This is how a backyard jazz concert in Valley Stream makes public debut

Dr. Herold Simon’s first memory of jazz goes back to his youth, when he spent summer days with his father, a custodian, walking the streets of New York City and seeing the sights. “He wanted to show me places,” Simon recalled. “Nice buildings and so on.”

But it wasn’t so much the city’s towering skyscrapers or its glimmering museums that captured the teenage Simon’s imagination. Instead it was a street performer playing jazz on his saxophone at 5th Avenue and 54th Street.

Never had the then 18-year-old been so moved by music, and before he knew it, he was locked into a lifelong fascination with jazz. He devoured the songs of classical jazz musicians, and built a collection of old vinyl jazz records and CDs. Through the late 1990s, Simon religiously tuned into BET on Jazz, a jazz television programming network geared toward Black audiences.

Not content with keeping the music to himself, Simon wanted to share his passion for jazz with his friends in Valley Stream. Thus, in 2003, he began a quest to bring jazz performers together to play in his backyard — literally. He named these in-house concert gatherings the Valley Stream Jazz Festival.

Simon, an internist who is in his 60s, always had the ambition to host a public jazz concert in one of the village’s parks. By 2015, his backyard concerts had grown, with a more “robust jazz production involving up to 12 influential musicians at a time led by collaborator Gary Sylvian,” as Simon’s website states.

In recent years, as his get-togethers became more popular, Simon encountered various logistical roadblocks. But last weekend, his vision was finally realized, thanks to the collaborative effort of the office of Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages and the village: The Valley Stream Bandshell hosted the 18th annual Jazz Festival on Saturday, featuring jazz-folk performers Mikaelle Aimée and Adnan Khan. There was a touch of hometown flair, with a dance performance by Layla’s Dance and Drums, as well as sets by other performers.

“I wanted to make the concert a multi-ethnic, multicultural event,” Simon said, “so we brought a Japanese jazz band, for example, and a Muslim singer. Have something to offer for everybody,” added Simon, who believes that jazz cuts across national and ethnic boundaries as a lingua franca of the music world. “Jazz binds people together,” he said. “We just have to sit down and listen and understand via our sounds.”

Simon, a Haitian-born immigrant, emphasized that there are few Haitian-led cultural events in Valley Stream, and said that a multicultural event like this one may help cement Haitai’s cultural footprint on the local map. And though the popularity of jazz has diminished in recent decades, Simon encourages listeners new and old to take it in with fresh ears. For him, the emotional thrill of jazz lies in its unpredictability.

“Unlike in popular music, where you can follow the flow and have some expectation of what comes next, in jazz, nobody knows what’s going to come out next,” Simon said. “Even though you might hear a song being played several times, every time you hear it, they will give you different notes, different sounds coming in.”

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