that for our time have protected our waters and air, ensured the safety of our food, encouraged economic output and governed publicly traded securities.
It would very much seem that the long game for Republican leadership has been, since the inception of FDR’s New Deal, to roll back the many ways it reels in unfettered corporate decision making and its consequences on our daily lives.
So Much Freedom! So much, for Freedom.
If you’ve listened to our sister podcast, On The Rocks Politica you’ve heard yours truly and co-host Bruce Chester agree many times over the ideal in our country of encouraging and preserving individual rights under the US Constitution. Albeit with some variation accounted for between his conservatism and my stances solidly placed somewhere between classic and social liberalism both of us recognize the importance of individual liberties enshrined in our Constitution and at once hedged in the same document.
After all, conventioneers were brought together by the necessity created by eight years of a failed government under the Articles of Confederation. Imagine taking part in a political exercise where you, a revolutionary finds yourself making decisions across the table, now a member of the establishment in order that your interests in governing survive.
There is a significant economic consequence to be experienced in a post-New Deal United States that most of us will never be able to afford.
Besides creating an instable environment of winner-take-all business, (we all know how much big business and Wall St. love handling unpredictability) a further advantage in the game of entrepreneurship will be given to larger organizations who can lobby or just plain cheat their way to the top.
I think a lot of us don’t fully understand the consequences for eliminating some federal agencies we love to vilify because we heard a conservative pundit doing it on Fox News. Most US citizens, however well-intentioned or not haven’t been given the information they need to really understand what’s at stake.
Let’s take the aforementioned Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Some think of the EPA as the police of big business, intent on preventing the progress of beneficial technology in favor of spotted owls and only too eager to eliminate working class jobs in favor of technocrats in slick suits.
Couldn’t be further from the truth.
Particularly in a country that has progressively reduced or eliminated other public sources of economic development funding for small cities and towns, the EPA represents one of the few ways our communities can develop properties that are impossible to get back on municipal tax rolls any other way.
Here’s the scenario.
It’s 1972. You are a major manufacturer of turbines and you’ve left 36 sites all over the United States in utter degradation. Water, air and soil pollution from over 60 years of industrial use with no real consequence has left entire sections of cities and small towns in utter environmental and economic chaos as you’ve left the country and abandoned said sties for less regulation overseas.
The fact you’ve left thousands with no jobs in these same communities has not helped your situation. Lawsuits start piling up, suggesting operations have caused thousands of cases of toxicity-related diseases. A river you used to dump in is on fire in the Midwest and you just found out that the soil from PA you dumped in New Jersey with no consequence has been discovered and that local community is suing you as well.
And you thought you could get away with ANYTHING in New Jersey.
The United States Government calls. They give you a choice.
You meet a member of the Nixon Administration, who’s introduced himself as the newest agent for a new agency they are likely to call the EPA. He speaks little and listens. I mean he really listens.
When you’re done, he states very simply. ‘Here is our assessment for your firm to make payment on over a predictable term. If you can’t or don’t want to negotiate with us under these terms, then….’
He slides a piece of paper across the table.
‘….here is the bill in full for 60 years of getting to do whatever you want’.
The EPA utilizes the funds from our major polluters and distributes them through competitive process back to the cities and towns that need the assistance to clean up said environmentally degraded properties.
Banks don’t take risks on these properties.
Cities and towns on their own can’t afford to pay for the work.
Cities and towns need to get these properties back on municipal tax rolls.
It’s astounding to me how far the Republican party has left its intended destination. It was in fact the Nixon administration who, quite justly created the EPA as an affordable and sustainable means for better stewardship of post-industrial catastrophes while working simultaneously on better controls against future pollution.
Do you want to live in country that degrades its environment to the point of collapse?
Do you want Wall St. to have no controls over its own means for making bets with our retirement funds?
Do you feel big AG can self-police its use of chemicals in our seed inventory, our fertilizers and our food?
Do you understand what it was like to live in the United States as a poor person prior to the New Deal?
I don’t desire to live in country where a woman is restricted from making choices regarding her personal well-being while living with the added consequences of a failing and imbalanced economy, a worsening environment and with no access to proper healthcare but easy access to personal weapons.
What in hell is wrong with us?
We talk with Drummer, Jack DeJohnette. This was our first interview with Jack at the Newport jazz Festival. In Part 1 we talk about his 2012 NEA Jazz Master Award and his CD "Sound Travels". In Part 2 we continue our chat. This time he talks more about the musicians on his CD "Sound Travels" and how he started out in the music business.
Learn more about Jack DeJohnette @
www.jackdejohnette.com
A recent post on the local Facebook group, Gardner, MA-What’s Going On? Ask the question, ‘What does Gardner MA need to do to make it a destination city?
The term ‘destination city’ has entered our modern lexicon only recently. Generally, it refers to a community that may contain any number of positive economic and cultural characteristics that make it attractive to both local residents and visitors from far and wide. To be a destination city these days means your community is a place people want to visit, transact business in and maybe even dream of living in.
But what makes for a destination city? How do they develop? Why would we want to be a destination city?
I’m writing to you right now from the HULA co-working center along the banks of Lake Champlain in Burlington, VT. This section of town along with the entirety of the city contains countless features, developed over the last 40 years that make this community a true destination.
Learn about Burlington’s transformation under CEDO director Bruce Seifer on SMG’s ‘Are We Here Yet?’ Podcast.
I’m here for a conference and each time I come back to Burlington I’m struck by several key factors that make this a dynamic environment.
- Work with what you got. Burlington has some incredible natural assets. No less than a stunning view of the Adirondack Mountains across the 6th largest lake in the United States. But how can our city compete with that? You ask? There are countless examples. Closer to home, who amongst us would have said 30 years ago, ‘Let’s hang out at the mills and learn about industry,’ and spend all day in museums, art centers and restaurants in downtown Lowell, MA? Burlington spent considerable attention on integrating its natural, economic and human assets. 40 years on, it shows.
- Who are the People in your neighborhood? Much of what works in a destination city happens because local leadership is constantly ensuring that citizens are heard, and neighborhood responsive solutions are sought and executed in the marketplace. Neighborhood Planning Committees, robust public comment mechanisms and a high percentage of engaged citizens. These are just three precepts of a community that is actively developing itself according to the needs and desires of its people. People responsive communities attract and retain, you guessed it, people. How would you rate your community on this measure?
- Resiliency: We can’t give up. Entrepreneurs know this. Developers know this. The inertia to remain the same is profound. So is the need by those who benefit from the status quo to keep things as they are. Leadership and citizens including a majority of a community’s business community have to be in the game for the long term. They must be working together from the same gameplan. They must believe together in the same fundamental precepts; the what, where, why and how of their city’s development plan. And like that entrepreneur or developer, they cannot give up until the job is complete.
Find one great example of resiliency in our interview with Melinda Moulton, Main St. Landing January 2022.
- It starts with the right fundamentals. Larry Bird, the legend of the Boston Celtics, was a firm believer that one can only achieve great things if one is obsessive over their fundamentals. This insistence showed in the consistent results of play he had over his career. Cities only become destinations when the underlying economy is sound. In our current world, communities must cultivate home-grown primary employers first before they can support those trendy, ‘downtown’ businesses that citizens generally think of when they are dreaming of destination cities. And in our current economy this means a focus on encouraging the growth of businesses across industries that focus on innovation. Specifically, in the business of constantly creating the next generation of their product or service or entirely different products and services as part of their normal long-term life cycle. Products become commodified and are sent overseas for production. No matter, the company has the next gen model underway to be locally produced. Take this fundamental precept, ensure your community generates diversity of firms across a wide spectrum of employee size, industry and property needs and you will soon find yourself attracting yet more innovators from beyond your borders as well. This dynamism can play out over the long-term and reaps benefits for generations. Programs such as the National Center for Economic Gardening have lead the way in this realm. Without a sound underlying economy, you don’t create a destination city, your create a tourist trap.
Find out more about this approach from Chris Gibbons on SMG’s ‘Are We Here Yet?’ podcast March 2021.
There is more we could discuss but for now, perhaps the most important part to embrace is to know that, countless cities have had to re-invent themselves. Millions of hard-working enterprising citizens throughout the world right now are experiencing similar challenges. There is massive amounts of data; scenarios in great detail on what has worked and what has not in the past. So, we’re not alone. We need to embrace the need for change. We need to embrace our unity with those also on this journey. We need to start believing in a brighter future by first believing in ourselves.
We have a brief chat with Bassist Christian McBride to talk about is work as the new Artistic Driector for the Newport Jazz Festival and how the job came about.
Learn more at christianmcbride.com
Steven Nutter is the Executive Director for Green Cambridge, Inc. He is also a partner in the PlacePractice Collaborative, a role Steven plays in which yours truly got to know him and his partner Sarah Howard.
Steven is dedicated to building communities that recognize the importance for a deep sense of place. One that is respectful of our symbiotic relationship to our environment and to each other.
In his own words,
My passion is to connect people through design, planning, policy, and advocacy to strengthen and create sustainable, more equitable communities from the ground up. We and those around us are a wealth of assets and the basis for resiliency, positive change in the world, and better lives. Let’s strengthen our connections, use appropriate technologies, and reinforce the amazing work done each day.
When talking with Steven you quickly realize the barriers between teacher and student break down. Our conversation was enlightening and deeply inspiring.
Connect with our guest
Our friend Baritone Saxophonist/Composer Claire Daly stops by to tell us about her latest CD "The Mary Joyce Project-Nothing to Lose".
This CD tells the story of her father's cousin Mary Joyce who crossed Alaska on dog sled alone in the mid 1920's. We listen to each song which tell a part of Mary's story and while we chat Claire fills in the rest of the story.
Learn more about Claire and her music at www.clairedalymusic.com
This week M the Media Project is collecting the articles, podcasts and storytelling of our contributors for a special feature on Gun Violence in America.
We were compelled to ‘stop the presses’ on this subject matter after the mass shooting at an Elementary school in Uvalde, TX last week.
In this, our ‘Are We Here Yet?’ podcast episode host Scott M. Graves offers his latest ‘Essay from An Artist’. A Two-pronged approach first offering perspective on the 2nd amendment from a historical and constitutional perspective.
Second Scott recounts his personal experiences growing up in a single parent, economically challenged household. From there he explores the reasons why some kids find a positive outlet for their expression of rage and some don’t.
Read ‘The Murder of Children’ from contributor Mick Carlon
Read, ‘Squeeze’ from contributor Joshua Michael Stewart
Read contributing writer Bruce Chester
Read contributing Writer Scott J. Graves
Listen to ‘On the Rocks Politica’ podcast on gun violence
We have a conversation with Singer/Songwriter/Guitarist Allan Harris. He talks about his CD’” ”Black Bar Juke Box” , also his earlier works Cross That River Cry the Thunderbird and Long live the King (Nat King Cole). We caught up with him at the APAP conference in NYC. He also tells us more about the APAP experience from the artist’s perspective. Allan tells his own story through his music .
Learn more about Allan Harris at www.allanharris.com
Chris Maggiolo is Deputy Executive Director of the Black River Innovation Campus(BRIC)
We spoke with Chris this spring. We first met Chris and Executive Director Trevor Barlow during an event at the BRIC Campus in November of 2021. Host Scott M. Graves was most impressed with the live/work amenities being developed in the idyllic Vermont community of Springfield, a town along the banks of the Connecticut River opposite New Hampshire.
Don't let the rural visage fool you: Springfield was strategically selected because of its proximity to a broadband hub, a project of the Vermont Telephone Co. and Center for Rural Development. It is also strategically located close by Dartmouth College and the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.
Springfield was a center of innovation in the 19th and early 20th century. A place where the design and manufacture of precision machining kept much of the United States' cogs churning. BRIC is sure to lead the way in helping Springfield and its region into a 21st century resurgence. A resurgence more strategic, more diverse and more resilient.
