Top:International Jazz Day concert; left, dancing to Zerui; right, Jason Palmer and The Floorlords; Bottom: BPS students leaving Newport Jazz Festival

Here are some highlights of JazzBoston's activities in 2014:

• We continued our advocacy campaign to get jazz on the Mayoral agenda. Following up on our testimony at the City-Wide Town Hall Meeting after Marty Walsh's election, we testified at the Mayor's January Arts and Culture Public Hearing and submitted a written statement emphasizing the ways jazz can help address the city's top priorities. We also suggested steps to make it easier for jazz clubs to open and survive and to raise Boston's profile as a great jazz city. In April we were formally requested to testify before the City Council's Arts and Culture Committee. You can read that testimony here.
  
  
• We continued our advocacy campaign to get jazz on the Mayoral agenda. Following up on our testimony at the City-Wide Town Hall Meeting after Marty Walsh's election, we testified at the Mayor's January Arts and Culture Public Hearing and submitted a written statement emphasizing the ways jazz can help address the city's top priorities. We also suggested steps to make it easier for jazz clubs to open and survive and to raise Boston's profile as a great jazz city. In April we were formally requested to testify before the City Council's Arts and Culture Committee. You can read that testimony here
  
  
• We focused Jazz Week '14, our 8th annual celebration of the music, on the power of jazz to bridge racial and cultural divides, and produced Boston's first International Jazz Day concert, a free, 4-hour festivity that brought together musicians and music lovers from Boston's diverse communities and had people dancing in the aisles of historic Emmanuel Church (upper left and right photos above).
  
  
• In another historic moment for jazz in Boston, we brought live jazz to the City Council Chamber for the first time ever with a quintet that played the moving finale of Aardvark Jazz Orchestra director Mark Sumner Harvey's composition, "No Walls." Click here to read the Council's resolution recognizing International Jazz Day in Boston and congratulating JazzBoston on our efforts to increase awareness of the importance of jazz music in our city's cultural heritage and daily life.
  
  
• We connected the Newport Festivals Foundation and Natixis Global Asset Management with the Arts Department of the Boston Public Schools in a partnership that provided 100+ BPS students with a free field trip to the Newport Jazz Festival, where they were welcomed by George Wein and engaged in a lively meet-and-greet with festival artists. We won't forget the students' happy faces as they headed to the busses for their trip home (lower photo above). Read the Natixis press release about the trip here.
  
  
• We gained strong supporters in the Boston City Council and the State House, among them Councilors Michele Wu, Ayanna Pressley, Tito Jackson, and Charles Yancey, Representatives Byron Rushing and Dan Cullinane, and Senator Linda Dorcena Forry. Click here to see a 2-1/2 minute video where they talk about the importance of jazz and JazzBoston to our city.

And here's our wish list for 2015:

• Launch a new Riffs & Raps program, "Jazz & Ice Cream," in partnership with Mel King, Boston's revered community activist. A long-time dream of King's, the program would bring together young people and community elders for interactive jazz presentations in safe, alcohol-free venues in underserved neighborhoods. It would make a continuous circuit of the venues, selected by King, throughout the year. Ice cream and healthy refreshments would be donated.
  
  
• Make this the year that support for jazz is institutionalized in Boston's government and business communities. All that's needed is for a few leaders to recognize what the power and pleasure of jazz can do, from helping to keep young people on the path to becoming engaged, responsible citizens to shaking Boston's sedate image so that it becomes known as a place where innovation thrives and creative professionals want to live.
  
  
• Reach many, many more of the 300,000 jazz fans estimated to live in the Greater Boston area, and draw them into clubs and other venues where they can feel the amazing power, freedom, and beauty of the music live.
  
  
• Partner with the city and state to brand Boston as one of the world's great jazz cities.
  

Please give as generously as you can. We'll thank you in all the usual ways, but your most meaningful thanks will come from the music, the musicians, and the look on the faces of young people and all the others who are discovering jazz for the first time. And it will come from the pride you feel knowing that you live in a great jazz city...and that others know it too.

Here's how to donate or become a member or renew: Go to the JazzBoston website, click on "Join Us," follow the prompts and make your donation via PayPal. Or, if you prefer, send a check to Don Carlson, Treasurer, JazzBoston, 393 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02115.

Thank you, and warm wishes from all of us at JazzBoston for a music-filled holiday season!

JazzBoston is a tax-exempt organization, qualified under section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Your donation is tax deductible as provided under the Code.

Lavay Smith, Laszlo Gardony, and Sammy Figueroa.

If you're a JazzBoston member, write to newsletter@jazzboston.org now to enter a drawing for free tickets to any of the events listed below, and please note which shows and dates you're interested in. You must be a JazzBoston member to be eligible to win.

