February 19, 2004 | Read Time: 15 minutes
Getting Wendy Atlas Oxenhorn on the phone is no easy feat. That is, unless you’re an insomniac. “Try me either before 9 a.m. or after 11 p.m.,” she writes in an e-mail message, after a few rounds of phone tag. “I’m sorry, but with my schedule, those are really the only times I’m free to talk.”
“Busy” does not even begin to describe a day in the life of Ms. Oxenhorn, who works seemingly around the clock as the executive director of the Jazz Foundation of America, in New York. After walking in her shoes for a day, it becomes quite clear why this run-ragged woman has so little time to spare: She gives away every minute she has to her charity’s clients. Indeed, if you happen to be an elderly jazz musician in need of something — anything, at any hour — Ms. Oxenhorn is at your beck and call.
The Jazz Foundation of America is a rare breed of nonprofit group that boasts a mixed mission of arts preservation and social service. It was founded in 1989 to help preserve and perpetuate the rich history and talent of the country’s jazz pioneers. It soon became apparent, however, that many of the jazz greats of yesteryear are still very much alive, and that many are also in crisis. Often these musicians are retired and elderly, living alone with little or no family for support, no pension, and no health insurance.
In response, the Jazz Foundation evolved into a charity that helps these artists with a hodgepodge of problems, from finding them employment and medical care to getting them help kicking drugs or alcohol to paying their rent. When Ms. Oxenhorn became executive director in September 2000, the charity had just enough resources to assist about 35 jazz musicians per year. Today, thanks to some creative fund raising and her round-the-clock dedication, she and her staff of two help about 300 musicians each year.
Body and Soul
On this particular frigid winter morning, Ms. Oxenhorn is sitting at her desk, in her cramped, cluttered office housed in the Local 802 professional musicians’ union building in midtown Manhattan, which she shares with her assistant, Lauren Roberts, and an intern. She cradles the phone in the crook of her neck, straightening clutter on her desk as she consoles a client, a female jazz singer in her 70s. The woman, Ms. Oxenhorn later explains, has been sick with a heart condition for a very long time. She was just released from the hospital after having a stroke, and is now suffering a severe bout of depression. “I worry about your spirits,” she tells her client. “Don’t worry, I know the head of cardiology at the hospital. I’m going to talk with him today and ask him to take a look at you, OK?”
When she gets off the phone, Ms. Oxenhorn explains that this woman’s ailments have left her homebound and unable to chew solid food. She instructs her assistant to buy some well-cooked mashed sweet potatoes to take to her. “She isn’t sure she wants to go on anymore,” says Ms. Oxenhorn, as her eyes begin to well up with tears. “Being sick for that long is really difficult, especially for musicians. If the music is in you, you just have to get it out. And when you can’t perform anymore, it’s severely depressing.”
She has fielded about five calls like this one since she arrived at her office at 7 a.m., and this, she says, is starting off as a “light day.” Typically, she deals with 10 to 15 “musician emergencies” a day. At 10:45 a.m., her 10 o’clock appointment shows up, a musician she is meeting for the first time. She talks with him privately for about half an hour to assess his situation. Usually, she tries to spend at least an hour with new clients, she says, but because he was late, she doesn’t have the time. As it turns out, he was working for a producer who has been delinquent in paying, and now he is behind on his rent and fears eviction. Ms. Oxenhorn promises him that the foundation will pay his rent for the month.
This visit is atypical, she explains later, in that most often the musicians she helps do not walk in off the street. She usually finds prospective clients through other musicians, and says it often takes two or three calls before she can persuade them to accept her help.
“I usually have to phrase my calls in a way that makes them feel like they aren’t accepting handouts, but that they deserve the help as compensation for all their years of hard work,” she says. This situation, she says, differs from the sense of entitlement that she often saw in homeless clients, with whom she worked for years. “One of the best parts of this job,” she says, “is getting help to people who really need it but have too much pride to ask for it.”
Ms. Oxenhorn has put her persuasiveness to work in other ways. For instance, she has persuaded a network of doctors and social workers across the country — in addition to printers, office-supply companies, and other businesses — to offer their services to the Jazz Foundation pro bono.
In fact, she has created such a tight relationship with Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, in New Jersey, that she gotten many clients treated there free. Last year, she persuaded one orthopedic surgeon to conduct free hip-replacement surgeries on three of her musicians. Such procedures normally cost more than $30,000 each, not including hospital room and board.
Time Out
It’s now 11:15 a.m., and Paul Sladkus, founder of the Good News Corporation, a nonprofit organization that broadcasts stories of people performing good works on its Web site, http://www.goodnewsbroadcast.org, is here to interview Ms. Oxenhorn. She spends about 45 minutes with him, talking about the history of the Jazz Foundation and how she became involved.
