Each one teach one

These are the messengers.

And no, they’re not Art Blakey or one his famous jazz messengers, but there’s no better way to describe it. Because of guys like these, guys like me know what jazz is. They are musicians who have dedicated their lives to spreading music through education. They bring jazz to places it has never been before, literally.

Riverdalian Paul West’s mother wanted him to be a concert violinist. From an early age, he studied classical music. His approach to the violin was all business. But then he discovered jazz. In 1954, he gave up the violin and started playing bass because, with jazz, the doors were wide open.

Two years later, at the age of 21, he was invited to record for his first time with Ray Charles. He recorded “Drown in my Own Tears” and “Hallelujah I Love Her So,” two of Ray Charles’ classic early recordings. Soon after, something extraordinary happened.

“I got this call from Dizzy Gillespie. This was a totally new experience for me, first of all because of the music itself, and up until that point I couldn’t tell the difference between Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie and I didn’t know. I could tell you about Mozart and Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, but I didn’t know a thing about Dizzy Gillespie,” he told me on a recent miserable rainy afternoon.

With the help of older musicians who were willing to teach him and let him play with them, he developed a style. He was the bassist for Dizzy Gillespie’s last big band from 1956 to 1958 and joined him again for a reunion in 1968.

“The Dizzy Gillespie experience was the Julliard School of music for me. You know, that was the whole educational process,” he said.

When I sat down with Mr. West, I couldn’t believe he ever held a violin. He has big, bass player hands. He was supposed to play the bass. But he also felt he was meant to help others discover jazz.

Beginning in 1969, Mr. West became the executive director of Jazzmobile, an outreach program that organizes free outdoor concerts for new audiences around the city and beyond. In 1970, Mr. West ended up buying an apartment in Riverdale, after he attended a party there and bought it from his host. He still lives in the building.