Rita On The Road

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RITA PARDUE, HOST, PROGRAM ANCHOR, KUNV 91.5 JAZZ Jazz and more. Our mission for this program is to highlight the people in Las Vegas who work tirelessly at nonprofit organizations. We also feature artists, authors, and gifted folks that are making a living in the arts. On part one today, a conversation with Dane Nevis, marketing manager for Spread the Word Nevada. Part two, artist-singer Jonathan Courant shares his new single, Love Dance, with us. And now, Part 1. 91.5 Jazz and More, this is Rita On The Road. And for this segment, I'm in Henderson, Nevada, the Spread the Word Nevada dot org headquarters here with Dane Nevis. Dane, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Thank you for having me on the show. What is your role here at Spread the Word Nevada dot org? So I am the marketing manager here at Spread the Word Nevada and my job is basically to bring awareness to our nonprofit here in the community. What is so amazing when I learned about your organization. I am a children's advocate. I love to read, and I think it's so important for kids to build that love of reading. So explain to our audience, what is the mission of Spread the Word Nevada.org?

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Sure. So Spread the Word Nevada's mission is dedicated to advancing childhood literacy within low-income communities by changing lives one book at a time. We were founded in 2001 by two educators, a librarian and a math teacher. I love it. Basically, they noticed that the kids in their schools, a lot of them aren't able to afford books for their own home libraries. up this organization to give those kids a chance to choose books that they want to read and to kind of build a love of reading.

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For the listeners this morning, if you're looking for some sort of volunteer opportunity, I'm so glad that you've tuned in because Dane's going to fill us in on ways that we can get involved. And I would think there's probably a lot of different levels what the needs might be here. So what is one of the simple ways to get involved if you just wanna check out and see what this organization's about?

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Sure, so the books that we distribute to Nevada's children in need are mostly donated by members of the public, organizations, whatnot. So one way that you can get involved really easily is basically just donate books. Any of your old books that you have from your kids or your own childhood that you're not reading anymore, we'll gladly take them. We'll gladly prep them for distribution back out into the public. If you're a part of an organization, you can do a book drive with your employees and staff. And yeah, those are super fun, and we get those all the time and we're more than happy to welcome new donors at any time.

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That would work out easily, you know, as an individual, if you have some books that you've read and read and read and the kids are maybe they're to another level of their reading and they wouldn't mind parting with them, what a great thing. Or do it as a group with your church group or your volunteer group, a senior center, or maybe the business where you're working. So how can they get in touch with you, Dane?

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Well, the best way is just to visit our website, spreadthewordnevada.org. That website has all of the information of the different kinds of ways you can get involved. We're also on pretty much all the major social media platforms, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube. We're always putting out information about those kind of things as well on those channels.

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And just for clarification, on the website, spread the word Nevada. Nevada is all spelled out. So don't abbreviate the N-V. So it's spread the word Nevada dot org. All right. So I was noticing, speaking of your website, that you have different programs that families and kids can get involved in. Let's see, Kids to Kids, I'm looking at that. What's Kids to Kids all about?

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So Kids to Kids is our flagship program. That was kind of like the beginning concept, right? Where we take all these books that the public donates to us and we literally spread them out and we distribute them to all the kids that we're partnering with at the schools. So imagine every month we go into the school's cafeteria or multipurpose room and we spread out all the books that we get donated by grade level on all the tables. We invite the grades one by one to come through and they kind of do like a little shopping spree. The books are free, right? But it's like a shopping spree where they go around and they get to choose the books that they want to take home that month. We distribute 60,000 books per month throughout the city here.

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Oh my goodness. Oh, this is wild. 60,000. I was also noticing on your website, well, since we're talking numbers, this one was mind-boggling. It said, since 2001, is this 7.1 million books you've distributed? That's right, yeah. We need to show support for this organization, my goodness. What a blessing for all the kids out there and the families. And speaking of families, I believe there's another aspect of what you do here. Is it the breakfast snack time with books?