She explains how she got her start in nonprofit work when, at age 17, after moving to New York from suburban Westchester County to become a ballerina, she suffered a severe knee injury and was told she would never dance again. (She is vague about how long ago that was, demurring when asked later about her current age: “I always tell people that I am too busy to age. I just don’t have time.”)
She became very depressed over her setback and called a suicide hot line. The counselor on the phone was a woman in her 50s who felt so comfortable talking with Ms. Oxenhorn that she revealed that her husband had left her for a 25-year-old. Ms. Oxenhorn ended up counseling the counselor — and, three days later, got a job at the hot line.
In the next several years, she worked with organizations that serve poor children and the homeless. She even started a couple of programs of her own, including a substance-abuse education effort called Children of Substance, and StreetNews, a newspaper that homeless people sold on the streets of New York to earn pocket change. During the technology boom, she left her nonprofit work for a job with an Internet company, but she soon missed working for a cause. When she found out that the Jazz Foundation was looking for an executive director, she accepted a salary that was about half of the six figures she had been making in her for-profit job and jumped at the chance.
After the interview with Mr. Sladkus, Ms. Oxenhorn says she needs to track down David Lennon, president of the Local 802 union. Currently, the staff of the Jazz Foundation crowds into a 10-by-20-foot office, and while she can’t complain about the rent — it is only $250 per month — she wants to hire another staff member and cannot squeeze in another body. She finds Mr. Lennon in a meeting, and briefly interrupts to put in her plea for new digs. He assures her he will do whatever he can.
Greenbacks
It’s now noon, and Ms. Oxenhorn runs back to her office to grab her coat. She is off to Wollman Skating Rink, in Central Park, to check in with her 11-year-old daughter, Tana (short for Montana), who is on a field trip with her classmates. “I always find at least some way to put in some ‘mom time’ during the day,” Ms. Oxenhorn explains. “She is the most important thing to me. The hardest part of this job is balancing my crazy work schedule with being there for her.”
Before getting in a cab, she unexpectedly runs into one of her donors on the street and stops to chat. He is Noel Berman, trustee of the Recording Industries Music Performance Trust Funds, which uses music-sale residuals to help sponsor live-music performances for educational and charitable purposes.
In 2002, his organization donated $25,000 to the foundation’s Jazz in Schools program, which hires musicians with no other means of income to play concerts at New York public schools.
“It’s really one of the best ways we can offer anyone help, to get them paid for playing music, especially the older musicians who don’t have opportunities to play as much,” says Ms. Oxenhorn. Unfortunately, she adds, because music sales have been down, Mr. Berman’s group was only able to give about $3,000 in 2003 — enough to pay for about 20 musicians to play four concerts.
Ms. Oxenhorn has tried to enlist supporters to start endowments to help sponsor the Jazz Foundation’s efforts, but thus far, none have been created. In the meantime, the organization, whose operating budget was $415,000 in 2003, stays afloat primarily through individual and corporate donations.
As for grants, she simply doesn’t have the staff or time to write proposals for them, she says. Instead, she uses whatever fund-raising time she can find to phone or send personalized e-mail messages to her donors, as she refuses to send form solicitation letters.
“For me, it is important for you to really know and like the people who give you money and for them to know and like you,” she says. “I never went to fund-raising school, but I just feel that if you do what you say you do, and you do it with integrity, the money will follow.”
The group’s main moneymaker is a charity concert held each fall at the famous Apollo Theater, called “A Great Night in Harlem.” Ms. Oxenhorn conceived of the idea during her first year as executive director, while sick with the flu. She recalls being on her couch, watching a 1994 documentary about jazz musicians called A Great Day in Harlem, when she first got the idea to give her clients the opportunity to perform at a benefit show.
The first concert, in 2001, raised $350,000 for the foundation’s Jazz Musicians Emergency Fund, and each year the event has grown. In October 2003, with the participation of celebrities including Bill Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg, and Chevy Chase, the foundation raised $570,000.
Someone to Watch Over Me
After saying goodbye to her daughter at the ice rink around 1:30 p.m., Ms. Oxenhorn jumps in a cab to make a house call to Jimmy Norman, a beloved client and one of the most memorable performers at the latest “Great Night” concert.
Although Mr. Norman was primarily a jazz singer, he is best known for writing more than 30 songs for and with the reggae star Bob Marley. He also toured as a member of the doo-wop group the Coasters in the 1970s and ‘80s. Now, in his 70s, Mr. Norman lives alone in a cramped one-bedroom apartment, where he suffers from a heart condition and a bad case of emphysema, which often leaves him out of breath and requires him to sleep sitting up.
