One could dwell on the contrast between the cradle of the art form in question -- the crowded, smoky cellars of America's cities, where jazz was born -- and the venue of this afternoon: a spacious, well-appointed gathering place on a New Hampshire mountainside.

This is Jazz on a Sunday Afternoon: an institution, if a somewhat peripatetic one, in the Upper Valley. It's a labor of love by Wightman -- that's him playing piano, in a trim beard, a gray sport coat and snakeskin boots -- who for 12 years has summoned top-flight jazz musicians to celebrate their skills in the North Country.

Listening to almost any jazz soloist, you soon understand the respect they have for their material, the people who wrote and performed it when it was new, and those with whom they are playing at the moment. Almost every time one of her accompanists completes a solo -- and the many extended solos are an integral part of the show -- Monteiro names the soloist, and the audience applauds.

It's one of the paradoxes of jazz: It's all about improvisation, but the form would fall apart in an instant if the participants were not also master collaborators. It may look largely spontaneous, but jazz requires an almost supernatural unity. Each man is aware of what everyone else is doing -- who was just out front, who's stepping back, who's about to step forward. One moment of reckless self-absorption, and the chemistry collapses.
He finds it hard to verbalize the reasons for his love of jazz. "It's the improvisation; it's the newness of it every time," he says. "When you're playing, you're dancing -- you're just flying; you're riding the wave. And it's wonderful when you get there.

"That's why you do it -- and that's why you get exploited," he adds. "People say, 'He just loves to do it so much, he'll do it for nothing.' " Then, laughing again: "Unfortunately, you're right."

Monteiro praises the Draper Room audience as well. "These people, they definitely get it," she says. "They came here because they already got it before we started playing, so it's a perfect audience. They come to sit and listen, and they appreciate what you do. They appreciate the drummer's riffs; they appreciate the horns; that's what they come to hear, so this is like the joy for me to come up here."

"Twelve years after it began, Jazz on a Sunday Afternoon has become an institution in the Upper Valley"