Jazz for Peace provides Empowerment Grants, sustainable funding and advocacy for non-profits and all outstanding causes worldwide for over a decade to enable them to be more productive and successful.

#6 scene" width="300" height="169" />Date: September 27, 2016
Venue: WeWork Wall Street (NY)

Review by Dawoud Kringle

The MFM workshop “Make Music Your Business” #6 with jazz musician, activist and founder of the social justice non-profit organization Jazz For Peace (JFP) Rick DellaRatta was another informative episode in the MFM story.

After MFM founder Sohrab Saadat Ladjavardi opened the meeting with a brief description of MFM’s agenda. Sohrab introduced DellaRatta. He’d learned of DellaRatta from an article he’d written in Local 802’s Allegro magazine . The article focused on his adventurous musical trip to Lahore, Pakistan to promote child literacy that was promoted throughout JFP.

DellaRatta began by speaking about the aforementioned trip to Pakistan which was hosted by a Christian charity organization. During his stay he was under constant threat of violence.

In between, Sohrab spoke how open and free the Jazz tradition is, as opposed to the classical music of other societies (Europe, India, Persia, Japan,  etc.), and how this element of jazz was well suited to the cross-cultural projects JFP is involved with.

Some years back, DellaRotta recited a poem he’d written at the Savannah Jazz festival. He set the poem to music and ended up bringing this to several places throughout the world. Eventually he established the JFP foundation. As time went on, JFP has received endorsements from the likes of President Barak Obama, and Sen. John McCain.

Read more here: http://musiciansformusicians.org/workshop/mfm-workshop-6-make-music-your-business-w-rick-dellaratta-justice-for-peace/