Muhal Richard Abrams is to jazz like Ché Guevera was to revolution.  He never stops moving and he never stops imagining and striving towards the impossible.  It’s no wonder then that Abrams life work will be celebrated at this years Vision Festival.  For the last 15 years the Vision Festival has celebrated jazz greats while at the same time creating a venue that encourages pushing the boundaries of what is possible in jazz performance.  Over the course of his life, Abrams has worked as a performer, educator, composer and advocate for jazz music. For me, jazz stands as the paradigm for revolutionary performance.  As Terry Eagleton notes, “though each performer contributes to the greater good of the whole, does so not by some grim-lipped self sacrifice, but simply by expressing .”  By becoming better at the thing love, the jazz artist learns from and enhances the abilities of co-performers.  If this isn’t a model for revolutionary activity, I don’t know what is!  A revolution occurs not because one person decides a revolution should occur, but because a group of people are driven to see the world as it might be, and not as it is.  One person

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