Chris's rich background lead to some interesting pathways in our discussion. In addition to his perspective on innovation we also spoke of the importance that cultural phenomena play in building a successful sense of place and of worth.
Find out more about Chris and BRIC staff
We hope you come away with concrete ideas you can bring to your own incubator or accelerator projects. Enjoy!
Joan Watson Jones presents an interview with Jazz Legend, Trumpeter Clark Terry.
Back in 1994 when we first started working in the media we had the opportunity to meet and talk with Trumpet Legend, Clark Terry during one of his annual visits to the University of NH.
Clark took the time for a chat and then allowed us to listen in as he gave a master class to Jazz students. We also talked with, Professor Emeritus, Paul Verrette who was at the University at that time. He gives us the background into Clark Terry's relationship with the University of NH.
Learn More about Clark Terry and his music at :
https://clarkterry.com/biography/
This episode is part II of our interview with Bruce when we sat down to talk in spring 2022.
Bruce Seifer is author of Sustainable Communities: Creating a Durable Local Economy Click here for book and Community Owned Businesses. Click here for book
While Director of Economic Development under the Bernie Sanders and Peter Clavelle administrations, Bruce and his team played a significant role in the transformation of Burlington, VT's infrastructure, business profile and perhaps the very soul of the community over the decades of the 1980's, 1990's and into the 21st century.
We spoke with Bruce regarding the fundamentals that went into Burlington's consistent success developing the solutions and new businesses that drove propelled growth while not compromising on being neighborhood responsive and environmentally sound. The results for the city and the region of Chittenden county have consistently been desirable to local constituents and folks relocating to Burlington.
We tailored our conversation to be widely informative but particularly so for those of you in Economic Development or Planning frustrated by the challenges you face; those who are looking for the nuts and bolts of how to find successful growth without compromising on your community's principles.
Part I of a Two Part Series.
We chat with Trumpeter/Jazz Presenter Mark Morganelli. Mark tells us about Jazz Forum Arts, a non-profit organization dedicated to presenting jazz concerts to the public at affordable prices to reach a large audience. He tell us how the organization was started and he talks about how he manages how own musical career while doing his work with the organization. You'll hear cuts from his CD "My Romance".
Learn more about Mark Morganelli, Jazz Forum Arts at www.jazzforumarts.org
Singer/Songwriter Shirley Crabbe stopped by Studio 952 in NYC to talk about her CD “Bridges". She tells a bit about her journey into singing Jazz and gives us insight into her original songs
Learn more about Shirley at
www.shirleycrabbe.com
Bruce Siefer is author of Sustainable Communities: Creating a Durable Local Economy Click here for book and Community Owned Businesses. Click here for book
While Director of Economic Development under the Bernie Sanders and Peter Clavelle administrations, Bruce and his team played a significant role in the transformation of Burlington, VT's infrastructure, business profile and perhaps the very soul of the community over the decades of the 1980's, 1990's and into the 21st century.
We spoke with Bruce regarding the fundamentals that went into Burlington's consistent success developing the solutions and new businesses that drove propelled growth while not compromising on being neighborhood responsive and environmentally sound. The results for the city and the region of Chittenden county have consistently been desirable to local constituents and folks relocating to Burlington.
We tailored our conversation to be widely informative but particularly so for those of you in Economic Development or Planning frustrated by the challenges you face; those who are looking for the nuts and bolts of how to find successful growth without compromising on your community's principles.
Part I of a Two Part Series.
Meet our favorite drummer, Alvin Terry. Alvin talks about his CD “Common Denominator” and his friend bassist, Avery Sharpe who is featured on this CD.
You may find his CD on YouTube at
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k3QncBkX_Nx5Mr5EDHUjLQsQ02hCGa6II
So many of our challenges faced when building our communities are made complex by their multi-disciplinary nature. This does not excuse the need for a rigorous approach to solutions that benefit the widest spectrum of people.
Today's podcast deals with just such a challenge. What's local is suddenly made very relevant to those of you throughout the globe, as we're talking about one community’s on-going struggle over what to do with its human waste.
This podcast is an audio companion to M the Media Project's first in a series of articles dealing with one city's sludge landfill expansion.
Click here to read the article
Host Scott M. Graves interviews Ivan Ussach, Executive Director of the Millers River Watershed Council and Alan Rousseau, a life-long citizen of the city of Gardner (MA) and founding member of the grassroots organization Gardner Clean Air.
Click to learn more about landfill alternatives for your community.
Click to read or view host Scott M. Graves Essay, 'My Life with a Sludge Landfill'
Sometimes we like to take time to remember the great musicians we’ve met through the years. Our conversation with Clarinetist, Dick Johnson is one of them. Although he passed away in 2010 he is still missed in the musical community. In this program Dick talked about how Artie Shaw chose him to lead the band after his retirement and his long relationship with Artie Shaw. Learn more about Dick Johnson
https://jazztimes.com/features/tributes-and-obituaries/jazz-clarinetist-dick-johnson-dies-at-84/
In an August 3, 2021 article from The Atlantic, Journalist Amanda Mull explored the fragility of our ultra-individualism personified in consumption.
The pandemic placed on display that which many of us instinctively knew or observed before. People who cultivated their identity in their ability to consume products and brands that help create their sense of self go awry when the ability to consume is suddenly and unexpectedly curtailed.
This is a subject matter ideally suited to the forthright discussion and good humor of our special guest (and upcoming podcast contributor) Stephanie Elliott, a comedienne and entrepreneur from the North Shore of Massachusetts.
Whether you find too much of yourself in our description of bad behavior or find yourself embroiled with family and friends suffering from a lack of self-identity in the meaningful, we hope you find meaning in our work on this week's episode.
Carol Sudhalter is a woodwind multi-instrumnetalist based out of New York City. Carol started playing when she was a third year undergrad biology major and she has not looked back since. Carol sat down with Joan to discuss her life in a jazz family, her career and current work. They spoke from the comfy conifnes of Studio 952 in NYC, where the food and the jazz is always warm and welcomed. Click here for the latest news on Carol Sudhalter.
The music of Turkey and the surrounding region of the near east is the music of a crossroads. From a culture that has given and taken from global perspectives for thousands of years.
For our guest Volkan Efe, the music of Turkey, the country of his birth, is the music of his father and of his family. It is also the music of healing.
Find Volkan Efe on the Web
Since before Rumi's 12th century mysticism the form taken has been the makam, the fundamental form of traditional Turkish music.
This hour we explore the healing power of the music with Volkan and the Makam Healing Project of which he is a part of.
Performance May 6, 2022
He also explains a life journey built on frequency. Whether expressed through his music or through his engineering career.
We chat with Flutist Dotti Anita Taylor. Dotti tells us about her debut CD "A Morning Glory". We talk about her original work and her long career as a musician.
Learn more about Dotti at www.dottianitataylor.com
Continuing our Democratic Capitalism series this week we spoke with Dr. William Castellano and Dr. Jim Terez of Rutgers University School of Management and Labor relations.
The pair developed the Employee Ownership Online Education Program with support from the Kellogg Foundation.
Two weeks into their launch, the resource has been well recieved on a national scale.
This program offers access to key strategies for forming ESOPs and Co-Operatives, encouraging the education of business leaders and employees considering the transition to an employee-owned model.
To learn more:
Access Presentation from 4th annual conference on Employee Stock Option Programs.
Click here for the Carey Library
Click here for the Ray Carey Fellowship for Democratic Capitalism
The Democratic Capitalsim Series presents podcasts, articles, videos and other media featuring the leaders in business, academics, and advocacy for widespread employee ownership in America.
We're joined this week by Are We Here Yet? podcast past guest and American Prose Poet Joshua Michael Stewart.
Find Joshua Michael Stewart on the Innah Net.
This gave us an opportunity to recount moments in the historical and literary life of Jack Kerouac.
Born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac March 12, 1922 in Lowell, MA Kerouac is widely considered father of the counter-culture phenomenon and literary movement known as the Beat Generation.
Jack considered the term BEAT as shorthand for Beatitudes. This suggestion of a spiritual ethos behind the beats is explored at length in our discussion, which is rife with the Buddhism Keraouc explored and the Catholicism he was born to.
We read from several of Jack's books including Visions of Gerard, Dr. Sax, Dharma Bums, On the Road, and from Jack's Letters which have been posthumously published in two volumes.
It is the development of literary forms post mid-century influenced by beat lit that determines the movements relevance beyond its own time. So we recount excerpts from Josh's Bastard Children of Dharma Bum which we print in this episode script below.
Many of Jack's artifacts including the original teletype of On the Road are currently on display at the Boott Mills Cottom Museum in Lowell, MA.
Listen if you love beat literature, Lowell, writing in general or mid-century discussion of phenomenon Listen now.
Featured Poems from The Bastard Children of Dharma Bums (Human Error Publishing, 2020) by Joshua Michael Stewart. #13 Wondering if I heard
the gas station payphone,
my fingers chatter
with a jug of wine.
The astonished poet—
a hip girl in love
with Whitman,
refuses to subscribe
to the privilege
of consuming crap
and making children,
writes poems wine-soaked
and wild, praying cops
and the Republicans
learn how to wake up
and start breathing.
I sleep good, live cheap,
and don’t give a shit
for all that machinery
in a house. I got songs
made up plucking
on strings tucked away
in my brain. We walk
on both sides of the street
not hurting anyone.
#34
Raspberry Jell-O in the setting sun
poured through unimaginable craigs.
Rose-tint hope—brilliant and bleak.
Ice fields and snow raging mad.
I read snowy air and woodsmoke.
The wind dark, clouds forge.
The sing in my stovepipe absorbs
vaster, darker storm closing in
like a surl of silence. No starvation
turmoiling. My shadow the rainbow
I haloed. Your life a raindrop.
I stood in rose dusk, meditated
in half-moon thunder.
My mother’s love drenching rains
washed and washed.
I called Han Shan in the mountains.
I called Han Shan in morning fog.
I closed my eyes, yelled dark wild
down in my garbage pit.
My hair long in the mirror.
My skin soaking pristine light.
My fire roaring. I hear the radio
singing, She was the wind
which passes through everything.
Birds rejoicing sweet blueberries
for the last time. Sitting, I twisted
real life and cried cascades
answering the meditation bell.
I know desolation.
I owe gritty love back to this world.
Poems from Love Something (Main Street Rag, forthcoming Fall 2022)
BROKEN
A bird crashes against a window
The children scream, the mother screams.
The bird’s in the dirt flapping its broken wing
as the children run through the rooms
flapping their arms like wings, slam
into walls, smash into each other, whoop
and holler and laugh, and unsheathe their little teeth—
so tiny it seems they wouldn’t break skin.
This house that smells like a woodpile
under a tarp after three winters,
where a social worker wrote in her notebook,
This mother clearly doesn’t love this child,
where a river runs through the living-room,
and wildfires bloom in the bedrooms,
where there’s something about my heart that isn’t right,
and I’m an old rug left out over a porch railing in the rain,
where tomorrow will come, and I’ll still be here
in one form or another, here where I can take off my shirt,
and bare the scar on my shoulder
that fits my younger cousin’s mouth.
ELEGY FOR WHO I ONCE WAS
Summer. We were walking,
a country road before dawn,
and you were dead.
I don’t remember your dying
but there you were, dragging your feet,
your eyes like the bottoms of glass ashtrays.
Your breath.
I said it smelled of death
and you just groaned.
I felt like an idiot.
I never wanted this.
I never wanted it to rain.
Do you have any idea
what a soggy corpse is like
so early in the morning?
I tried to pick up the pace,
but all you could do was slosh down the road.
Eventually, we came to a barn
and hobbled inside to get dry.
Soon the sun was up. The rain had stopped
and the insects were getting jiggy in the fields.
You slumped into an empty stall.
