Since late 2015, I have been attending the Elm Street Jazz Workshop, meeting Friday mornings at Lehigh Valley Active Life.
Allan Meyerson has been leading this workshop for many years. The first Friday of each month is dedicated to jazz improvisation, while the rest of the rehearsals are for big band/stage band charts. Attendees include a range of capabilities from serious amateurs to working professionals.
Allan has inspired me to work much harder developing technical skill and jazz improvisation capability on all of my instruments, resulting in much more proficiency on soprano, alto and tenor saxophone, clarinet and flute. And it's tremendous fun.
I'm writing this in October 2020. While we can't meet together during the Covid-19, I continue to practice with the iReal Pro application as a backup band. Yeah, it's not the same. More on my efforts on my Jazz Improv page.
2020 and the Lehigh Valley Active Life center is closed. No workshops. But Ron DeGrandis composes and offers "I Remember When" Allan Meyerson organizes the workshop to record this new work. Each musician recorded to a click track and provided audio and video to Allan. Finished project was posted to YouTube on November 27, 2020. Many thanks to Ron, Allan and all of the workshop members who contributed to this!