Something dawned on me after our most recent presentation by Jazz Innovation. It's one of those things after-the-fact that I wish I would have spoke to and will be sure to the next time. It's this: On the one hand, presenting on the topic of diversity, it would be a little disconcerting to present with a group composed entirely of say, middle-aged white guys, thus forcing me to chose the personnel of my quartet based on certain criteria so as to be diverse.
While this is true, it's also true that the people I assembled for the presentation are people I perform music with regularly. People I choose because of their talent and what they bring to the group. It just so happens, fortunately for this project, we are "classically" diverse - black/white, men/women, baby boomers/millennials, urban/rural upbringings, formally trained/informally trained. This group was a "natural" one, not "manufactured" - organically diverse. This may be one of the inherent benefits of the music business as from my experience, musicians span the full range of humanity. It's diverse by nature. Thank goodness, I can't image it any other way.
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