Hi there!  My name is Michael Melinger, and I started the Austin Jazz Workshop project in 1994.  I  have been a working musician for over thirty years, and quite frankly–the AJW project started out as a way to get a few extra gigs during the seldom-used daytime hours.  (Seldom-used by musicians, at least.  If you ever wondered who all those people were filling up the coffeehouses on South Congress Avenue at 2:00 in the afternoon, there’s your answer.) If you had told me in 1994 that I would still be doing this 23 years later, and visiting over 120 schools each year, I would have called you loony.  No offense.  But as it turns out, you were right.  I’m still doing it.  I should have listened to you. When the AJW website was revamped in June 2011, I decided to add a blog to it.  But after my horrified friends read some of my posts, they strongly suggested I peel them off to a separate site, so as to not contaminate whatever young minds should happen across the AJW page. Personally, I think they overreacted.  Only five people have visited the site in twelve months.  But they insisted, and as a result, this new, improved, more off-the-beaten-path site was born. Thanks for stopping by, Number Six!