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Well, explain to our listeners what that one entails. So either before school starts or after school we do a little mini kids to kids session where we distribute books like how I explained, but we also add on a reading element where one of our staff

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members or a volunteer comes in and reads a book to the kids and their

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families. They get to bring their parents and their brothers and sisters and it's kind of like a way to train the families to read aloud with each other at home. Mm-hmm. Now here's one that really did catch my eye. Books and Buddies. What do you have to do one-on-one session. You get to, every, like, once a week you get a half an hour with this kid and it's kind of like a way to, for this kid to have a consistent person to be with every week. Sometimes, you know, a kid's parents or their family members are too busy working or whatnot but this is a way for you to contribute to their life as a consistent person in their life.

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I love it. This reminds me when my sons were preschool age and lower elementary, both of my husband and my family, our parents were deceased. And at the library, they had grandparent reading time. So this kind of reminds me that, you know, maybe some of our seniors out there, that your grandkids aren't living here locally, you could volunteer as a book and buddy volunteer. Yeah. Yeah.

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Absolutely.

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And so be sort of a substitute grandparent for a child.

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That's a great way to put it.

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I think so too, because my kids really appreciated it. And it was kind of a bittersweet type thing, not having our parents involved, you know, to be grandparents. So I found an alternative. So I think this, what you're offering is great. And now I see another program you're offering, Readers in Training. Yes, this is our newest program, and this is for our birth to five-year-olds. It's a way to kind of train them to recognize what reading is, what pictures in a book are, the texture of books, all kinds of stuff like that. So this is,

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like I said, our newest program, Readers in Training for birth to five-year-olds.

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That is awesome. So then, is it kind of like a mommy and me or a daddy and me, like the parent would bring the child in and do they meet here or do they meet at different locations?

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So this is actually an at-home program where we send the families a box with, you know, note cards and books and everything like that. And then they, we give them tools to train their babies how to read at home.

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I love it. I love that bonding element of it as well. Well, our time flies by. So once again, let's give out the website, how our listeners can reach out and make contact with you at whatever level of volunteer time permits for the individual. So how can we get in touch with you all?

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Visit us at spreadthewordnevada.org.

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That's spreadthewordnevada, spelled out, dot O-R-G. And are there any closing thoughts, Dane? Because a lot of times, after we've talked about what you're doing here, and I'm very excited to show the support to you all here, what do you want to leave our listeners with as a final thought?

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Sure, we have this tagline, when kids read, they succeed. Nevada, unfortunately, only has a 43% proficiency at reading, that's the percentage of our students reading proficiency, so it's our job to kind of boost that up, and it's our job

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to help these kids succeed.

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Exactly.

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And I like that slogan, when you read, you succeed. Well thank you. We've been speaking to Dane Nevis, Marketing Manager at Spread the Word Nevada dot org. Thank you so much, Dane.

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Thank you.

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And now, Part 2 with artist-singer Jonathan Courant, and he shares his new single, Love Dance, with us. 91.5 Jazz and More, this is Rita On The Road, but today we are in the studio here at KUNV with our special guest, Jonathan Courant.

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Welcome!

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Thank you, thank you. Well, I hope I don't embarrass you, because I know you're a pretty modest person, but I have to just share with our listeners that you have been named one of the top 12 rising jazz vocalists by Downbeat, and your albums have hit number four on Billboard jazz charts, and currently a new single out. And folks, I am holding the CD in my hand. Yes, people still have CDs out there. So tell us about your new single

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called love dance. Well, it's an Yvonne Lins song. He wrote it and I Wanted to collaborate with Jane Monhite on something and she asked me well, what do you want to do? That's a Grammy winner singer for those Grammy nominated singer Jane Monhite. I've always been a big fan of hers and I was talking with her about doing something and she has such a beautiful sensual way of singing.

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She does. Beautiful voice. Very, very fluid. Like yourself, just the way you both interpret songs, it just exudes the emotion. I love it. Folks, you're definitely going to want to pick this up. And before we get any further as you're going to be describing this, how can our listeners get a hold of this wonderful song that's currently out?

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Well, the song Love Dance is available on all music platforms, anywhere you listen to music, wherever you find your music, Spotify, Apple Music, and then the full album releases September 8th. But some of the music critics already that have reviewed Love Dance, the single off the album, have really talked about how the components of Jane's voice and my voice and then having Houston Person play saxophone on it, how it sees three smooth, velvety tones. One reviewer said that the song pairs well with satin sheets.

