Jazz is being celebrated in the White House, the New York Times informed us yesterday, as they reported on the 150 or so high school jazz students invited to the White House by Michelle Obama for a program called Jazz Studio:

It was not the full-force, let-a-thousand-saxophones-bloom, this-is-our-music festival that some might have wished from a White House where the language of jazz seems to have a place, at least in the president’s iPod. But it was a good start.

It is a great start, and fitting as it seems if everyone in New York City is in a jazzy mood lately. Hot House magazine (pictured at right) has our Jazz in July Summer Festival on their mind, highlighting Peter Washington’s two appearances in the festival on Jul 23 and Jul 27. Washington, “perhaps the most recorded bassist of his generation,” with roles in “two of the most important and highly praised jazz trios of the last 20 years,” wrote All About Jazz, will play with over a dozen musicians on two nights, honoring the music of jazz greats Oscar Peterson and Gerry Mulligan.

“Jazz may be,” Michelle Obama said, “America’s greatest gift to the world” and “there is no better example of democracy than a jazz ensemble.”

[Jazz in July Summer Festival July 20-30, 2009]

Previously: