Honoring Our Enduring Masters

Jazz is America’s original art form, carried night after night by working musicians who rarely asked for the spotlight. SIDEMAN focuses on what it means to age with grace as a career gigging artist in your eighties—through the life of three-time GRAMMY® winner Steve Gilmore, 82, and the peers who built the soundtrack of the last seven decades.

 

WHY SIDEMAN MATTERS

The country is losing many of its most profound musicians. Their stories, techniques, and hard-won wisdom disappear if we don’t record them, program them, and put them in rooms with the next generation. Aging artists deserve more than applause; they deserve dignity, fair pay, and access to care.

 

THE REALITY

Life on the bandstand rarely comes with a meaningful pension. As health costs rise and travel gets harder, bookings often thin at the very moment when recognition should grow. That is why every set matters. Each performance preserves repertoire, technique, and standards for the next players.

 

WHAT THIS FILM WILL SHOW

SIDEMAN pairs intimate portraiture with present-tense work: Steve in the studio and onstage, sharing the craft that made legends sound immortal. We’ll capture the daily logistics—transport, load-in, rest, set pacing—that help elder artists perform at their best. We’ll also listen: to how they learned, how they endured, and what they want to pass on before the chorus ends.

 

OUR COMMITMENTS

• Pay fairly for performances and rehearsals

• Record, credit, and archive materials so the work outlives the moment

• Pair screenings with conversations, masterclasses, and youth engagement

 

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Book them. Program them. Study with them. Support the work that keeps their music—and their wellbeing—alive. Donations to the SOWAL Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3), help fund SIDEMAN’s recording sessions, archival preservation, and community programs that bring elder musicians into classrooms and onto stages where they belong.