Jazz flutist, arranger and percussionist John Calloway knows his music is making an impact on a crowd of dancers in front of the Latin Stage at the San Jose Jazz Festival.

What could be more pleasant? Bright sun and fresh air, good food, lively salsa and Afro-Cuban music, and great looking people? Amateur photographers are out in force. One can't even tell that the venue is only a parking lot crowded with cars on a typical work day: well-dressed with trees lining the light rail mall on nearby Second Street, and two rows of food stands lining the sides of the lot. At the end of the two parallel lines is the big stage, with Calloway's band Diaspora powering a pulsating music for the dancers crowded in front of the stage.

A veteran of conguero John Santos' acclaimed Machete Ensemble as well as bandleader for his own quintet, he leads the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco (www.ljye.com) as an activity for urban teens to stay out of trouble, have fun, and learn to organize around a goal. In this case, Latin jazz.

A talented bandleader who doubles as an educator, Calloway is equally serious about making a community impact away from the stage, as a teacher.

Passionate about social justice, the 48-year-old native San Franciscan also teaches music in five of the City's elementary schools, including Daniel Webster Elementary in Potrero Hill, where most of the children come from nearby housing projects. 

"I've been there sixteen years and my stance is: I'm not leaving. It just hit me one day," he says. "For me, that school is a symbol of us not wanting to wake up, that there's another generation of children that's essentially lost." Calloway grew up in the Excelsior District of San Francisco near the gritty Mission District, attending Balboa High School. He saw firsthand the pressures holding back low-income youth.

Calloway also teaches Latin ensembles, jazz flute, and Latin piano at weeklong summer camps held at the Stanford Jazz Workshop in Palo Alto and Jazz Camp West in the redwoods of La Honda. "It's only once a year," he says of the summer camps, "but they have a great sense of community." And if that weren't enough, he leads Latin ensembles at San Francisco State University.

Building a Reputation on the West Coast

He earned his bachelor's at City College of New York during five years in the early 1980s, years he spent as a young flutist building his musical reputation in the jazz Mecca. During that formative time he lived across the river in Brooklyn, and he cites "Andy and Jerry Gonzalez, Oscar Hernandez, and the music department at CCNY" among his mentors. He performed with Manny Oquendo's Libre and Charanga 76.

Since then, Calloway has built a reputation as one of the finest jazz flutists on the West Coast, and is well known on the Latin jazz scene. His resume includes performances in Europe, Cuba and the Caribbean, the Philippines, Columbia, Venezuela and recently Chile. Calloway has recorded and performed with a long list of notables in the jazz and Latin music universes, including Jesus Diaz, Pete Escovedo, Rebeca Mauleon, Patato, Orestes Vilato, and Omar Sosa.

He was one of the founders of the Grammy-nominated Machete Ensemble with master conga player John Santos, who also grew up in San Francisco's Mission district and is a longtime friend. Drawing on his experience as a bandleader, Calloway prepared most of the musical arrangements for the band's CDs. "I do not take it for granted despite over thirty years working with John Calloway," Santos says, "I am well aware of my good fortune."

This year, Calloway released his latest CD, "The Code," a collection of original Afro-Cuban, salsa and jazz from his own ensemble, Diaspora, that showcases some of the Bay Area's top Latin jazz players: Mike Olmos (trumpet), Murray Low (piano), David Belove (bass), David Flores (drums), and Jesus Diaz (percussion and vocals).

Fellow jazz flutist Dave Valentin praises Calloway on the liner notes of the new CD, saying, "He has truly done his homework!"

And in addition to his educational efforts in the community, Calloway is working towards a Ph.D. in urban education at the University of San Francisco. "The sense of community of teaching, and being part of seeing kids grow up," he says, of "being more than a teacher... We don't have enough people of color who are teachers, but that could make a difference."

Fusing Art, Politics and Innovation into Music

He strives to make an impact politically as well as musically, and he's been to Cuba fourteen times, performing and studying the local musical styles. One of the tunes he recently performed with the Santos Quintet at the Stanford Jazz Workshop concert series was a stately 1930s classical piece, modeled after the grand operas of Europe but carrying a wonderful local Cuban flavor.

Calloway also traveled to Chile last October to perform in "Poeta Pan," a spoken-word and music project on the life and poetry of leftist politician Pablo Neruda. While there, Calloway performed in "Archaeology of Memory," a memorial to the Disappeareds, hundreds of student protesters who were kidnapped, tortured and murdered by the right-wing government of Augusto Pinochet during the early 1970s.

Jazz musicians who try to put innovation like that into their art-form, ahead of popularity, know they face an uphill battle: Audiences, like today's at the San Jose Jazz Festival, are enthusiastic about traditional Latin dance music, but often are not receptive to excursions into new territory. 

"Your audience knows you for what you do," says Calloway.

Changing Directions... and Staying True to Tradition

What's next for Calloway? A balance covering both paths: "People want to listen to me play straight-ahead Latin music," he says, "but I'm thinking of changing my direction a little bit. I want to do one completely different jazz project, but then also do one completely traditional one."

But for now, it's a bright Saturday afternoon, and Calloway is visibly enjoying making an impact with his music on the dancers' day off here in the center of high-stress Silicon Valley.

Animated as he cues the bass and percussion to start another tune, Calloway cheerfully quips to an audience member asking for more dance music: "Man, you're killing me — grab someone and dance to this ballad."

Is there anything as great as nuzzling with your honey to a supple Latin ballad on a sunny weekend afternoon?

William Murphy is an acoustic bassist and guitarist in the Bay Area. He writes an online column of profiles of people performing community service, www.thespiritofservice.blogspot.com, and doubles as a journalism student at San Francisco State during the evening and accounting manager during the day. You can contact him at wcmurphy19@yahoo.com.