Above The Basement - Boston Music and Conversation

Dr. Jay Keyser is known to many as MIT Professor Emeritus of Linguistics. He’s written several books and countless essays and poems throughout his prolific career centering in his love for language. Jay is a jazz trombonist in the highly regarded Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, which happens to be one of the oldest continuous jazz ensembles in the country.

Whether you know Jay as a writer, poet, musician, philosopher or teacher, it’s clear when you talk with him there is a thirst for knowledge and true love of life.

Jay talked to us about his experience with a life changing event in 2014, when an accident left him without any movement of his extremities at the age of 79.

Defining resilience, Jay candidly reports on his incredible recovery, his difficult yet exciting new chapter in music and writing and also his relationship with his wonderful wife.

Song List:

All songs performed by the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra Composer Mark Sumner Harvey

Song 1: Spaceways (Passages) Song 2: March of the Booboisie (Exocations) Song 3: I Hear America Calling (Evocations)

Live Song:

Song 1: Sunny Side of the Street (music composed by Jimmy McHugh and lyrics by Dorothy Fields)