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I love it.

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Because the lyrics are pretty provocative. I mean, it's not rated R or anything, but it definitely does take you to some kind of blissful afterglow.

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There you go. I like that. That's a great descriptive way to talk about this wonderful song, Love Dance. And you said the album's going to be released September 8th, but I think, if I'm not mistaken, that you're going to have a release show So let's let's give mention about that because once people hear this song They're going to want to see it see you live. And so when is that happening and where yeah the album release show

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That's here in Las Vegas is on September 27th at Myron's at the Smith Center at 7 p.m. Oh, I love that venue

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It's it's such a wonderful stage and has that intimacy Oh, I love that venue. It's such a wonderful stage and has that intimacy of the room. I like that. So that'll be September 27th. Mark it on your calendars, folks. You'll want to definitely, and I guess tickets, I guess, do they go on, are they available

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at this time? Yes, they're already available.

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Okay. There are a few left. Oh, good. Yeah. Well, definitely keep that in mind, folks. Don't, you know, the early bird is the one who succeeds around here. Well, I seem to have, you know, I follow social media and love reading what everybody's doing,

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but I think you were ranked number 12 with Love Dance. That's right. So how did that all happen? Well, just through the beautiful support of people streaming it and downloading it. So yeah, that was on iTunes music charts that it was number 12. And I appreciate that. Thank you,

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everybody. Well, you have some pretty loyal fans. And I want to mention one that I think she's been to so many of your concerts, she should be the president of your fan club. Her name is Mala Skelton. And when she hears this, she's probably going to crack up and oh my goodness. But yes, Mala was the one that invited me when I first came over here to Las Vegas during the pandemic and we went to the Clark County Library System. I've never been to libraries that have these wonderful stages and performance spaces and I saw you perform Nancy Wilson Cannonball Adderley songs off of that particular album, oh my goodness, Jonathan.

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Well, thank you.

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It's incredible.

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Yeah, one, I back up just a little. I totally agree that it's wonderful that Clark County has these great, you know, performing arts centers that are funded by the county and they're attached to the libraries. And I think that's wonderful for the community. Yes, I've attributed two major iconic jazz albums through concert. We once, Charles McNeill and I did the Hartman Coltrane album, which is very iconic, and then that went over so well and I had a personal connection with Nancy Wilson, so we decided to do the Nancy Wilson Cannonball Adderley album. Just love all the music from that album. Well, both the albums, but it's a great way to kind of tribute both those iconic artists and those iconic albums. I was at one of Nancy Wilson's birthday concerts at Yoshi's in San Francisco, and I was able to connect with her, then was able to be invited through a friend of mine, Sasha Boutros. We went to her home and hung with her and then from that point out I would call her on, you know, Mother's Day and on holidays and send her gifts and great to have that

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connection with somebody that you've idolized. And your interpretation was incredible of her music. You really did her justice on her music and I'm glad that she kind of took you under her wing and gave you permission to use those. And that kind of leads me to another thing that you have a lot of depth of wanting this type of style of music to keep going. So share with us, well I've been involved with Jazz Outreach Initiative myself as a volunteer, so let our listeners know how are you involved with that organization here in town?

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Well, it's a great organization and I'm so happy and honored to be a part of it. What I've done or done to try to promote the organization is to bring the kids in on some of my concerts, either to open for us or bring them on stage like in the middle of the show and have them experience, you know, what a sound check is like, what it's like, you know, coming up with maybe an arrangement on the last minute right before the show, hanging backstage, and then giving them that opportunity, you know, to perform in front of a live audience that's captivated there. And also talking with them, you know, it's really been interesting asking them what kind of music they listen to and they all listen to jazz and love jazz. I love it. Yeah. That's great. One of the pianists I said, so who's your favorite pianist? And it was right off the bat it was Oscar Peterson. Oh my goodness. Yeah. I love it. And that's

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and that's what it's all about folks. You know, with our young people there's so many things that they could get involved with, but music is not only good for one's soul and your spirit, because that's kind of what happened to me. I had a real rough childhood, and if it wasn't for going into my little dream world of music and listening to Ella and Sarah Vaughan, and even before that, Chris Conner, and those Those were folks that I really enjoyed to emulate and listen to their sound, but it is so important and if these kids want to turn pro, all the better, but if not you have that place that does bring happiness into your life and peace and joy.