Sunlight beamed through slits in the boards
and the dust of your body mingled
with the dust of the barn, the outside world
and possibly me. Despite the decay
you looked lovely disappearing like that.
And I confessed if I wasn’t such a fool
I’d love you right down to the bone.
“Vultures usually do.”
It was the first thing you'd said all morning.
Our friend Linda Presgrave returns to the Jazz Room’s Studio 952 in NYC to tell us about her CD “Along the Path”. This CD is a compilation of her original compositions. What a treat!
Learn more about Linda and her music at www.metropolitonrecords.com/presgrave
Meet Singer and Grammy Nominee, Roseanna Vitro**
She stopped by Studio 952 in NYC to talk about her CD "The Randy Newman Project".
An interesting project that focuses on the music of composer Randy Newman, Roseanna gives us insights into his music and also tell us about her interest in passing on the skills of her Jazz Singing to young singers.
Learn more about Roseanna at www.roseannavitro.com
SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' podcast is about a strong sense of place and the people who generate that energy.
Today's episode brings a different dimension to that fact. We're exploring the Native American effect on the landscape. This discussion will generate in each of you, our listeners, some profound questions of American identity and exactly who gets to have a say in deefining that identity while leaving you observing your local landscape as you've never done before.
Doug Harris began his career as a documentarian during the height of the civil rights movement in the deep south. Doug heeded the words of his grandfather to honor his native American Nansemond ancestors of Virginia and those of the former Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw peoples of the deep south at the same time he was honoring the struggle of yet another group of American people to find their place on this great continent.
Doug is the retired Deputy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer/Preservationist for Ceremonial Landscapes for the Narragansett Indian Tribe.
He is a preservationist of ceremonial landscapes and helps communities request the preservation of ceremonial landscapes through the National Register of Historic Places, legislation so lately enacted some 30 years ago to protect such places of cultural and spiritual significance.
We discussed a variety of evidence of animal stone effigies, stone groupings that assist to keep celestial time and the reasons for the grandfather stones, in our English, that were placed in many cases more than 3000 years ago.
In part II of our two part episode we'll focus on the mounting evidence for major activity along what is now submerged continental shelf territory off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
To learn more of Submerged Landscapes click here
This was our first interview with Jason Moran. Meet Pianist, Jason Moran. We caught up with him at the APAP Association of Presenters of Arts Performers Conference in NYC, He tells us about his CD All Rise and Elgy for Fats Waller, his appointment as artistic director at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC and penning the musical score for the movie “Selma” about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Learn more about Jason Moran at www.jasonmoran.com
SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' podcast is about a strong sense of place and the people who generate that energy.
Today's episode brings a different dimension to that fact. We're exploring the Native American effect on the landscape. This discussion will generate in each of you, our listeners, some profound questions of American identity and exactly who gets to have a say in deefining that identity while leaving you observing your local landscape as you've never done before.
Doug Harris began his career as a documentarian during the height of the civil rights movement in the deep south. Doug heeded the words of his grandfather to honor his native American Nansemond ancestors of Virginia and those of the former Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw peoples of the deep south at the same time he was honoring the struggle of yet another group of American people to find their place on this great continent.
Doug is the retired Deputy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer/Preservationist for Ceremonial Landscapes for the Narragansett Indian Tribe.
He is a preservationist of ceremonial landscapes and helps communities request the preservation of ceremonial landscapes through the National Register of Historic Places, legislation so lately enacted some 30 years ago to protect such places of cultural and spiritual significance.
We discussed a variety of evidence of animal stone effigies, stone groupings that assist to keep celestial time and the reasons for the grandfather stones, in our English, that were placed in many cases more than 3000 years ago.
In part II of our two part episode we'll focus on the mounting evidence for major activity along what is now submerged continental shelf territory off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
To learn more of Submerged Landscapes click here
We chat with vocalist, Judi Silvano. Judi stopped by the Studio 952 in NYC to talk about her CD "Cleome". We talk about her original compositions and how she is a Vocal Improviser. We listen to cuts from her CD and learn about why she calls her group "chordless".
Learn more about Judi at www.judisilvano.com
What happens when Host Scott M. Graves is away?
Well, Producer Cameron McLeod takes the role of host, an amazing Nashville based musician by the name of Drew Smith joins the show, and some lovely music talk takes place to help you through the day!
That is right ladies and gentlemen, no Scott on this episode, but the conversation between Cameron and our special guest Drew Smith will make up for it, ten-fold! Listen in as we talk about how Drew got started in music, both on the songwriting front, and on the production side of the biz. From there we talk about the Beatles Get Back documentary, the process a musician goes through, Drew’s Before You Record course, and Cam gains some insight as to what makes Nashville, Nashville.
Baritone Saxophonist, Claire Daly joins us at Studio 952 in New York City . She tell us about her CD "Baritone Monk".**
We chat with her about this project and how this CD came to be produced by the North Coast Brewing Company. What a great story!
Learn more about Claire at: www.jazzbarisax.com
How did two guys, one a touring musician and educator, the other a home-builder join forces while gravitating towards work that addresses challenges in economic development, community building and employee ownership?
The next installment in our series 'An EPIC Guide to Community Building' Scott Graves, host of SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' podcast is joined by his business partner and good buddy Ethan DeSota to get into a little history.
Hear them talk about how they came to have an interest in re-building struggling towns, how they discovered facets of economic. and social justice such as the forming of employee owned businesses and why they think their priorities are important to the everyday lives of both their families and their neighbors.
What is EPIC LLC?
Meet Flutist/Multi-Instrumentalist, Chip Shelton. We listen to cuts form his CDs "Flute Bass-ics" with Bassist Ron Carter and "Imbued with Memories". Chip tells about his journey from Dentist to Jazz Musician.
Learn more about Chip at: www.chipshelton.com
Tonight, Susan Taylor of Taylored Consultants and host Scott Graves provide a discussion targeted to be of help to our friends in Economic Development and Planning.
In a recent community that Susan has worked in, a program we’re calling ‘Large Blue Schmucks’ was recently launched as an incentive for consumers to engage in ‘support’ of local business.
From its execution to its humble beginnings as an idea residing upon someone’s desktop, this program went from bad to worse. It’s effectiveness with consumers has been in question and before that even became an issue, the public sphere took up the notion expressed by business owners operating outside the city downtown that it, along with all prior programs initiated by the city, were being used to exclude them.
Susan and Scott provide a synopsis of the program intentions, execution and results all while offering to you, the economic development professional, specific options to consider or steps to take to avoid such a mishap in your community before they become problems.
What to consider when doing the important work of economic development: inclusivity, diversity, spending time on the streets in your town, understanding people from their perspective and more. That’s what’s in store on this SMG’s ‘Are We Here Yet?’ podcast.
** Susan Taylor and Scott Graves are a part of the Business Triage Program. A state subsidized business assistance service an exclusive part of M the Media Projects parent company, SMGraves Associates.
We talk with Clarinetist, Anat Cohen. We met with her between performances at the Newport Jazz Festival. She talks about her work with many musicians as well as being a band leader and her work with her brothers.
Learn more about Anat Cohen at www.anatcohen.com
Tonight we wanted to share a story that sounds an awful lot like our stories in a near-post pandemic world. For many of us, there is a deep personal need for time spent in quiet contemplation amongst the natural beauty tucked away and apart from our built environment. If you're like my next guest, that need is paramount.
We welcomed long-time friend Eric Beaudry. Eric was one of the best adult clients of our former music education and merchandising company known as Smash Music. He really belonged in our tribe. Beginning two years ago, Eric made an intentional decision to spend more time achieving personal goals in the wild.
Eric has since made good on this promise to himself many times over; he is close to achieving the laudable goal of being a 4000 footer club member, that is to say having hiked all New England peaks at or over 4000 feet above sea level.
Eric shares what the experience has taught him, what it feels like to spend quality time in the woods.
Just two guys talking about the wild places and why they love them.
Belonging to our natural spaces. That's up on this, the latest SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' podcast.
We go back to 1995 and listen to an interview with Singing Legend Dakota Staton. Dakota came to Studio 952 in New York City to talk with us. She told about how she got started in the music
business and her early experiences.
Dakota Staton was our next door neighbor when I was growing up in New York City. I would visit her often as my mother told me “Show people are good people, go visit her”
We lost touch after she moved away and then in 1995 I met her at Scullers Jazz Club in Boston where she was performing. When we spoke she remembered me and we continued our friendship. She returned to the old neighborhood to chat with me. This was one of my very first attempts at broadcast interviews. Sadly she passed away in 2007. I’m grateful to have known her as a friend.
Learn more about Dakota on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Staton
SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' founder Scott M. Graves and Ethan DeSota, experienced and innovative developer recount their experience in building EPIC or Exponential Property Investment Co-Operative.
This is the third episode in a series we're calling, 'An EPIC Guide to Community Building'. In this series you're allowed in on how the two are building their own real estate placement membership co-operative.
In their discussion, which occurred fast on the heels of their first round of fundraising, they talked about why they created EPIC. They talked to their priorities:
Accessibility, Sustainability, Resiliency, Diversity
...and a priority on building to what the data and the neighborhoods Scott and Ethan know and love are telling them.
That's Community Building
Meet four time Grammy Nominee, Vocalist, Karrin Allyson. We were able to chat with her at the 60th Newport Jazz Festival after her performance with the Newport 60 Band
Learn more about Karrin at www.karrin.com
Vermont Native Monique Priestley is the founder and Executive Director of Bradford's Space on Main.
This dynamic downtown hub combines the programming and resources of a business incubator with the equipment and environment of a creative makerspace.
Since 2017 Monique and a well-cultivated board have engaged their rural community and met the challenges of developing a diverse set of programming and resources to meet the desires of their community.
Listen in and find the parallels between Monique's experience and yours in your rural community. Appreciate her entrepreneurial passion and the real numbers this resilient organization is posting despite a global health crisis.
There is much to learn and to appreciate in this latest SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' Podcast.
In Part 2 of Drummer Jack Dehonette’s return visit to the Jazz Room, he talks about the long term relationship with his musicians and upcoming projects.
Learn more about Jack DeJohnette at http://www.jackdejohnette.com
Dan Hodge spoke with us on a multiplicity of issues facing our cities and towns.
How are limitations in our transportation system including highways, local roads and especially rail effecting our local economies?
How are both the challenges and the upcoming solutions we've developed to address climate change effecting our economy?
Dan offered us solutions through examples of projects he's provided service including communities like Turners Falls, MA and the large on-going development of Ludlow Mills, a project of the Western MA EDC and associated partners.
Connect with Dan
We also had an opportunity to learn from Dan how his own firm has transitioned with the UK's Cambridge Econometrics. This transition has allowed them to expand in both reach and the depth to which their analysis can benefit a development project.
We're focused on solutions to some of our most challenging transportation and economic issues on this latest episode of SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' podcast.
Drummer Jack DeJohnette returns to the Jazz Room to talk about his project.” Made in Chicago” He and his band have created their own musical sound and language to communicate with each other to make something fascinating. In Part 1 of our interview he talks about the development of this project and the AACM the Association for Creative Musicians based in Chicago.
Our guest Melinda Moulton is CEO of Main St. Landing, a development company that has been a pioneer on the Burlington, VT waterfront for more than 30 years. Along with her Co-founder Lisa Steele, Melinda was at he forefront of re-defining the city's relationship to its waterfront, at the time a decaying port that in prior centuries played a major role in economics, war, transportation and the evolution of the culture of the Northeast as Lake Champlain was a major hub of activity during pre and post colonial America. Learn about Burlington's Waterfront
What was being a women-owned business in property development like in the early days of the Sanders Administration? (Bernie Sanders was elected Mayor of Burlington in 1981).
What economic as well as cultural challenges stood in their way? It became clear to us early in our interview that Melinda and Lisa have consistently delivered for their clients and their city because they are resilient, tactical problem solvers who think about ecosystems and more than anything else believe inherently in what they are doing.
