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The Hot Steamed Jazz Festival is held to benefit Paul Newman's The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a camp for children with cancer or serious blood diseases. Proceeds from the festival will help children to attend the camp. With this relationship, The Hot Steamed Jazz Festival brings top quality music entertainment to the community, while giving back to the community through our support of children and families in need of special services. Both the festival and the camp are non-profit organizations.
In addition, the festival contributes to two organizations which contribute unselfishly to the people and the town of Essex, The Essex Ambulance Association and The Essex Fire Department. We appreciate all they do for our community.
We would like to thank all of you who have come to enjoy this fine music and to help support the camp. We hope you have a great weekend filled with wonderful music and dancing.
The Board of Directors
The Hot Steamed Jazz Festival
Four years Of working with the Hot Steamed Jazz Festival. How to summarize?? It is safe to say that I keep coming back for more - more music, more fun, more friends. I would be lying if I said I really came here for the music, mostly because I don't get to hear as much as I'd like working for the festival! What I do hear is fantastic, but when you're at the entrance, popping 50 pounds of popcorn over three days, you only get to hear the occasional note that drifts out between the crowds. So why DO I keep coming back?
Well, its the people. Over the years, our crowds are growing, many people we've never met before but many are people who keep coming back for more. Each year, you learn a little more about the "regulars." Maybe they aren't people you know well enough to keep in touch with between festivals but you do look forward to seeing them and catching up and finding what the past year has brought to their lives. Whatever's happened, they come to the festival with a smile on their faces and the expectation that we're going to throw a music festival they will enjoy from start to finish. They keep coming back for more so we must be doing something right. And, they bring their friends so they must want to share their fun with others.
We can't forget the musicians. Again, some are people we see from year to year and some are new to us. The common thread is that they love what they're doing. Imagine willingly traveling to play outside in the unpredictable New England weather. Sometimes sunny, sometimes muggy, sometimes rainy, sometimes beautiful - no matter what the weather man has thrown at the musicians, they have hit the stage and given their all and stayed around after their performances to talk to the crowds.
But I guess the biggest reason I keep coming back for more is the heart of the festival - the people I work with every year. Many have been my friends since well before we became involved in festival work. But, working with them on the festival you see a new side to friends. You see the long hours they put in and their great dedication to bringing the festival to the Essex Steam Train site. The audience shows up for three days and is presented with a great gift of exceptional music but this gift is a year round proposition for our "fearless leaders." They couldn't and wouldn't do it if it weren't a labor of love. I can't imagine not being a part of The Hot Steamed Jazz Festival - that's why I keep coming back for more.
Beth Fitzsimmons
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