Musicians pay tribute to Clifford Brown at His Burial Site

Trio honors Brown with performance: A trio of musicians gathered at Mount Zion Cemetery
to pay tribute to jazz great Clifford Brown. (06/25/11)

A Cemetery remains relevant only when it is involved in the life of the community it serves.  More and more people choose to lay the remains of their loved ones to rest in places because they want them to be in a place that is peaceful and surrounded by life.  However, while scattering remains on mountain vistas and sandy beaches my satisfy our desire for a resting place surrounded by beauty and life, these places are inconvenient for us to visit and can change into housing developments or shopping malls over the years.  

The ideal is to have a permanent place of rest that allows for us to commune with our dead and allows for the variety and life of our communities to play a part as well.

I have written in the past about community involvement in cemeteries through that arts and by incorporating activities such as bicycling.  Here is a wonderful example of a jazz tribute held within a cemetery in Wilmington, Delaware.   

To the left of the gravestone marked “Clifford Brown,” three musicians played a tribute today to the Wilmington jazz legend who died at age 25.
Part of the annual festival held in his honor, the jam session was attended by about a dozen people at Mount Zion Cemetery where drummer Tom Palmer, guitarist Dexter Koonce and trumpet player Tony Smith played.
“It’s the first year of trying to start something to keep his memory alive in a different way,” said Harmon B. Carey, the executive director of the Afro-American Historical Society and president of Friends of Mount Zion Cemetery, both of which co-sponsored the event. “It’s different to have a jam-session in a cemetery.” - DelawareOnline