Downtown Dreams & A Call to Stay Creative

International Jazz Day always feels like a reset button. Founded by Herbie Hancock and celebrated around the world each year, it reminds us that this music, our music, travels across borders, lifts spirits, and tells the truth in ways nothing else can. This year’s global celebration centered in Chicago, a city that knows a thing or two about groove and grit, felt especially meaningful.

Pat and I continued our own celebration a little closer to home, on Friday, by taking the ferry out to Governor’s Island to join a gathering of arts supporters hosted by the Doris Duke Foundation. There’s something about being surrounded by people who believe in the power of the arts that just recharges you. After our visit to the island we moved to E. 4th Street. We loved connecting with Patricia McGregor, the Artistic Director at New York Theatre Workshop who will be attending the International Black Theatre Festival in Winston Salem where she will be able to see Cross That River. We also were celebrating La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, an institution that has helped shape the downtown theater scene for generations.

And speaking of downtown, E. 4th Street is still holding it down as one of the most vibrant arts corridors in Manhattan. Years ago, that community made a collective decision: the arts would live there, breathe there, and grow there. And it’s still going strong. That kind of commitment doesn’t just happen, it’s built, protected, and passed forward.

One of the highlights of the day was catching up with actor and writer Kathryn Grody. Her one-woman show, (which she wrote) The Unexpected 3rd, is now running through June 14. It is a gem, smart, offbeat, and laugh-out-loud funny. If you’ve ever seen her Instagram series with her husband Mandy Patinkin, you already know the flavor, quirky, honest, and deeply human. If not, you’re missing out on something quietly brilliant.

Now I’m heading off to Pennsylvania, time to see my father, get my hands a little dirty with some farm work, and reconnect with friends and musicians in Pittsburgh. There’s something grounding about stepping away, even briefly, and returning to where things are simple and real.

Before I go, happy early birthdays this week to our dear friends Cindy Hsu and Debbie Ratliff-Woodberry. We celebrate you both.

I’ll be honest, I’ve been keeping my distance from the news lately. Like many of you, I find it can disrupt the creative flow. I still check in, once a day, usually midday, but I’ve learned that too much, especially at night, can bring a kind of anxiety that lingers. What about you? How are you navigating it?

It can feel like the headlines are stuck on repeat—conflict, fear, division. But the arts offer us another frequency. A place to reflect, to feel, to connect with something deeper.

So here’s the invitation: let’s stay rooted in that. Go hear live music. Sit in a theater. Walk through a museum. Support the artists who are doing the work of lifting us all.

And let’s keep showing up—for creativity, for community, and for each other.

Happy May.

April 19 - The Chart House gala (HAD)

April 23 - Downtown NYC Jazz Festival, NYC (HAD)April 24 - Sunset Center, Poetry of Jazz, Carmel, CA

April 25 & 26 - SF Jazz, CA, Poetry of Jazz (Nat’l Poetry Month)

July 3 - 12 - Umbria Jazz Festival, IT (HAD)

July 17-19 - Birdland Jazz Club, NYC (HAD)

July 31 & Aug 1 - Int’l Black Theater Fest., Winston Salem, NC -

Cross That River

Sept 5 - Sonoma Jazz Society, CA (POJ)

Sept 11 - Piedmont Piano, Oakland, CA (POJ)

Oct 17 - Queens Theater, NY (POJ)

Dec 12 - Pinecrest Gardens, FL, (Nat King Cole XMAS)

Dec 21-27 - Half Note Jazz Club, Athens, Greece, (Nat King Cole XMAS)

Allan’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.