Learn with us what it means to be neighborhood responsive when building property from the bottom-up on the latest 'Are We here Yet?' podcast.
We continue with our interview with Singer/Bassist , Carlene Ray. This time she tells us about her work with the Alvin Ailey Dance. Then we move on to her work with R&B singer Ruth Brown.
Our guest this week is Soudie Tahmassebipour, the executive director of the Wachusett Area Social Justice Alliance.
Soudie and her team are one year into their home grown response to the social strife evident in our region, writ locally against a backdrop of an unstable national social fabric.
What began as a response to the murder of George Floyd is intentionaly working to bring disparate community groups together and offer a voice to those who are currently disempowered.
As we began our conversation the issue of poverty came front and center. We discussed poverty and the broader economy's role in effecting many of our region's other current issues: race relations, gender, housing, access to food and education.
Our conversation was passionate and while we did not shy away from issues, Soudie left us with an overwhelming sense of hopefulness.
We're rolling up our sleeves this hour and digging into what goes into building a better community with Soudie and the Wachusett Area Social Justice Alliance.
We start the first in a 2 part interview with Singer/Bassist Carlene Ray.
Now 85 years old, Carlene tells about her rich career in Jazz . We start with her early work with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, an all female big band that existed from 1933-1955.We move from there to her work helping Mary Lou Williams produce her famous Catholic Mass.
Learn more about Carlene at www.jazberryjam.com
Julie Pera has been a speech language pathologist for more than 20 years. She made the leap from public education to entrepreneurship in 2020, on the cusp of a global health crisis and after witnessing the sweeping changes that were implemented over nearly two decades, greatly effecting both teachers and students in public education.
Our discussion centered on the what and why we transformed public education, narrowing curriculum and the creativity of teachers resulting in unintended consequences for students and communities alike.
You will also find information throughout our discussion centered on what we can do to make
substantive changes to improve the emotional, intellectual and social outcomes of all children.
Our communities require it. Our parents desire it. Our children deserve it.
Since the fall of 2021 Julie has participated in the Business Triage Program of SMGraves Associates, a state subsidized business mentorship and development program targeting businesses effected by core challegnes made worse by the pandemic.
Find out more about SMG's Business Triage Program
It takes a lot of intellectual rigor and courage to work with students while building a successful business. You'll find copious amounts of both in our latest episode of SMG's 'Are We Here Yet? Podcast.
We chat with Trumpeter, Jimmy Owens. He stopped by Studio 952 in New York City to tell us about his CD “The Monk Project”. He shares stories about his career and teaching.
Learn more about Jimmy at www.jimmyowensjazz.com
Many folks who travel the east/west northern corridor of Route 2 note that they are passing through towns with a type of rural charm tailor-made for a sentimental hallmark movie.
That's not just a turn of phrase for Rumford, ME whose local St. Barnabus Episcopal church was in fact used for the exteriors of a hallmark movie.
But as we've spoken time and again on the ‘Are We Here Yet?' podcast, gimmicks don't make for meaningful change in our urban or rural communities where real bottom-up economic development is required.
For three years our guest George O'Keefe has been aggressively implementing a plan with real meat on the bones which the people of Rumford have responded to with vigor.
Rumford, in George's words is a town with a mill, not a milltown. (We should interject here and mention the paper mill is, in fact, still active and employing folks). So as to say there's more diversity in Rumford's modern economy. George’s consistent and honest approach has born fruit for this town of nearly 6,000.
Find out more about Rumford, ME
His plan has included a consistent implementation to broaden Rumford's renewable energy portfolio. The double positive here has been to produce clean and plentiful energy for existing and new takers while building a robust tax base.
Renewables are just one strategic part of this community's plan. The results speak for themselves. Rumford in currently improving one neighborhood by adding a new fire department facility, building a new school and attracting attention. Lots of attention from New Englanders and others heading north for new opportunity.
Listen for our discussion on the local housing market, where new business opportunities exist and much more in our latest episode of SMG’s 'Are We Here Yet?' podcast.
We begin our two part conversation for Author, composer, Saxophonist, Paul Combs. We talk about his book ”Dameronia - The Life and Music of Tad Dameron".
Now based in San Diego. CA, Paul was one of our long time Boston area musician and we were very happy to have him on the show. In part 2 we learn in more detail the many jazz musicians who learned from the expertise of Tad Dameron.
Learn more about Paul at www.paulcombs.com
Mick Carlon, educator novelist and Jazz fan is our guest tonight. He is the author of ‘Riding on Duke’s Train’ and his latest ‘Girl Singer’. He has written for others including a nearly decade long stint at Jazz Times.
Mick doesn’t leave any of it out: the holocaust, racism, poverty. The great joy and pain of life in the dynamism of America.
Like the music he holds near and dear it’s all in there! And nobody loves him more than his students who got to hang with Mr. Carlon weekly on Cape Cod for more than 38 years as an educator in public education.
Carlon is the co-author with Emmy Award winning filmmaker Ken Kimmelman of the Riding on Duke’s Train screenplay, which has won over a dozen first place awards in film festival contests around the world. When Kimmelman secures full funding, he intends on making his masterpiece—a feature-length animated film of the novel.
We welcome Mick Carlon to the ‘Are We Here Yet?’ podcast.
We want to wish each and every one of you listening a very Happy Holidays. Stay Safe and Swingin’ as we all outro from 2021.
Here's a nice primer from your host Joan Watson Jones herself!
I was in a playful, holiday mood when I recorded this program.
Join me in the kitchen while we listen to Holiday Jazz and I prepare two of our favorite family recipies. Potato Garlic Soup and Baked Apples with Maple Syrup. We are "Cookin' with Jazz"!
The Jazz Room Host, Joan Watson Jones begins her two part conversation with Author, composer, and Saxophonist, Paul Combs.
We talk about his book ”Dameronia- The Life and Music of Tad Dameron." Now based in San Diego. CA, Paul was one of our long time Boston area musicians and we were very happy to have him on the show.
In part 1 Paul talks about how he came to write this biography and gives us insights on how Tad Dameron influenced Jazz artists during the Bop Era.
Learn more about Paul:
www.paulcombs.com
When I met Drummer Michael Carvin at APAP he was sitting in the hallway outside one of the performance venues waiting to go on. We started talking and he began telling me about his career as a Drummer and then about the relationship singers have with band members musically. After about 10 minutes I decided we should continue the conversation on “tape”.
Join us in mid-conversation!
Learn more about Michael Carvin and his music at www.michaelcarvin.com
We spoke with entrepreneur Noah Healey whose work in developing Coordinated Discovery Markets (CDM) has its roots in game theory and other established precepts.
Of note in regards to Noah's solution: This is an example for a use of computers within publicly traded markets where the technology is used in a non-predatory application. In fact, it is fair to say Noah's application of technology in this case distributes the forecasting power previously outweighed in favor of traders on the commodities markets across the producers and the tradesmen as well.
View CDM White Paper
Noah explains for us What the endgame for this solution is in his eyes and why he's dedicated to this project.
In a world of markets virtually unchanged since the Renaissance, wouldn't it be refreshing to experience substantive change that evens the playing field for more players?
Wealth-building to be considered on this weeks SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' Podcast.
We met Pianist, Composer Arturo O ‘Farrill after his set at the Newport Jazz Festival. We talked about his Grammy winning album “Four Questions”.
In Part 2 he expands his thoughts to discuss the ”Still, Small Voice” that we as a people share and the Non-Profit Organization he formed to benefit out of work performers of all genres during the Covid 19 quarantine.
Learn more about Arturo at https://www.auturoofarrill.com.
Phil Duffy believes that working on solid fundamentals is the path towards progress for a mill town on the mend.
In his town of Clinton, MA this shows in the well-designed hardscaping, the accessibility to walkers and cyclists alike and the ways in which residents are re-discovering their municipal pride.
Clinton is one of the few towns and cities in Massachusetts experiencing double digit population growth, 12% in the latest US Census. Just ask new prospective businesses searching for industrial or commercial space and they'll tell you: get in while you can because space is going fast in this Worcester county community of 15,000 people.
Phil recounted for us some of the unique urban development history of Clinton that in part lead to the preservation of walkable neighborhoods with a lot of green space. Much of what made this town popular in earlier decades of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was preserved through neglect during de-industrialization and has been made vital again by a new generation of families seeking opportunity in Clinton.
Click for more on Clinton
Phil joined us to talk about his community's progress, what works in community development and what priorities Clinton places on being transparent, inclusive and responsive to residents input.
If you care about community development, if you're looking for examples to bring back to your city or town then you'll appreciate this episode of SMG's 'Are We Here Yet?' Podcast.
We met Pianist, Composer Arturo O‘Farrill after his set at the Newport Jazz Festival. We talked about his Grammy winning album “Four Questions”. In part 1 we talk about the influence of Dr. Cornell West and the ”Four Questions” as the inspiration for his album.
Learn more about Arturo at https://www.auturoofarrill.com.
This week we chat with singer, Laurin Talese at the Newport Jazz Festival. She talks about her CD "Gorgeous Chaos" which includes standards and her own compositions.
Learn more at
http://www.laurintaliese.com
Katie Stebbins represents much of what the ‘Are We Here Yet?’ podcast likes to eat, sleep and drink every day.
Katie is currently the Executive Director of the Food and Nutrition Institute, Gerald J and Dorothy R. Freidman School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts University.
Her career experience garnered over 20 years includes a long stint in environmental mitigation and economic development for the city of Springfield, MA and as Assistant Secretary of Tech, Innovation and Entrepreneurship for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Find out more about Katie Stebbins
Our energy-filled conversation coalesced where issues and their solutions mix with technology, economics, local control, health and planning.
In the second installment of ‘An EPIC Guide to Community Building’ co-hosts Ethan DeSota and Scott M. Graves spoke with Jim Eber, author and entrepreneur of Inner Monster.
Jim is an author, ghost writer and has worked in publishing for many decades.
Find Jim’s Profile on LinkedIn
Our conversation focused on Jim’s broad outlook on what’s important to building a community. We defined community broadly, a physical space, a group of relationships.
Jim’s experience having written with varied entrepreneurs allowed him to offer a vivid perspective. How does positive energy grounded in reality serve both entrepreneurs and the public? How do our adversities in life and business effect our future decision-making? Most importantly, what role do relationships play in building a meaningful and successful life in business and at home?
You’ll find courageous realism and a healthy dose of humor in episode two of our series on finding meaning in your life through business and investment. An EPIC Guide to Community Building.
Reunited after 10 years Cathy Segal- Garcia and I talk about what she has been doing since last we met.
Cathy, a Singer/Songwriter/Teacher and Curator is based in LA.
She gives valuable advice for singers and we talked about two of her CD "The Jazz Chamber " and "Intuition".
Learn more at:
cathysegalgarcia.com
When you really think about it, how much do you really know about the state of manufacturing in the United States? Have you considered there is more to the story an entirely defunct sector, a vestige of an economy from days gone by; days never to return again?
What don’t we understand about the making of things? Manufacturing in all of its expressions across the entirety of the United States.
We wanted to learn more so we turned to Emily Nonko, a New York-based solutions journalist who writes for Next City. Emily is also a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Curbed New York. Her byline has also appeared in the Atlantic, New York Magazine, Entrepreneur, the Guardian, Village Voice, New York Post and CityLab, among other publications.
Emily painted a vibrant picture of manufacturing in the US today. From the unique connecting points that working class women are realizing opportunity through faith-based organizations, to groups of people forming unique partnerships and organizations in order to re-develop former industrial space.
We, the People are not just manufacturing. We’re re-defining where and how we make things. We’re forming new financial models and seeking alternative financing. We’re incorporating industrial or manufacturing space into live/work property development to re-invigorate our cities. Emily presented a number of examples of the resourcefulness of local people.