Become a JazzBoston member now. Annual memberships begin as low as $20.

The Regattabar is offering a pair of tickets to each of the following shows:

Steven Feifke, January 17, 8 pm

Laszlo Gardony Quartet, January 22, 8 pm

Musaner, January 29, 8 pm

Bruce Katz, January 30, 8 pm

Atlas Soul, January 31, 8 pm

Roomful of Blues, February 6, 10 pm

Chris Potter's Underground - 10pm

Scullers is offering tickets to the following shows:

Lavay Smith, January 2, 10 pm (2 pairs)

Sammy Figueroa and his Latin Jazz All Stars, January 17, 10 pm (1 pair)

Mattapan is on the rise, as promised by the title of the pair of statues, "Rise," that mark Mattapan Square as a gateway to Boston. Long-time dreams have begun to come true. Two years ago the ribbon was cut for the new Mattapan Community Health Center, and in November the Mattapan Teen Center opened its doors.

A few months ago JazzBoston was asked to assist in realizing another dream - revitalizing Mattapan Square's cultural scene by bringing jazz back to the Square. Partnering with Mattapan's state and local elected representatives, its civic and business leaders, and veterans organizations, we'll help take the first step this February with a celebration of Mattapan's cultural diversity, the historic William E. Carter American Legion Post, and the universal language of jazz.

Planning is underway for a free, all-ages jazz celebration in Mattapan Square Saturday afternoon and evening, Feb. 21, and a ticketed jazz gospel performance to benefit the Carter Post Sunday afternoon, Feb. 22. Watch JazzBoston's Facebook page for more information as events and musicians are confirmed.

Scheduling the celebration for Black History Month was a natural. The Carter Post is the oldest African American post in Massachusetts, and will draw on its archives for an exhibition.

The timing also provides a preview of JazzBoston's Jazz Week '15 - Jazz in the Neighborhoods (April 24 - May 3). The events share some of the same objectives:

• Using jazz to bring people together, build community
• Connecting people of all ages to the music that is a unique, vital part of our city's and country's cultural heritage
• Helping to make struggling neighborhoods more appealing to residents, visitors and developers.
  

If funding permits, we'll bring similar programs to more Boston neighborhoods during Jazz Week '15.

JazzBoston has a small volunteer team planning a spiffy new web site. Can you help? Even a couple of hours of your time will be valuable to the effort.

We expect the foundation for the new jazzboston.org will be WordPress. We're hoping for your advice and assistance. For example, if your answer to any of these questions is "yes," we'd be delighted to explore ideas with you and learn from your experience:

• Do you have a feel for web site design, especially WordPress themes?We want the site to look great!
• Do you have ideas for achieving tight integration among the web and Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media?
• Do you know something about selecting WordPress plugins and customizing them? Would you like to help us prototype a sample site?
• Have you ever run a site like this?

We also welcome your ideas about the way the new jazzboston.org should look and act. And we're especially interested in hearing what information you want or need from jazzboston.org.

Please write to us at webmaster@jazzboston.org. We very much look forward to hearing from you.

Top, Brian Blade; bottom, Danilo Perez

If you're looking for a last-minute winter getaway and an unforgettable experience, we recommend the Panama Jazz Festival. Founded by musician, humanitarian, and educator Danilo Perez, who is also the festival's artistic director, the event draws jazz artists, educators, and fans from around the globe. The 12th edition takes place January 12 - 17 at Danilo's Jazz Club at the American Trade Hotel in the city's Old Quarter.

Among the headliners are Danilo Perez and his recently assembled Children of The Light Trio, featuring bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade, who is also the Festival's first Resident Artist.

Other headliners include jazz legend Benny Golson, Ruben Blades, Miguel Zenon, Pedrito Martinez, Latin pop singer and songwriter Omar Alfanno, Brian Blade and The Fellowship Band, Chilean saxophonist Patricia Zarate with her band MapuJazz and special guest singer Claudia Acuna.

Education is at the heart of the festival, and music clinics led by faculty and students of participating educational institutions - including Berklee College of Music, New England Conservatory, and the Paris Conservatory - fill the early part of each day. Concerts begin at 4 pm at The City of Knowledge, move to Danilo's Jazz Club at 9 pm, morph into jam sessions at 11 pm, and wrap up at 2 am. See the Festival website for the complete schedule of events.

Accommodations ranging from low cost to luxurious are still available at The City of Knowledge American Trade Hotel. For inforrmation on special rates for festival attendees, write to international@panamajazzfestival.com.

Full disclosure: Danilo Perez has been an artistic advisor and friend of JazzBoston since our founding. The Danilo Perez Foundation is one of our longest standing partners.