the everybody it's eric mintel welcome to another episode of talking jazz and i on the show today i've got my great guest bob call who if you haven't heard of bob call you will because he's from the eight hundred sixty seven sanctuary in  new jersey eight hundred sixty seven sanctuary and preservation new jersey's an incredible incredible venue to listen to jazz classical folk and pretty much everything storytelling you name it it's a wonderful wonderful arts center and we're going to talk about this and we're going to to tell us a little bit more about the organization the wonderful volunteers that he's got working with him and how everything came about and how you as a community and partake in a lot of the wonderful things happening at the sanctuary so bob welcome to the show it's my pleasure to be here well thank you as always you know and like i said you know you and i have known each other for a long time and we've worked together and my group played there are several times which is that we always have a great time there and it's just just a wonderful  and for our jazz the piano is beautiful and so in just the acoustics are incredible and so tell our audience about you know just basically the beginnings you know i was just saying the wonderful volunteers that you've got working behind you you have to have a great team in order to do anything good and you have that so talk to us about that tell it tell us about the beginnings and about how this all came about well as you know in your audience no it takes it takes a great team people to make something good happen expand on what you're doing but where you're really reached the next level is when you have an ensemble where everything is kind of plugged in together and goes into a home of his own and it's working like an synergy to get right yeah yeah and and that's what we have with the  maintain the structure for a long time and even to the point of signed a contract for demolishing a building while now why don't you find it when it when was this when did that actually i've been a member of a church for about forty years so  i'll say it's great it is a wonderful place to to listen to music it's a place for music lovers yeah go up so early that the sessions will play in lots of environments and they'll play clubs so play restaurants and so forth and  center what was was that something in the back of your mind or was that just like something that boom that just happened right away was that something that you had always thought about that it should be or because just because of this of its potential demise turning into up to great because we play a lot of different churches but the acoustics in the church are incredible but not only that it's it's the hub of the community you know the church and music really is kind of like the glue that holds the community together so when you're having these wonderful concerts there and let me tell you ladies yeah i've been there it's a beautiful beautiful spot you have to can you have to really experience it we can sit here and talk about it all day but you're really you have to go in an experience it's a beautiful  setting and these guys are doing some grilli great work as far as you know from the ground up i mean this is not a huge organization right this is just like a lot of dedicated people that are working to make this you know of really strong staple of the community so that you've got the concerts but now you're also doing a lot of different things you're doing classical concerts you're doing folk on certs now and you're appealing to a raw wide range of audience members too so you're getting a lot of different musicians from all over what all over the country to come yeah and pretty much everything works in their acoustically their own thing and doesn't work is heavy metal and that's what i don't enjoy that but  to kind of give you an idea we did this completely acoustic we didn't do this anything nothing was plugged in there was no separate soundtrack or anything like that this was all completely acoustic so you really get a chance to hear what you could fix or like and this is an original tune that i wrote with in there and it was just so much fun to do i mean and you didn't really like you could play with the music there you know what i'm saying so it's like and i think that's what appeals to a lot of people too where it's not a in your face venue you know and they can enjoy the music on so many different levels right well we see it up to two hundred people in the building and it's in its interest pews and there are other questions of the reasonably comfortable as long as we have an intermission about an hour sir you can coming up i know we're going to be playing there in may as a matter fact on may twelfth and whether or not this is out by then but we're going to be there i think it'll probably be out by then but you've got a lot of if not then the next time exactly exactly so you've got a lot of other musicians coming in classical how far like who books the books all of the events do you book them or i do the book you're the artistic booker ok and then you have somebody who's in charge of all the other stuff and so it's nice that you had delegated everyone a different job because it's beautiful to work in that kind of environment that everyone's really coming you know stepping up to the plate to make their part happen and that's how many great organization really you know grows and is successful right  of of new jersey in our history were affiliated with the national trust for historic preservation the it worked mostly through its board and staff to help communities that had historic sites to develop nine they saw that there was a great community response including raising over a quarter million dollars in cash at the deepest part of the recession and they said well there's community interest here and we absolutely need it we could use this as a as a case study fundraising we're able to open the building in november twenty fifth scene and start doing concerts and in february twenty sixth seen so we've just finished two years of doing concerts and i think i was on one of those early concerts there we have guys  didn't open house at the beginning to see what different kinds of the music or theater and spoken word works and the place we continue to have an open mike every month on the fourth friday of each month and so we're it's it's kind of we hold a lot of events and it's kind of like gig life we were trying to maintain the building by having these having these concerts and hoping that people will come and donate and most of the concerts how they work as far far as the case study the preservation in new jersey is doing eventually will be spun off into our own five a one c three it's kind of a ten year story it started in two thousand and nine yeah and hopefully will hit that tipping point  jersey is what we're talking about we're talking about it's a beautiful beautiful art venue and it's just i mean it's a great great organization they're doing so many great things for the community so if you want to hear music that's locally in your backyard really  go check these guys out and that they're phenomenal and i know my group is playing there and you've had some really incredible classical musicians there and you know where could you go i mean really i mean it just it just you know we're here but you could go and write in your backyard and find these wonderful musicians where you don't have to fight traffic in all this kind of stuff and it's right there for a nominal price and and all of your your team members and are you doing any how the building itself do you do have to do any kind of like any structures any are you doing any kind of things with that is as far as the building goes it structurally sound we but there's always things to enhance right for example that's the wheelchair accessible ok and we have access to the building across the street well we're people but but there's there's always work to be done but in the beginning some of the things we did to make it more useful for audiences one we just recorded this wonderful video that you guys are so great to have us do that i was just shocked as at how i mean not shocked shocked in a good way at how great it sounded i mean it was just like you could hear every single hear every single note and that's what you want as a performer you want to be able to have that in that performance you want to be able to have people you know i was trying to go for the emotional content through music so and through jazz so that's what you really want  the audience to feel and so i get that every time we play there and it's consistent too because the piano is great number one and you keep it in tune which is thank you which is a beautiful thing because i know as  a piano players would know you know some venues you know is a piano to india and you think it be between that day of the show what was to it was just tune but six months ago right now so we've all been in the way you guys keep it up right away switch is a beautiful thing and so let's see oh i wanted it ask also where or where can people if they wanted to do it donation if they wanted to send donation or anything like that or help you out a healthy dot org you can find if you want to donate if you want to see what's going on at the church he's look at the schedule and see what these guys are all about because they are doing some really really great things in the community and then also preservation new jersey dot work as well and it's just a beautiful beautiful organization beautiful venue and so you definitely go out we're going to i want to show another clip if you don't mind we're going to show another clip of another we did to music videos there and now we're going to do another tune which i wrote which is more of a ballad the other the other one was more of a raucous like swing latin kind of thing but this is another ballad which will kind of give you an idea of again the acoustics and about the just the general overall warmth and the beautiful sound you can get out of this beautiful thank you so this is june i wrote called after midnight you so bob i want to thank you so much for coming to the show today and i wish you nothing but the best in all your endeavors you guys are doing credible things anything i can do to help you always you know where i'm at and and i can't wait to perform there again because we always have a great time there and we're all we hear when you walk in the door your was greeted with a smile and you always have so many great people around you so really appreciate it thanks so much thank you all right have a good day thank you and ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for up being here again and tune in next time for another episode of talking jazz where we will have i have so many different guests coming on so many great people and