The blues and jazz will live forever, ... So will the Delta and the Big Easy.

The blues and jazz will live forever... So will the Delta and the Big Easy.

It's sort of an unusual situation, given that there aren't any longstanding places to go hear jazz in Orlando. But for the last 20 or 30 years we have had a full-time jazz club in Brevard. And I think that's because we've got the audience for it. And they've come to expect it.

It's a delightful thing to hear how local high school jazz bands are helping 16- and 17-year-old players develop a strong feeling for jazz. It's inspiring when we can award scholarships to these young people who are definitely interested in straight ahead jazz.

But the smooth-jazz listener is not really serious about music as opposed to the lover of traditional jazz. Smooth jazz is the kind of music you put in the background. Traditional jazz is more of a challenge. It is America's classical music.

There will be a Jazz Fest in 2006. It will be in Louisiana. It will be as close to New Orleans as we can get it,