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And through music and maybe this style of music as well, there's a certain kind of depth and backbone I think it gives you that's, you know, it's a great foundation because it's not bubblegum, it's not pop, it's not fleeting, it's, you know, it's here to stay, it's timeless and so I think there's kind of a different kind of education you get from it. And music is very healing, and especially live music. You know, the energy that's created there when the artist's on stage and then the audience, you know, you're all coming together and honing in on one thought and that's pretty special, you know, put your phone down and

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experience something live and real. Definitely. You know, since we're talking about this is what an interview, instead of starting with your history first, I just want to touch on it because when I learned that you came from Fort Smith, Arkansas, is that correct? That's correct. Well, before my mom passed, she lived for 40 years in Bolsholes, Arkansas, and I've always loved telling people it's dangerous to get to go visit her and why? Because of all the critters, you know, deer can jump out in front of you and you have to be mindful and there's road runners. But I want you to know, I think Arkansas is such a beautiful, beautiful state.

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It is.

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It's a natural state and that really reflects if you ever drive through the countryside there, it's really beautiful.

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Well, again, Les, because I see our time is escaping us, and I think it is so cool that that you mentioned about all the personnel that you work with from the musicians to the people that designed the CD cover and everything. So we're going to close out this interview with playing Love Dance in its entirety for our listeners. All right, what a treat we've got for you. So if you could share with us everyone that worked on the album. So in essence, you're the DJ.

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All right, absolutely. You know, it takes a village and people don't even realize everything that goes into creating an album, all the process. But you know, it's kind of a dream team here and I was, you know, what a treat and an honor to work with all these great musicians and artists and collaborate with the mixers and the graphic designer. And it's Grammy nominated Jane Monhite on the single Love Dance, featuring renowned saxophonist Euston Persson. And then we have Patrick Hogan on piano, Nick Schmidt on bass, Jeremy Kulicki on drums, and it was recorded here at Studio A, which is Josh Connelly's studio, and Al Silverman out of New York, who has done, I mean, countless jazz albums, he mastered the album for us. And then this beautiful artwork is from a graphic designer and his website is B-Side Graphics. He's so creative. He does all the JazzCats across the globe.

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I love it that you give everybody credit. And also on this end in the KUNV studios, we have Wes over there, Wes Knight. Yeah, he's nodding his head at us. So Wes, thank you so much. And thank you so much Jonathan Courant coming to join us here at the KUNV studios. And now we're going to take you out with

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Love Dance. That's right. It was my pleasure. Thank you.

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From too much talk to silent touches, sweet touches I've been tracking first several moons There in the quiet of words today We loved, we slept, we left the lights on. Oh, the night's gone, and morning finds us caught in life's most sensible trance. Turn up the quiet, love wants to dance. I knew life in harms that are lessening my cards And all dreams finally unleash in silence, in silence From too much talk to loving touches, love touches. You take the chance Turn off the quiet Love wants to dance so so so so so so Old souls find new life In hearts that are listening like ours And all dreams find their way to silence in silence From too much talk to loving touches Loving touches Love touches When pure emotion takes the moment We'll take the chance Turn up the quiet Turn up the quiet The moon is quiet No one wants to dance

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The moon is quiet

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No one wants to dance Turn up the quiet I'm turning the course of love into war. I'm turning the course of love into war. I'm turning the course of love into war. I'm turning the course of love into war. I'm turning the course of love into war. sharing his new release Love Dance. If you missed any portion of this program you can find it archived on the KUNV.org podcast page. Until next time, this is

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Rita Pardue with Rita on the Road at KUNV 91.5 Jazz and More. Rita Pardue with Rita on the Road at KUNV 91.5 Jazz and More. you

Transcribed with Cockatoo