Our conversation dealt with the challenges of re-defining manufacturing to include economic advancement for all of our neighbors regardless of class and race. We also discussed solutions to the challenges of zoning and re-development in cities like San Fransisco.
SMG’s ‘Are We Here Yet?’ Podcast recommends you do a deep dive into the work being done in solutions journalism by Next City. Consider subscribing when you view this webinar on urban manufacturing and of course, please subscribe to M the Media Project by clicking that subscribe button at the top of this page.
In Memory of Boston’s Impresario – Fred Taylor June 8, 1929 –October 26, 2019
We were happy to meet and talk with Fred Taylor at his office in Boston, Ma. In this two part series we spend some time chatting with Boston's Jazz Hero, Fred Taylor about his long career as a promoter and booker of Jazz.
He talks about how he helped the careers of Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Billy Joel and his lasting friendships with them. Read more about Fred
https://jazztimes.com/features/tributes-and-obituaries/fred-taylor-bostons-beloved-jazz-impresario-dies-at-90/
In our Series 'An EPIC Guide to Community Building' host Scott M. Graves introduces us to his partner Ethan DeSota, founder of Exponent Construction Group and partner in EPIC, LLC.
This special series of SMG's 'Are We Here yet?' podcast explores the financialisation of our economy and how that is effecting the real estate markets.
We set the stage in Episode one describing the very real issue of wealth transfer through the liquidation of residential property that occurs in recessions.
Our guest is Dan Crowley, a forty year veteran of community banking and consultant to real property owners and developers for acquiring SBA and HUD financing.
Dan cut right to the chase. When asked whether we are experiencing a man-made manufactured downturn in order to take wealth away from the most vulnerable, he didn't mince words.
"I think It’s pre-engineered intended shifts in wealth."
So we start off our series setting the stage for what we think is coming in the market and why that’s so.
But lest you think we’ll only focus on the storming days ahead, we hope to offer in the remainder of the series perspectives and sometimes direct solutions so you can navigate our unstable economic landscape to find your own way of building wealth and meaning.
For your own life.
We finish a two part interview with Singer/ Storyteller Giacomo Gates. In Part Two we talk about his influences and a bit about his diverse travels and jobs in the past. Listen to cuts from his CD's “Luminosity “and “The Songs of Gil Scott Heron-The Revolution Will Be Jazz"
Learn more about Giacomo at www.giacomogates.com.
We start a two part interview with Singer/ Storyteller Giacomo Gates.
In Part One of our interview, we talk about his CD "The Songs of Gil-Scott Heron-The Revolution Will Be Jazz ". Learn how it came about and listen to selected cuts. Listen to cuts from his CD's “Luminosity “ and “The Songs of Gil Scott Heron-The Revolution Will Be Jazz"
Learn more about Giacomo at www.giacomogates.com.
For our Columbus Day special, the team at M the Media Project wanted to offer various thought provoking perspectives utilizing the medium of poetry.
Our contributing writer, the poet and essayist Joshua Michael Stewart whose series at M the Media Project is titled, ‘The Way of Wind and Stream’ offers us six examples of contemporary poetry by some of our times greatest American writers, all Native American.
Josh offers the listener perspective while also providing information regarding the writers and their work.
M the Media Project founder and contributing writer Scott M. Graves follows up with an Essay from his series, “Essays from an Artist’. Today’s essay: a focus on Borders. Why the American obsession with borders has been with us since before there was a US and what borders mean to both the colonized and the colonizers.
Susan Taylor is the owner of susantaylorconsulting.com and has operated her consultancy in the greater Boston and Providence region for 8 years.
Having made her personal transition from the modeling and fashion industry to business mentorship, her experience makes her an ideal choice to assist small business owners in transition or facing considerable challenges.
Here we are, a society in flux. Gender issues, the financialisation of the market and the strangling of small business capital and of course, a global health crisis.
Since 2020 Susan has been part of the newly formed team of Business Triage, a state-wide program in Massachusetts targeting small businesses in a myriad of industries who need fast-acting assistance to get back on a growth track.
Find out more regarding Susan’s work by clicking here.
In Memory of Boston’s Impresario – Fred Taylor June 8, 1929 –October 26, 2019
We were happy to meet and talk with Fred Taylor at his office in Boston, Ma. In this two part series we spend some time chatting with Boston's Jazz Hero, Fred Taylor about his long career as a promoter and booker of Jazz.
He talks about how he helped the careers of Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Billy Joel and his lasting friendships with them
Read more about Fred
https://jazztimes.com/features/tributes-and-obituaries/fred-taylor-bostons-beloved-jazz-impresario-dies-at-90/
In this AWHY? podcast extra we extend our conversation with Johnny Sanphillippo on the unorthodox solutions out there to achieving your community development, real property and small buisness goals without incurring the rath of local regulators.
...and you learn about the Condo-ized Bovine Business Opportunity.
Welcome! Seat yourself, pour some tea (or any other hot/cold beverage) and prepare to relax with the smooth music of The Jazz Room, hosted by Joan Watson Jones.
This week, Joan chats with Film Maker, Stephanie J. Castillo. She visited Studio 952 in NYC to tell us about her Documentary "Night Bird Song" The Life of Saxophonist /Flutist Thomas Chapin.
Learn more about Stephanie and her work at www.thomaschapinfilm.com
It's smooth jazz time here in the studio of "The Jazz Room", where Host Joan Watson Jones interviews the best of the Jazz music world.
This week, Joan welcomes guitarist, Tomas Janzon to talk about his CD "130th and Lenox".
This interview is also available to be seen on YouTube at a https://youtu.be/7LPa_sXM3A0
Learn more about Tomas at www.tomasjanzon.com
Johnny Sanphillippo wants to get things done. He is a self-identified old-school San Fransisco liberal. But more than that Johnny is a pragmatist. Sometimes it seems he has a language seemingly all his own. Like Yak Shaving. What the hell is Yak Shaving?
On his blog Granola Shotgun he has offered to the willing some ideas of stay-under-the-radar development patterns that may just start a revolution someday. Or maybe just help you get that ADU in your backyard in without initiating a revolt between you and your municipal authorities.
Johnny sites some real world examples of his own making and in doing so he informs us on what we are all capable of doing when we alter our persepctive.
Wait until you hear about the condo-ized cow.
Why care? Because we're going to need to do something with all this suburban excess. It's here. We're here. You need to live and work somewhere, right?
It's time for everyones favorite room in the house, The Jazz Room with host Joan Watson Jones.
This week concludes the long conversation with drummer William Hooker. In this second part, he continues to talk about his CD’s “Symphonie of Flowers” and “Cycle of Restoration.” William gives us insight into his own brand of music, his poetry and his podcast. You may watch these interviews also on YouTube with the links below:
Part 1 William Hooker https://youtu.be/f3h7J0fed80
Part 2 William Hooker https://youtu.be/f3h7J0fed80
Learn more about William at www.williamhooker.com
Time to tune into the experience that is The Jazz Room with Host Joan Watson Jones!
This week, Joan has a long conversation with drummer William Hooker. In this 2 part interview he talks about his CD’s “Symphonie of Flowers” and “Cycle of Restoration.” William gives us insight into his own brand of music, his poetry and his podcast. You may watch these interviews also on YouTube:
Part 1 William Hooker https://youtu.be/f3h7J0fed80
Part 2 William Hooker https://youtu.be/f3h7J0fed80
Learn more about William at www.williamhooker.com
In our inaugural episode of season III the ‘Are We Here Yet?’ podcast welcomes Chris Bignell and Hope Ross Gibaldi of Valley Venture Mentors.
Hope is the Community Engagement Director and Chris acts as VVM’s Interim Executive Director.
We spoke about the strategic decision the organization has made to focus on independent small business. It’s original focus was in larger scale tech-based innovation.
Upcoming Valley Venture Mentor Events
We spoke about the need to focus on new business that responds to a neighborhood; that supports true diversity along ethnic and economic lines. We also discussed the differences between ‘fast’ capital and venture capital consequences on where money flows in a city vs. ‘slow’ capital that is often also hyper-local.
What is Valley Venture Hub?
Our podcast’s parent company, SMGraves Associates is partnering with Valley Venture Mentors to deliver their Business Triage Program.
Find out if your business is eligible for Business Triage by clicking here.
Kick those shoes off, pour yourself a drink, and enjoy your stay in The Jazz Room.
Host Joan Watson Jones was able to chat with award winning photographer, Adriana Mateo at the Newport Jazz Festival where she was signing copies of her book “AM Jazz Three Generations Under the Lens”. The forward was written by saxophonist, Jimmy Heath so we feature the music of his. If you wish to explore her photos while listening to the show, which is highly advised and encourage, head to www.adrianamateo.com
Feeling a bit Stressed? Has the work week gotten to you? Well don't worry, settle on down in The Jazz Room, with Host Joan Watson Jones.
This week concludes the three part interview with the ever amazing, Jazz Vocalist Legend that is Shelia Jordan. She invited us to her home in Upstate New York to interview her. She graciously gave us lunch and then we talked for over 40 minutes.
What a wonderful treat!
Feeling a bit Stressed? Has the work week gotten to you? Well don't worry, settle on down in The Jazz Room, with Host Joan Watson Jones.
This week continues the three part interview with the ever amazing, Jazz Vocalist Legend that is Shelia Jordan. She invited us to her home in Upstate New York to interview her. She graciously gave us lunch and then we talked for over 40 minutes.
What a wonderful treat!
Feeling a bit Stressed? Has the work week gotten to you? Well don't worry, settle on down in The Jazz Room, with Host Joan Watson Jones.
This week marks the start of the three part interview with the ever amazing, Jazz Vocalist Legend that is Shelia Jordan. She invited us to her home in Upstate New York to interview her. She graciously gave us lunch and then we talked for over 40 minutes.
What a wonderful treat!
It's that time of the week once more where the Jazz Room with Host Joan Watson Jones comes on in and quells the Jazz itch that's been growing.
This week, you'll be listening to the second and final part of the Wycliffe Gordon interview. In the episode, the talented Trombonist talks about the Soprano Trombone and his approach to teaching the current generation of tech savvy young musicians.
Lean more about Wycliffe Gordon at http://www.wycliffegordon.com
The lovely sounds of The Jazz Room are here once again to please your ear holes.
This week, Host Joan Watson Jones has an interesting conversation with Trombonist Wycliffe Gordon. We were able to meet with him after his set at the Newport Jazz Festival. In Part 1 of our interview he talks about his love for the Traditional Jazz and about his book “Sing it First”.
Learn more about Wycliffe Gordon at http://www.wycliffegordon.com
Welcome to The Jazz Room, with your host Joan Watson Jones. This week in The Jazz Room, Joan was able to talk with Pianist, Monty Alexander after his set at the Newport Jazz Festival. He shares memories about his musical journey, being lifted by many of the jazz greats.
Learn more at:
https://www.montyalexander.com/
This week in the Jazz Room, Host Joan Watson Jones continues with the interview with Vibraphonist, Gary Burton. In part two of our interview Gary tells us about his work with George Shearing and Stan Getz. He also talks about the” inner player” that is within us all.
Learn more about Gary Burton:
www.garyburton.com.
It's time to take a load off, throw your feet up, and listen to some great jazz, here in The Jazz Room once again!
This week, Host Joan Watson Jones talks with Vibraphonist Gary Burton. She was able to catch up with him at the 60th Newport Jazz Festival. In this first part in our two part interview, Gary tells up about when he started playing the vibes and about his Autobiography that was published in 2013.
Learn more about Gary Burton:
www.garyburton.com
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/gary-burton-mn0000738182/biography
In Part II of our interview with Trenda Loftin.We continued our conversation focused on creating meaningful housing and employmnet opportunities for marginalized members of our cites and towns.
Trenda is a real estate professional and co-founder of the compost coop.
Find Compost Coop on Facebook
Trenda has a deep passion for community building. This informs the work she does in real estate as she advocates for the right of individuals to reside in a place of dignity and sanctuary while building the foundation for a neighborhood.
