New York, NY —

When a Katharine Hepburn or another big name from entertainment or the arts dies, we in the media take time out from the news of the day to pay tribute. WNYC's Brian Lehrer wants to do that now - but not for a performer, for a member of the audience.

Brian: I spent a good part of last Saturday at the jazz club Tonic, on Norfolk Street on the lower east side, where they had an all-day tribute to a man named Irving Stone, who died last month at the age of 81.

He was described as the downtown jazz scene's biggest fan, and I want to say a word about Irving Stone, who I never really met but who I knew by sight, and beyond Irving Stone, to appreciate the appreciators of the arts.

I first started going to the kind of jazz club known as downtown or alternative, about 15 years ago - clubs like the knitting factory and in recent years tonic - to see musicians like john zoon and Tim Berne and Wayne Horvitz and Medeski martin and wood, playing in the background here. If you know the scene, those are very well known names, if not, you probably never heard of any of them.

And most of the audience was people in their 20s and 30s, but early on, I noticed that whatever concert of this type I went to, I would always see this one old guy there, who looked to be about 65.

The first time I saw him, I guessed that he was the sax player's father or uncle or something, but then I'd see him again and again, and I realized he couldn't be EVERY musician's father, so maybe he was just an older fan of a mostly young person's music.


Irving seemed to always be there early, and would always look around the audience in these small places, with this twinkle in his eye, half sizing people up as they came in, half just radiating this kind of glow that said Isn't it cool that here we are together in a little-known place where something special, and almost secret is going to happen? and the fact that he was as old as he was and had that look on his face made him seem like a kind of musical mystic - the wise old man of the audience who had heard it all, and knew where to find what was really happening.

Well, I never found out who he was until last week when I went to this tribute concert and heard a lot more about him and his wife Stephanie who was usually there with him, than I ever knew when he was alive.

And I decided that Irving Stone, who did not get an obit in the new York Times, probably deserved one, or at least this mention on wnyc.

Which also got me to thinking about the under-appreciated position of the audience in the arts in general. A lot of people who love New York say it's precisely because the arts are so available here. But WHY? Of course, the artists themselves gravitate here from all over the world, but why here? It must be at least PARTLY because there are people here who will appreciate your work, or at least who MIGHT if it's any good, more than in Peoria or wherever - people for whom being a member of the audience is not just a way to be entertained, but something a little more adventurous: a way to seek insight or enlightenment or meaningful engagement with something, through music or theater or dance. Those audience members are the Irving Stones, and they take their role very seriously.

But even among dedicated audience members, Irving Stone was rare. What made him so unusual is not just the sheer number of concerts he attended, but the fact that he was able to transcend his generation. For some reason, most of us get imprinted with the music of our teens or 20s. Most of Irving Stone's musical peers STILL listen to the big bands they came of age with, while somehow, he kept getting interested in whatever jazz was new. That took a special set of ears. And it reflects a special soul.