It’s all they do and they play it well. Melissa Stoudt and Ann Marie McIntire, the duo who perform as JazzSpring, quit their day jobs to focus only on playing jazz as a full-time occupation, using a wide variety of instruments to share each individual moment with the audience — who it seems never go home singing the blues.

They will be playing on Pudge’s patio, and capturing listeners with melodies that flow out into the streetscape, Thursday and Friday nights for the rest of the summer.
Jazz standards by a variety of composers are their favorite songs. “Ellington, Monk, Jobim, Gillespie, Carmichael. No one artist constitutes a majority of our repertoire,” they say, but the songs are usually familiar to folks, either having been performed by Big Bands, or vocalists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra. “Our music gives it a new sound.”
There is little if any guitar in their performances at this time, but virtually any other jazz instrument that you’d want to hear. “We love guitar, but currently use flute, alto sax, piano, and if space allows, upright bass,” they say, adding that other rhythm instruments are incorporated at times. “Flute and piano has a nice clean sound. Jazz flute is rarely heard, and it captivates the audience, visually and audibly. They may not know why, but people think, hmmm, that’s different. When we use flute with string bass, the sound is on the opposite ends of the spectrum… featuring the highest instrument and the lowest instrument in an orchestra….with nothing in between. Cool sound.”
The two musicians met years ago during a gig, then reconnected when both joined the Moonlight Serenaders Big Band several years back. They quit full-time day jobs, to concentrate on music full-time.
Do they have a particular solo they like best? “We are always changing it up. I think what makes a solo great is one’s ability to enter into the music emotionally,” they agree. “If you can get inside the feeling of the song you are playing, you can capture the audience. At that point we and our listeners share a moment in time that ties all of us to the emotion of the song. When the song is over, we move on. We can’t turn around and grab that same experience again.”
“Sometimes I wish I could, but I don’t strive to replicate the same emotion I had yesterday,” McIntire adds. “That’s jazz.”
Every day is filled with opportunities to touch someone with music, the performers say. “We can’t predict what music or situation will arise, but we are prepared to play music where needed.” McIntire gave an example: “Today, I was driving by a memory care housing unit where several white haired residents were sitting on balconies watching cars zip by. The balconies faced a busy street and an empty sidewalk. I parked, pulled out my flute and marched down the sidewalk playing ‘Dixie’. This was pretty off the wall, especially for an introvert, but the seniors got out of their rocking chairs, laughing and clapping. McIntire said music is a Divine interface between people. Last month, JazzSpring played for a funeral. “The music in that beautiful vaulted countryside church felt like it was interlaced with angels,” she said. “It is always astounding to connect to others through music and every performance invites that connection.”
The duo also plays weddings and funerals, at restaurants and private parties, and for other celebrations in the Twin Cities. They have have a demo CD that they hand out, with snippets of about 10 tunes, and you can get that from them when they play at Pudge’s, which will be every Thursday and Friday through the end of August. Occasionally, they will have subs, when there are previously contracted gigs, such as at the Wabasha Street Caves the first Thursday of every month. The subs are Connie Dussl, vocalist, and Herb Reinke, on guitar. The complete calendar is on jazzspring.com.

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A song written by a dying 19-year-old, “Clouds,” has gotten about five million You Tube hits and at one point reached No. 1 on the iTube music charts, and the numbers racked up in memory of the local composer keep growing by the tens of thousands each day.
When asked to start saying his goodbyes, Zach Sobiech, who died late last month right after a Hudson music festival held in his behalf, told his family he isn’t much of a letter writer. Because of that choice, he now is remembered for providing hope to people the world over through his music, many of them facing similar situations, and plenty of them have gotten back to him with words of thanks.
His illness eventually led to release of an entire album of his songs, Fix Me Up, not long before his death, and prompted Clouds to be redone by other musicians and videos of it made. Near the end, Sobiech found the strength to fly to New York to finalize the record deal through Broadcast Music, Inc.
The version of Clouds done by a group of celebrities has even drawn high praise from the likes of People magazine, which called that remake perhaps “the most moving celebrity shoutout of all time.”
Through this, lots of money has been raised for cancer victims. The total amount gained through various fundraising entities totals well over $100,000.
Scores of people have written the teen, saying how much his words have meant to them, even though they will never see him in person. They have including a Gulf War veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder who was so depressed that he had not left his apartment for months — but still found the means to reach out with thanks.
Also reaching out, among others, were a concert pianist from South Korea, Japanese school children and a man who through happenstance heard the song over the radio while stopped at a red light. His car window was open and more than a dozen kids began spontaneously singing the song with him. Scores of messages were left on the teen’s Caring-Bridge web page.
The funeral for Sobiech, who is from a musically gifted family that includes a father who has been a regionally prominent rock band member, was at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Stillwater. Sobiech suffered from a rare bone cancer, osteosarcoma.
The Rev. Mike Miller said at Sobiech’s funeral that he touched with his music “people who were in a very dark place.”
Sobiech and a friend of about the same age who was a co-writer of many songs, Samantha Brown, penned a one with similar themes just a few days before his death. Sobiech died at home in Lakeland, Minn., just two days after an all-day musical benefit and celebration of his life held just across the St. Croix River at the Lakefront Park band shell in Hudson.
Drummer Brandon Clarke for one of the bands that played, locals The New Skinny, said that all involved were hoping that Sobiech would be able to make it through until the event took place. He was in the last stages of his illness, which lasted more than four years. Clark said that on the day of the event, the rainy skies soon gave way to sunshine, and through the benefit, his band for one got a significant mention on at least two Twin Cities radio stations.
This is Sobiech’s journey, told through the words of Clouds:
“Well I fell down, down, down
Into this dark and lonely hole
There was no one their to care about me anymore
And I needed a way to climb and grab ahold of the edge
You were sitting there holding a rope
And we’ll go up, up, up
But I’ll fly a little higher
We’ll go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer
Up here my dear
It won’t be long now, it won’t be long now.”
Most of the more than a thousand people at his funeral sang as one, at one point, the words “up, up, up.”
These are three You Tube entries that can be viewed online:
– “My Last Days: Meet Zach Sobiech” at youtube.com/watch?v=9NjKgV65fpo.
– The celebrity cover of Clouds at youtube.com/watch?v=7zxXAmmLLc.
– The original Clouds at youtube.com/?v=sDC97j6lfcy.