Her professional roots are steeped in the theatre. She is also an award-winning consultant to theatrical companies with a focus on arts integrated social justice facilitation. The those of us who hail from an arts background, it's no surprise Trenda has placed a high priority on inclusion and integration of solutions to address multiple challenges.
The Compost Cooperative is a worker-owned business model serving under-resourced individuals including those recently incarcerated.
In part I of our conversation we focused on the roots of our neighborhoods worse challenges. Our free-flowing conversation is inspiring and loaded with the kind of energy necessary for identifying and then addressing issues of race, class, gender inherent in our system.
Connect with Trenda on LinkedIn
We spoke together both about the challenges and also on concrete solutions being implemented throughout our neighborhoods both within and outside of Massachusetts own Pioneer Valley.
This month we are featuring past interviews at the Newport Jazz Festival. The festival returns to live performances this year after being held virtually in 2020 due to Covid-19. We’ll continue with more Newport features in August so stay tuned!
Meet Multi-Instrumentalist Jon Batiste and two members of his band Staying Human. We had a chance for a briefly sit down and chat after their set at the Newport Jazz Festival. They talked about how they met and how they are looking forward to working with Stephen Colbert on the Late Show.
Learn more
https://www.jonbatiste.com/
Trenda Loftin is a real estate professional and co-founder of the compost coop.
Find Compost Coop on Facebook
Trenda has a deep passion for community building. This informs the work she does in real estate as she advocates for the right of individuals to reside in a place of dignity and sanctuary while building the foundation for a neighborhood.
Her professional roots are steeped in the theatre. She is also an award-winning consultant to theatrical companies with a focus on arts integrated social justice facilitation. The those of us who hail from an arts background, it’s no surprise Trenda has placed a high priority on inclusion and integration of solutions to address multiple challenges.
The Compost Cooperative is a worker-owned business model serving under-resourced individuals including those recently incarcerated.
In part I of our conversation we focused on the roots of our neighborhoods worse challenges. Our free-flowing conversation is inspiring and loaded with the kind of energy necessary for identifying and then addressing issues of race, class, gender inherent in our system.
Connect with Trenda on LinkedIn
We spoke together both about the challenges and also on concrete solutions being implemented throughout our neighborhoods both within and outside of Massachusetts own Pioneer Valley.
Well, well! Make yourself comfortable, for you have just entered, the Jazz Room.
Host Joan Watson Jones chats with Grammy Winning Drummer, Terri Lyne Carrington at the Jazz Congress at Lincoln Center in NYC. We talk about her CDs “The Mosaic Project” and “Mosaic Project: Love and Soul” and how she developed her ideas for both projects.
Learn more at:
www.terrilynecarringnton.com
Our Business Extra this week features COO and owner of Vision Advertising Julia Becker Collins.
In early 2021 Julia was featured for an article in the Worcester Business Journal, 'Small Business Relief Must Focus on Small Business'. With over a year of the pandemic in our rear view mirror Julia and host Scott M. Graves explore what went wrong with business assistance.
How do we define small business? Did the pandemic simply exacerbate issues in our business community and society that were already present? How could we do better by each other and what are the consequences to our communities when we get it wrong?
And don't fear....we spoke a lot about solutions some of which are currently in play and accessible to small businesses everywhere including SMG's Business Triage.
Find Julia on LinkedIn
Vision Advertising on Facebook
Vision Advertising on Twitter
Vision Advertising on Instagram
Well look at that, it's time for some smooth Jazz here in The Jazz Room.
This week, Host Joan Watson Jones talks with Catherine Russell. She talks about her career that spans the spectrum of music and also her Mom, Singer/Bassist, Carlene Ray.
We also talk about her CD "Harlem On My Mind"
Learn more at catherinerussell.net
This weeks Episode we re-visit our discussion on visionary leadership with executive consultant Alyssa Rizzo.
Alyssa is a profoundly insightful individual who focuses her practice on helping visionary leaders to find success working with both their strengths and recognizing their weaknesses.
Our founder and host found this conversation both insightful and painfully personal simultaneously. A must listen for the initiated.
Here is Alyssa’s LinkedIn profile
Welcome back to The Jazz Room with your host, Joan Watson Jones. This week will feature the conclusion of the two part interview with Rene Marie, who continues telling stories that inspired a selection of songs on her album "Songs of Red".
Learn more about Rene here:
renemarie.com
Find out more about host Joan Watson Jones here:
https://www.joanwatsonjones.com
A re-broadcast from June 1, 2020. We welcomed Anna Wilkins to the 'Are We Here Yet?' virtual pandemic studio to discuss the latest land-management plan being advocated for by her organization.
The North County Land Trust is a steward of open spaces with a focus on the region of North Centtral Massachusetts.
Learn More about the North County Land Trust.
Since our discussion the NCLT has made several significant acquisitions including the Keyes Conservation area in Gardner, MA.
The organization is a strong advocate for intentional and balanced use of our open spaces.
Time to take a load off once again by stopping into "The Jazz Room" for some sweet, sweet jazz and lively conversations with the cats that keep the genre swinging.
This week, Host Joan Watson Jones talks with Rene Marie in the start of this two part interview. Rene shares her life stories that inspired the songs she wrote on her CD "Sound of Red"
Learn more at about Rene Marie:
renemarie.com
Find out more about Joan Watson Jones:
https://www.joanwatsonjones.com
Tyra Penn has taken her experiences as a performing artist and radio personality and utilized them well in advocating for the rural town of Thompson, CT.
Tyra is the Planning and Development Director for this northeastern-most municipality of Connecticut. Historically an agricultural community with several small but robust mill villages, Thompson's challenges are the same as faced by a multiplicity of communities throughout the United States.
Externally challenged by limited or misallocated, top-down resources, by geography (think being in one state but being influenced by another's urban center) and by the differences in socio-economics Thompson also faces internal challenges..... just how and who defines what the next generation will experience in our small rural towns. Who there will benefit from our 'modern' economy?
Tyra's current projects, some of which we touch upon in this episode include a small-mixed use development taking advantage of local assets such as historic property, natural environment and local interest. This project includes an AG-based incubator intentionally designed to take advantage of local human assetts and interest.
We're all working hard to make our communiteis better, more resilient, more responsive to our neighbors needs. Tyra is working on her community and we all hope this podcast episode emboldens you to take the next step for YOUR town.
Find out more about Tyra's other projects
Tyra Penn and Her Army of Snakes new album "The Last Day of August":
https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-last-day-of-august/1545052725
Meet Bassist.Reggie Workman.
He's worked with John Coltrane, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Yousef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders, Miles Davis, Tommy Flannagan and many more.
He's currently working as a composer, arranger and teacher.
Reggie talks about his life since that historic time. We talked and talked and the one interview became two parts.
Learn about Reggie and his work in this video www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWRV-mpH5Xk
This week we are joined by members of the Clinton Greenway.
Frannie Hodges and Chris Ebstein joined us to discuss their experiences stewarding a small slice of what was the Massachusetts Central Railroad.
The railorad began in the 1870's and was de-commisioned by the 1960's. Spans of the former railbed were developed as rail trials as early as the late 1980's in regions west of Clinton and Worcester ocuntry prtions of the trial.
Now in 2021, the Commonwealth of Massachsusetts recognizes the development nad miantinance of rail trials not only as a key resource for atrtracting day trippers, but as a means for daily commuting that reduces the use of automobiles while bringing the scale of communities into a more human footprint.
We are pleased to be joined by Author David Vermette for this episode. David's 2018 Book, 'A Distinct Alien Race: The Untold Story of Franco-Americans' fills a significant need in telling the ethnic, labor and immigrant story of the more than 1 million Franco-Americans who immigrated to the US in the 19th and 20th centuries and their more than 10 million US descendants, 2 million in New England alone.
Read more from David Vermette
This is a truly special episode for M the Media Project founder and AWHY host Scott M. Graves, himself of French-Canadian extraction.
Read Scott M. Graves homage to the french-canadian women of his family.
David explained the immigration story of the Franco-Americans, who began to flood into New England mill-towns at the behest of mill owners after the US Civil War.
Our conversation tied the challenges and the resiliency inherent in the Franco-American story to the greater story of labor in the United States and how many of the tenants of an earlier time have had consequences on the patterns of development in the Unites States up to the present era.
David will be speaking May 6, 2021 at the University of Maine Orono.
Particularly poignant was our discussion of what our own witness to the ‘Great American Experiment in Suburbia’ meant to us personally, the change in language and customs, the gains in education and yet the dislocation of leaving little Canada for parts unknown.
Whether Franco-American yourself or not, you owe yourself the time to read David's book for its universally North American story of resiliency, pride, industrial history… the story of us all.
'On se souvient de toi'
Find David on Twitter
Find David on Facebook
Find David on LinkedIn
So you've made your way back to the Jazz Room, I see. Well, I don't blame you! With a host such as Joan Watson Jones, and all the sweet jazz your ears need, it isn't a surprise.
This week, meet Bassist Reggie Workman. He's worked with John Coltrane, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Yousef Latife, Pharoh Sanders, Miles Davis, Tommy Flannagan and many more. He's currently working as a composer, arranger and teacher.
Reggie talks about his life since that historic time. The conversation was so great, the one interview became two parts.
It's that time again! Welcome back to The Jazz Room, hosted by Joan Watson Jones. In the second part of the Lou Donaldson interview, the conversation revolves around Lou's work with Miles Davis, Jimmy Smith and offers his own observations on the future of Jazz.
Find more on Lou Donaldson:
www.loudonaldson.com
Find more on Joan Watson Jones:
https://www.joanwatsonjones.com
Justin McKennon is a Principal Scientist at Electro Magnetic Applications, Inc.
Justin has previously worked for large defense contractors and served as the Chief Engineer at NTS Lightning Technologies prior to joining EMA.
At EMA, Justin is leading the development and implementation of EMA’s Space Environment and Radiation Effects test facility and 3D simulation tools designed to calculate the effects of space radiation.
Justin is widely regarded for expertise in electromagnetic effects and has helped solve challenging problems related to the effects of lightning (and similar effects) on wind turbines, aircraft, structures, and more. He has been a keynote speaker at a number of industry conferences and is a Designed Engineering Representative for the Federal Aviation Administration in all lightning disciplines.
We spoke with Justin regarding the innovative space his company inhabits and how their emphasis on constant innovation has propelled their growth.
Their concentration on inhabiting a high demanad, low supply scientific space is an excellent example of the type of firm, large or small, that can have a dramatic effect on a community and economic development.
EMA is located in the Berkshire County (MA) city of Pittsfield. This former one-industry town plays host to just such innovative firms like EMA who are increasingly finding strength in a focus in high demand/low supply innovation sectors. The property EMA is located in is focsed itself on innovation, the Berkshire Innovation Center.
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to The Jazz Room with your host Joan Watson Jones. This week in the Jazz Room, you will be introduced to Lou Donaldson. While they did meet at Newport Jazz Festival, Joan and Lou had to get together at Studio 952 in Manhattan to record the interview. In the first part of the interview, Lou talks how he got started in the business and why he took up the Saxophone.
Find out more about Lou Donaldson:
www.loudonaldson.com
Find out more about Joan Watson Jones:
https://www.joanwatsonjones.com
We're joined this evening by Dr. Jaqueline Ashmore to discuss our transition to a clean energy future.
These are heady times given the drastic change in Washington, DC regarding climate resiliency that has come simultaneously with climate change legislation passed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Jacquie offered us detailed perspective on our potential moving forward; where opportunities are and where the work is yet to be done.
Our conversation offers perspective on where opportunities and challenges exist for different regions of Massachusetts and the northeast. We asked the seminal question: Can we build a more equitable economy for all races, genders and socio-economic backgrounds?
We touched upon the work of organizations such as Browning the Green Space and the 51 Project that are working to answer with a wholistic approach.
