February 17-23, 2005

artpicks

Inside Man

Reading

People don't always go looking for jazz, which is why it's a good thing a guy like George Wein came along. He founded the Boston jazz club Storyville, then the Newport Jazz Festival in 1954, and went on to a life of activist marching, concert promoting and hobnobbing with everybody from Dizzy Gillespie to Jimmy Carter. His legacy of staging great music (Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington) at enormous festivals (New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Kool Jazz Festival, Grande Parade du Jazz, Mellon Jazz Festival, Newport Folk Festival) is recounted in his landmark 2003 autobiography, Myself Among Others: A Life in Music, co-written by CP's own jazz critic superstar Nate Chinen. Both will be on hand for a reading and conversation at the Kelly Writers House, with musical accompaniment from Penn Jazz.

George Wein and Nate Chinen, Sun., Feb. 20, 6:30 p.m., free, Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, 215-573-WRIT.

—Patrick Rapa