“Hey, if you’re passionate about it, figure out a way to do it yourself,” said Abe Goldstien, explaining the philosophy that has made his local concert series, Jazz at the Caspe Terrace, a magnet for international jazz talent for 15 years.
After all, Goldstien has had a passion for jazz since his boyhood in Rochester, New York, in the late ’50s.
“That’s all I’ve listened to since I was 8,” he told Little Village.
There was the beginning of a flirtation with rock when Beatlemania hit, and Goldstien thought learning the guitar would be a good way to impress girls. Instead of a guitar, his parents gave him his father’s accordion. The accordion didn’t impress any of his fellow teenagers, but Goldstien still plays it as part of Java Jews, Iowa’s only klezmer band.
He’s been sharing his passion for jazz with Iowans since he first arrived in the state in 1969 as a freshman at Drake University. While working on his degree, Goldstien opened a jazz record shop.
“There were records I needed to get, and I could get them if I owned a store,” he said.
Goldstien came to Drake to study advertising, because he’d been set on a career as a copywriter since he was 13. During his long career in the field, Goldstien continued to promote the music he loves.
“I always had my hand in jazz,” he said. “Teaching evening courses on jazz history, radio shows on and off for some various stations.”
He still has a radio show on KFMG 98.9 FM. Straight, No Chaser airs 5-8 p.m. on Sundays.
Goldstien is also executive director of the Community Jazz Center of Greater Des Moines.
“We honor the past, present and future of jazz in Des Moines,” he explained. “We host jam sessions for grade school and high school kids once a month. So, there’s the future of jazz.”
The Jazz Hall of Fame is one way the center honors the past, and a big band made up of local volunteers helps keep jazz alive in the present. The band plays free concerts at Franklin Junior High in Des Moines every third Sunday of the month, from September to May.
But it’s the Jazz at The Caspe Terrace series that is probably Goldstien’s most significant success in bringing jazz to a wider audience in Iowa.
The Caspe Terrace is the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines’ community center in Waukee. When Goldstien and his wife Jackie Garnett went to see a movie in the center’s theater, he came away more impressed with the theater than the film.
“I’m sitting there seeing that this is a 130-seat, acoustically perfect auditorium with a Steinway piano on stage,” he recalled. “We need to bring jazz musicians in here.
“I know jazz musicians around the country, so I called some up.”
Since 2008, Goldstien has brought jazz musicians who would normally never play the Des Moines area to Caspe. They are always folks Goldstien himself wants to see. This November, that includes the quartet Sparks, consisting of pianist Eri Yamamoto, who fuses New York jazz with traditional Japanese culture, playing with free jazz double bassist William Parker, saxophonist and label owner Chad Fowler, and Twin Cities improv drummer extraordinaire Steve Hirsch.
“I guarantee the performer a certain fee, anything else that comes in from ticket sales goes to the performer,” Goldstien explained.
The performers stay at a hotel as they normally would on tour, but that’s the only standard part of the Caspe Terrace experience. Instead of having to order off the room service menu, or grabbing a quick bite at whatever is near the hotel, the musicians get home cooking.
“My wife feeds them wonderful food,” Goldstien said. “She does more than that, of course. Jazz at Caspe Terrace could not happen without the support and generosity of my wife, Jackie Garnett.”
Performers arrive in Des Moines the day before the concert.
“They have to come in the day before, otherwise it becomes very impersonal,” Goldstien said. “We just show them around Des Moines.
“They leave Des Moines remembering Des Moines.”
In addition to the concert at the Caspe Terrace, the musicians also perform at a local retirement community during their stays.
“What they make at those communities offsets the cost of their flights,” Goldstien said. “Plus, it brings amazing music to the people in these retirement communities.”
Every Jazz at the Caspe Terrace show ends with a treat for both the performers and audience — a dessert-only reception.
“Our goal is to have the people going back to wherever they come from and say, ‘You got to play Des Moines,’” Goldstien said.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s September 2023 issue.