We also discussed water management in our current state of affairs and it's history. This part of our conversation touched upon nutrient management and how culture and politics has played a role in each of our perspectives on climate change, resiliency and economic factors.
Perhaps most rewarding from our podcast is Jacquie's undying optimism for our future. She is leading by example in this way as we all are required; failure to address our climate degradation could cost us dearly in the decades ahead.
Our guest Gloria Parkinson started off in farmland preservation the way so many do….unintentionally. She ties her desire for making her muse Rauscher Farm an accessible and immersive experience to the work she performs as trustee to the Clinton Library.
Gloria got her start in the theatre. With the help of numerous neighbors in this New England mill town they embarked on a grassroots campaign nearly fifteen years ago that culminated in a majority of Clintonians voting to preserve the 60+ acres of Rauscher Farm from the development of single family homes.
Take note. Not only did they do this the ‘old-fashioned way’ through democratic means. They did so by articulating the potential economics that come with suburban sprawl: A single-family home development requiring much in new infrastructure that will never be able to pay for said infrastructure.
About Clinton, MA
What was saved? Habitat in transition. the remnants of a farm and way of life that was THE way of life in New England not so long ago. A Dairy that was operational until very recently.
Their conservation work since designation as a conservation land has included habitat improvement, research and tacking major issues of physical and intellectual accessibility. Some of this means lots of hands and knees, digging out invasive species….and asking important questions with rigor.
Learn from our episode what it takes to accomplish a similar long-term project in your community. What it really takes to go the long game and why it can be one of the most remarkable and meaningful things you can do with your time.
Welcome once again to The Jazz Room with Host Joan Watson Jones. This week is part 2 of the Rufus Reid performance and interview. In this second part, Rufus tells us about his mentor and boss Band Leader Eddie Harris.
Learn more about Rufus:
http://rufusreid.com/
Find more about Joan Watson Jones:
https://www.joanwatsonjones.com
Meet Bassist/Composer/ Educator Rufus Reid. This week in the Jazz Room, Host Joan Watson Jones talks with Rufus about how they met at Jazz Congress at the Lincoln Center in NYC. In part 1 of our interview he explains his term ”Every Song is a playground”.
Lisa Drexhage is Senior Project Manager for the Worcester Business Development Corp. In her capacity there she leads the effort to capitalize on many of the assets that Worcester has to offer. The work she is doing is playing its role in transforming the physical spaces in which people inhabit in this burgeoning redefinition of one of New England's significant cities.
Lisa is leading the effort to develop the Worcester Idea Lab, a co-working environment included in a mixed-use development (the kind we love to boost here at SMG) in the former headuarters of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
Find Worcester Idea Lab
Along with the recent addition of the JMAC Center (Jean McDonough Arts Center) this central downtown property is alive with activity. WBDC is also instrumental in the success Worcester has had in developing a critical mass of life science activity, most recently in their on-going development of the Reactory currently being developed on the site of the former Worcester State Hospital.
Through our discussion we learned Lisa has a deep respect for the neighborhoods of the city. Her work reflects her dedication to addressing economic development that is responsive to the needs of local people and that draws people and their culture out onto the street.
This is reflected in the way she manages projects and in her participation in efforts such as Pow Wow Worcester. This volunteer efforts brings artists from around the world to town to work with local neighborhoods on contemporary, urban art.
She is a true steward who allows her work to be informed by the past. We discussed exactly where history falls in Lisa's personal perspective and how it informs her work.
Listen to our episode if you believe in Worcester. Listen if you believe in progressive urban development. Listen if you believe in your own neighborhood and yearn for new ideas. Listen. Listen.
Find Lisa on LinkedIn
Find Lisa on Instagram
Ann Ormond is Director of Business, Arts & Cultural Development for the town of Andover, MA.
She is no stranger to the intersection of art and commerce, having completed a successful tenure in the seacoast community of Newburyport, MA for nearly two decades. While there Ann played an essential role in the development of economic development and cultural commerce which played a major role in uplifting that coastal and industrial community.
Our discussion focused on the importance cultural business plays in the redevelopment and re-definition of communities regardless of socio-economics or other factors. We also discussed steps being taken by Andover to meet their goals, examples to other communities and economic development professionals.
Find Ann on LinkedIn
Find Ann on Instagram
The challenge in Andover is clear: to maintain the community's wealth and that which makes the community attractive to residential and commercial development. A wealthy community just north of Boston, Andover's real challenge is retaining and growing the number of young families within its borders. Wealthy communities in the region like Andover are increasingly unaffordable for young professionals. This community is utlizing a variety of smart and progressive means to ensure it is a vibrant, healthy commnunty for generations to come.
Add to that a mandate to enrich the community and downtown development through the arts and cultural (more broadly creative class) businesses that will develop and thrive there. Andover takes the development of cultural business seriously.
Welcome back to the Jazz Room hosted by Joan Watson Jones. On the second part of the interview with Kevin Eubanks, Joan and Kevin talk about his accomplishments with workshops for younger generations.
This week we're all things Worcester speaking with Grant Welker of the Worcester Business Journal.
Grant Welker joined us in virtual studio this week. He is the News Editor for the Worcester Business Journal.
Our conversation focused on a number of current topics.
Chris Gibbons has spent 35 years in the trenches implementing economic development programs that are meaningful and based in scientific data.
The concept of Economic Gardening is based in data-driven work that within many municipal organizations is still considered radical. Base your efforts in entrepreneurial support; focus on marketable, fast-growing and innovative firms delivering high demand, low supply products and services.
The work blends a focus on stage 2 companies and entrepreneurial support informed by the science of complex adaptive systems (Santa Fe Institute).
In their own words
“Adding sophisticated, corporate level tools to these foundational principles and then working out the root problems that prevented companies from growing, Economic Gardening started producing amazing results. The job base in Littleton grew from 15,000 to 30,000 without recruiting a single company.”
Find the National Center for Economic Gardening
We enjoyed a great conversation with founder Chris Gibbons on the work of economic gardening, where the institute is going and how our communities benefit when they focus on the right combination of business fundamentals and a look from within for the time, talent and treasure to transform our communities.
Joining Host Joan Watson Jones this week in The Jazz Room is the talented Kevin Eubanks. During their time in this first part, they discuss their meeting at the Jazz Congress, Kevin's time on the Jay Leno Show, and a mutual friend.
Find more from Kevin:
kevineubanks.com
Find more from Joan:
www.joanwatsonjones.com
www.facebook.com/joan.watsonjones
Sarah Clarke & Brian Chaffee released 'Undertoe' digitally in 2020. Their first duo release together, they are no strangers to working together collaboratively.
Both attended local schools together and came up playing in the local school band and music programs.
Years later the two have worked in various regional venues and in a number of top regional bands.
Their release captures their ability to be soulful while also being intentional in their craftsmanship and arranging.
Whether intentional or not, many tracks capture the mood of our times. Recognize the loss but take heart in the ability to express; to heal. We’re sure you'll find something on this release that speak to you.
Find More on Brian Chaffee Music
The pandemic's economic repercussions will be with us for some time to come. It will be of utmost importance to many of us in the entrepreneurial and industry spheres to leverage all potential assistance to our businesses that we can muster.
Not just from a triage standpoint; for many of us opportunity will result from the latent business activity likely to occur as the public space opens again.
In this episode we spoke with Kevin regarding what the MA Office of Business Development (MOBD) does for its constituents. You'll learn how you can leverage their office for your enterprise.
We also touched upon interesting data regarding industry in Massachusetts and industries that are consistently re-locating to the Commonwealth. You may find some surprises.
Getting Started: MA Office of Business Development
Learning more: EDIP Program
Learning More: REDO Program
Kevin J. Kuros has been engaged in business development for much of his 30-year professional career. For the past two years, Kuros has been the Central MA Regional Director for the MA Office of Business Development, the Baker Polito Administration’s economic development agency.
Prior to joining MOBD, Kuros spent eight years in the Massachusetts Legislature as the State Representative for the 8th Worcester District, consisting of the towns of Bellingham, Blackstone, Millville, and Uxbridge. As a legislator, his committee assignments included: the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies (8 years), the Joint Committee on Municipalities and Regional Government (6 years), the House Committee on Technology and Intergovernmental Relations (2 years), and the House Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets (2 years).
Prior to being elected to the Legislature, Kuros spent nearly 20 years in the private sector as a branch manager for an information technology and management consulting firm. In that role he had full operational responsibility for the business development and management of the Massachusetts branch of the firm. This experience provided him with wide-ranging industry exposure, with clients in the manufacturing, education, health care, retail, apparel, entertainment, and non-profit industries. The firm was focused on helping its clients sustain and grow their businesses through process improvement and the better utilization of information technology.
Kuros holds a bachelor’s degree in Quantitative Business Analysis from Penn State University. He, his wife Linda, their sons Alex and Andy, and their three dogs live in Uxbridge.
In Part 2, Host Joan Watson Jones continue the conversation with Michael Feinstein at the Newport Jazz Festival. He tells of the lengths he went to salvage musical artifacts and find a home for them in the Great American Songbook Archive and Museum in Carmel, Indiana. He also talks about the Michael Feinstein Foundation. Its mission is to fund this Archive and Museum and bring greater attention to our Made in America Music.
Learn more about this organization at
www.michaelfeinstein.com
Checkout more from Joan Watson Jones:
www.joanwatsonjones.com
www.facebook.com/joan.watsonjones
For Episode 42 we spoke with Music Educator Aaron Bush. In 2017 Bush succeeded long-time Foxborough Music Director Steve Massey. We discussed what a transition is like when you transition into a highly successful program. Also, the importance of building the right culture (resonating in every industry & discipline), sustianing education during a pandemic and how the relationship between Jazz at Lincoln Center's Essentially Ellington program, lead by Wynton Marsalis, and FHS has evolved. Join us!
Ricky Riccardi is the Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong House Museum and author of What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years. He runs the online blog, “The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong,” at dippermouth.blogspot.com and has given lectures on Armstrong at venues around the world, including the Institute of Jazz Studies, the Satchmo Summerfest, the Bristol International Jazz and Blues Festival and the Monterey Jazz Festival. He teaches the “Music of Louis Armstrong” graduate course at Queens College, in addition to hosting various listening parties at Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has recently co-produced Satchmo at Symphony Hall 65th Anniversary: The Complete Concert for Universal Music and Columbia and RCA Victor Live Recordings of Louis Armstrong and the All Stars for Mosaic Records. He is also a jazz pianist based out of Toms River, NJ and received his Master’s in Jazz History and Research from Rutgers University.
Find Ricky on Facebook
His most recent book on Pops, Heart Full of Rythm: The Big Band years of Louis Armstrong is the subject of much of tonights conversation.
A transition was occurring from late ’20’s vice and opulence, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Lost Generation, Volstead Act violence to Depression, Blues, Exoticism, Harlem Renaissance, and just on the verge on a New Deal, in plays Louis Armstrong onto a Stage in late ’20’s New York City.
Ricky took from the top for us describing it wonderful detail who became what we know as ‘Pops’. The Louis Armstrong who bestowed so much Love and soulfullness on generations to follow.
In this, Part One, of this feature Host Joan Watson Jones talks with Michael Feinstein about his upcoming performance that evening and about the musicians who are with him. He tells us about the Great American Songbook and his efforts to preserve the music that has shaped American music for over a century.
Find more from Joan Watson Jones:
www.joanwatsonjones.com
www.facebook.com/joan.watsonjones
Get more info on Michael's website:
www.michaelfeinstein.com
Concluding Host Scott M. Graves & Producer Cameron McLeod's conversation from a few weeks prior, our hosts continue talking with Victoria Pardo.
Victoria Pardo is a Columbia educated historic preservationist. Her expertise and her passion for her work take her to many places on the map. She is exploring entrepreneurship with ‘Food & Architecture’,a travel and folkways blog and set of services for the public.