About a year ago, Ms. Oxenhorn heard through the grapevine that Mr. Norman needed the foundation’s help. He had almost been evicted twice for failure to pay his rent and, because of his health, was having trouble keeping the apartment habitable.
The foundation paid his landlord and bought Mr. Norman a futon on which he could sleep upright more comfortably. Ms. Oxenhorn and several volunteers also cleaned out his apartment, and, in the process, found an old cassette tape of a never-before-heard jam session of Mr. Norman and Mr. Marley. The cassette was eventually auctioned off, she says, and her client was able to garner a little nest egg for himself.
Today, Mr. Norman greets her with a warm smile and a kiss on the cheek. “I have something for you, honey,” says Ms. Oxenhorn, as she pulls out a videotape of Mr. Norman’s “Great Night” performance. He had sung one of his most famous tunes, the Irma Thomas classic “Time Is On My Side.” It was a particularly meaningful night for Mr. Norman, because while he had co-written the song, he did not receive due credit or royalties when it was later re-recorded by the Rolling Stones. “At our concert, he was finally able to reclaim his tune,” explains Ms. Oxenhorn.
As Mr. Norman watches himself on his tiny 13-inch TV, passionately belting out the tune for which he had been denied rightful credit, tears start to flow down his cheeks. He asks if he can borrow the tape for a while.
“Of course, Jimmy,” Ms. Oxenhorn says.
A Love Supreme
At about 2:15 p.m., after saying goodbye to Mr. Norman with a big hug and an “I love you, baby,” Ms. Oxenhorn jumps in a cab to head across town to a place with a very different ambiance: the penthouse offices of Richard D. Parsons, chief executive officer of Time Warner.
Mr. Parsons is not only one of the Jazz Foundation’s biggest donors, but also one of Ms. Oxenhorn’s biggest fans. He got involved with the foundation about a year and a half ago after reading an article about her work. He was so impressed, he says, that he immediately sent her a check. “Wendy’s terrific,” says Mr. Parsons. “She has the soul of a musician but the heart of a warrior.”
On this particular afternoon, Mr. Parsons greets her with a big bear hug, and invites her to sit down in his sprawling office, about 20 times the size of her own. Ms. Oxenhorn is looking for advice on next steps for one of her pet projects, a “players’ residence.” She has in mind a 30- or 40-unit subsidized-housing complex, complete with a “community jam room,” where jazz and blues musicians can live affordably and play music together. She has already received a two-year commitment of help and a $100,000 pledge from R. Jarrett Lillien, president of eTrade, to help pay off musicians’ rent arrears and mortgages until the residence is built.
But Ms. Oxenhorn expects the final cost for the residence to be in the neighborhood of $4-million, so there is still a long fund-raising road ahead of her, hence the visit to Mr. Parsons. He praises her ideas but tells her that there are many other steps before she should worry about the financing. He instructs his secretary to give Ms. Oxenhorn the name of a contact in the real-estate business who can help her find a suitable property and map out the logistics.
The visit was successful, and Ms. Oxenhorn is beaming. By now it is already close to 4 p.m. and, it being a Friday, she decides to call it a day. This is not typical, she notes. Usually she would be up until midnight working, but it has been 16 days since she took even one day off, and, she explains, she’s ready for a break. (Later, following up with an e-mail message, she confesses that she wound up working until about 10 p.m.)
Before heading home, however, she announces that she has one more stop to make — at a music store in midtown Manhattan. While Ms. Oxenhorn never played an instrument as a child, she was always a huge fan of blues music, and about five years ago, she picked up the harmonica.
She loved it so much, she says, that for about two years before her life was usurped by her foundation-job demands, she played regular gigs in subway stations with “an old Mississippi-blues man” whom she befriended. Even now, she finds that playing the harmonica helps soothe her, and she tries to make time to play whenever possible.
“One of my secret dreams is to go down to Mississippi for six months and just live among the people and play the back-road juke joints,” she admits, only half-kidding. “In life, I’ve learned never to say ‘never’ and ‘always,’ because you can’t ever second-guess what the universe has in store for you. Who would’ve thought that at this late stage in life I’d become a blues musician?”
Today, as she ducks into the store, she explains that her dog recently took hostage of her old harmonica, and so it’s time to buy herself a gift. “Today has been a really good day,” she reflects. “And to me, a good day is one where I get everything done that I need to get done, I help all the people I need to help, and in the end, I still have time to play.”
This month Ms. Oxenhorn was honored for her work at the Jazz Foundation of America by the Artist Empowerment Coalition during a brunch ceremony the day of the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. The nonprofit coalition, in Washington, was founded by artists such as Stevie Wonder and Prince to help improve the quality of life for musicians, songwriters, and others in the entertainment field, and to preserve artistic freedoms.