Victoria's Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/victoriapardo4/
Victoria's Blog:
https://foodandarchitecture.com/
In Part 2 of this feature, Eddie tells us about the many musicians he has collaborated with through the years to make his music not just Latin and not just Jazz but his own brand and style. He also shares stories about his performances across the globe.
JOAN WATSON-JONES is a singer, lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, and host and producer of The Jazz Room, an online radio program where she plays music and interviews some of the top names in jazz. On CHOICES, her fourth album, she presents a program of her original songs with music and lyrics penned by Watson-Jones, plus two standards.
Learn more about Eddie Palmieri:
www.palmierimusic.com
Find Joan Watson-Jones here:
www.joanwatsonjones.com
www.facebook.com/joan.watsonjones
Born in Hartland, Wisconsin, Melanie Howell-Brooks currently lives in Canton, MA and performs throughout the New England area. Educated at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory which brought this midwestern native to our shores.
We spoke at length about her main voice of baritone saxophone and bass clarinet, two instruments we find choice and not brought to the spotlight enough.
Mrs. Brooks is an active musician in the Boston area and is a member of the Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra, as well as smaller permutations of that group – Oddsong and the Jazz Composers Alliance Saxophone Quartet. She also performs with Mehmet Ali Sanlikol’s large jazz ensemble, Whatsnext?, the John Allmark Orchestra, and has formed her own group, The Phoenix Fire Collective. Other performance groups include appearances with the BT/ALC Big Band, as well as the Fernando Huergo Big Band. She has been a member of the Beantown Swing Orchestra since its inception in 2006, though currently in more of a mentorship role for other players.
Other more recent notable performances include recording with David Liebman under the direction of Ken Schaphorst with Mr. Sanlikol’s band, Whatsnext? as well as a Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra performance with special guests, Jerry Bergonzi, Marshall Gilkes, and Lewis Porter. She has also played in the backing bands for The Temptations/Four Tops as well as with Johnny Mathis, performed with Symphony New Hampshire, and has been a pit orchestra musician with the North Shore Music Theatre. She has also performed and toured with Whatsnext? on baritone sax and bass clarinet performing alongside David Liebman and Tiger Okoshi. Mrs. Brooks toured Turkey and Cyprus and played at the Istanbul Jazz Festival in 2017 along with Mr. Okoshi and Whatsnext?. In 2016 she had the honor of performing with Aretha Franklin in her band when she came to Boston. That year she also celebrated the life of David Bowie with a concert led by Russ Gershon of the Either/Orchestra on baritone sax, flute, and bass clarinet performing all of his last recording, Blackstar.
Melanie in her own words But more than that, I'm also a software engineer, someone who loves to make stuff, and a huge proponent of STEAM in schools, given my background in music education, engineering, and the love of putting things together.
I'm also a polyglot - I've been studying Japanese for over 20 years now, though still consider myself only an Intermediate level speaker, but I also picked up Turkish - enough to use while on tour in Turkey to chat with locals.
We hope you enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with musician and friend Melanie Howell Brooks.
What is the state of mental health care in our region right now?
What's the status of care delivery in a pandemic? What stigmas do people experience that worsen their issue? How does culture play a role in a person's capability to heal or have access to care?
These were the questions for our guest this week, a veteran mental health professional for decades in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
We discussed what it means to bring dignity and compassion to those suffering from, in many cases, a ponoply of mental health, addiction and personal issues that manifest themsleves into an overwhelming downward spiral.
They are our friends and family. Socio-economics, race, gender, creed, none alleviates the risk of a mental health episode. And all wo come to a place like the Dana Day-treatment program exhibit a critical need for themselves and everyone around them.
Morgan Ban-Draoi, MA, CAGS, LMHC, LADC1
Morgan is Program Manager for the Dana Day-Treatment Program at the Quabbin Retreat in Petersham. Morgan has served as Clinical Supervisor for bereavement staff at Home & Hospice Care of Rhode Island, and more recently, for the Center for Human Development in Greenfield. Morgan received her Master’s Degree in Holistic Counseling and Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Mental Health from Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island and has been a licensed mental health clinician in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts since 2010. Morgan is also a Licensed Drug and Alcohol Counselor (LADC) through the Massachusetts Department of Health, Bureau of Substance Abuse Treatment.
Quabbin Retreat Website:
https://www.heywood.org/services/addiction-medicine
We sat down for a conversation with Strong Towns Founder Chuck Marohn.
Strong Towns message of bottom up and incremental approach to re-building our communities is catching like wildfire throughout the United States. The techniques they advocate for, seen by many as the antidote to our post-war grand experiment in suburbanization point to a more financially stable, opportunity-rich future….if we make it happen through insisting we can do better by each other.
Our conversaiton focused on economic conditions facing us including ultra-capitalism, the problem of top-down infrastrucure solutions and the challenges business has experienced with pandemic aid.
Listen to Strong Towns Podcasts
About Charles Marohn – known as “Chuck” to friends and colleagues – is a Professional Engineer (PE) licensed in the State of Minnesota and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). Chuck is the founder and president of Strong Towns. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Technology and a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute.
He is the author of Thoughts on Building Strong Towns (Volume 1) and A World Class Transportation System as well as the host of the Strong Towns Podcast and a primary writer for Strong Towns’ web content. He has spoken in dozens of towns and cities across North America, and speaks regularly for diverse audiences and venues.
Chuck grew up on a small farm in Central Minnesota. The oldest of three sons of two elementary school teachers, he graduated from Brainerd High School in 1991. Chuck joined the Minnesota National Guard on his 17th birthday during his junior year of high school and served for nine years. Besides being passionate about building a stronger America, he loves playing music, is an obsessive reader and religiously follows his favorite team, the Minnesota Twins. Chuck and his wife live with their two daughters and two Samoyeds just north of Baxter, Minnesota.
Learn more about the work of Strong Towns at StrongTowns.org.
Welcome to the Jazz Room! The Are We Here Yet? podcast is ecstatic to present Joan Watson Jones' show!
She has a spirited conversation with Latin Jazz Legend Eddie Palmieri. In Part One, of this feature he tells about his early beginnings and about his brother Charlie Palmieri getting him started in music. He also tells us who were his major influences in Jazz.
Joan Watson Jones Website:
https://www.joanwatsonjones.com
Eddie's Website:
www.palmierimusic.com
Victoria Pardo is a Columbia educated historic preservationist. Her expertise and her passion for her work take her to many places on the map. She is exploring entrepreneurship with ‘Food & Architecture’,a travel and folkways blog and set of services for the public.
In this episode we spoke about the importance of food and architecture in connecting us with our past. It is also important in describing who we are and what is important to us as a society. Our folkways connect us to family. In Victoria’s own words:
‘My most vivid childhood memories center around the kitchen: smells of tender pork shoulder simmering for hours in a savory tomato sauce, and most notably, shoving out my tiny fingers to retrieve a piece of Wonder Bread my mother had dipped into it. My mother made meals from a wide array of cultures. She centers her life around food, and as a result, so do I. She not only instilled in me a passion for food and family, but also a tireless work ethic.’
Victoria learned first-hand growing up the difference between ‘slow’ food and the corporate fast-food system. ‘As I grew older and started learning about the clash of fast-food corporations and traditional food supply methods, I questioned this dilemma more often. I had even seen my mother suffer first hand under their employ. These experiences led me to value and learn more about cultures that prioritize sustainable, locally, grown produce.’
Find Victoria on instagram
Our discussion also touched upon the social and economic ramifications currently in play and shown in our food sector.
As an entrepreneur, we appreciate the work Victoria is doing to bring together her experience across disciplines to further knowledge of ‘the integration between food and sustainable development in order to find attainable solutions to mitigate hunger.’
Victoria's Blog:
https://foodandarchitecture.com
Our discussion with Erin Kiewel was spirited the way my conversations with her have always been. She gets right to the point and our current climate both locally and abroad offered us no shortage of issues to talk about. She is outwardly soulfull in everything she says and does, which is why we are drawn to talking with her.
She makes a very good point: Should we choose to continue with an economy that has largely cast off a large portion of our citzens? What then? With that economy comes great waste of not only talent but of treasure.
Her work in both textiles and in silversmithing draws forth a key question: Could a return to craft such as she practices re-wire our minds to think about our existance in a wholistic and more compassionate manner?
You'll find more from Eric on her instagram feed.
Erin holds dual degrees from MassArt Boston where she double majored in metalworking and textiles.
Her work is carrying on a silversmithing tradition that goes back generations in her hometown of Gardner, MA.
Erin's Book recommendation: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimerer
Erin worked for AmeriCorp, biked across the Unites States and worked in Big Bend Nat'l Park.
Our party was crashed by M the Media Project's newest member Bret Herholz, the ringleader for the Mental Suppository podcast. What a discussion we all had. It is a must listen.
Mental Suppository FaceBook
Our season II Opener: We talk Modern Music Industry and craftsmanship; how do we measure success in the modern era with the band ‘Western Education’.
In Episode #18 'Reconnect to Your Humanity' we discuss the physical and spiritual return to the land, to a sense of rurality and of knowledge and to our humanity with Wesleyan student Levi Baruch.
Levi Baruch is a 20 year old student, writer, and multidisciplinary artist. He is far from home now, studying landscape architecture and fine art cartography in Los Angeles. As briefly discussed, upcoming projects include research on the Swift River Valley and Quabbin reservoir as a framework to explore the weaponization of water against communities that threaten the status quo. Interview, folklore, photography, and historical ephemera will assist in showing these stories.
Levi is looking forward to a return to his home in the woods of Orange, Massachusetts.
If you would like to start a conversation please reach out at levihbaruch@gmail.com
A link to the YouTube channel, The Cardboard Method: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9SE8RjyTq3
https://makinglovewhilefarming.org Levi’s parents recently published a book on their experiences farming in Western Mass.
Levi's recent article in the Greenfield Recorder https://www.recorder.com/my-turn-baruch-EARTH-DAY-SATURDAY-34006251
We bring you part II of Episode #33, our interview with 2020 US National Beat Poet Laureate, the pioneer valley’s own Paul Richmond.
In Part II of our discussion with public educator Ramona Piretti the focus of our conversation shifts to issues of race and class from her perspective both in her community today and vignettes of what it was like to grow up in a small New England town as an Asian American. This and more in Part II.
We round out season 1 with Episode #33 where we spoke with 2020 US National Beat Poet Laureate, the pioneer valley’s own Paul Richmond.
Episode #32 'Brainscapes' we spoke with visual artist Beth Barry. Beth grew up in New Bedford, MA and since the early 1980's has been a part of the art scene in New York. Her dual career includes work as a psychotherapist and visual artist.
We joined long-time friend and host Scott Graves's school mate Ramona Piretti for Episode #31. Ramona teaches innovative literature classes at Conard High School in West Hartford, CT. Her class featuring women's literature is ground-breaking for it's use of women writers who require more recognition in mainstream classrooms, which can be said for the voices of many of her students as well.
Episode #30 'Making Innovation Scott & Cam interview SMG's new partners Angela and Randal Meraki, owners of The Worcshop. Recently this successful industrial makerspace acquired a new complex, helping them to begin their next phase of realizing new live/work and zero waste export vision while becoming the east coast's largest makerspace and business incubator.
Episode #29 we spoke with Mitch Tyson. Mitch has spent a career being curious. Perhaps his biggest contribution has been his capability to bridge the gaps between engineers, technologists, politicians and consumers.
Mitch Tyson LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitch-tyson-1b127
We discuss the challenges of our current way of life and how history, spirituality, economics and art come into play. We also talk a healthy dose of the state of the music industry with author, educator and artist Peter Spellman.
Episode #27 is our fall feature! Nothing makes us prouder than to present farmers and other members of the agribusiness community. Here we interviewed William Grote of New Salem (MA) Cider.