Joe Russo, John Medeski and Marc Ribot to Lead Steven Van Zandt’s TeachRock Benefit in New York

On December 14, Joe Russo, John Medeski and Marc Ribot will join forces once more for a good cause. Onstage at the legendary S.O.B.’s in New York, the Russo Medeski Ribot Trio will lead the Concert for Creative Classrooms, a benefit show for Steven Van Zandt’s TeachRock education program. The top-tier combo mixing jazz, jam, funk, no wave, Cuban, fusion and more influences will deliver a full headline set, following an opener performance from New York’s acclaimed bawdy Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers Band cover outfit The Hell or High Water Band.

Launched over a decade ago by the iconic E Street Band guitarist and multihyphenate creative Van Zandt, with the Founders Board of Bono, Jackson Browne, Martin Scorsese and Bruce Springsteen, TeachRock provides vital education resources for schools around the world. Through the sound, stories and science of music, the program endeavors to create engaging lesson plans and materials for history, math, science, design, music and more, using the form’s connective power to inspire students from all walks of life—at no cost to students, teachers or families. TeachRock has found tremendous success with this unique perspective, and today supports over 70,000 educators and 30,000 schools in all 50 US States, England, Spain, Norway and beyond.

“Kids come to school with gifts intact. Imaginations, curiosity, instinct, taste, opinions – and the basic education protocols are to have them leave that stuff outside the classroom. ‘Come in, empty your mind and we’re going to fill it with what we feel you need,’” Van Zandt shared with The Guardian in July.  “That’s what’s still going on. That’s how it was taught 100 years ago – 50 years ago – and it’s still going on now, and this is not going to be effective with this generation.”

Van Zandt will appear personally at the Concert for Creative Classrooms for a meet and greet during the Sponsor/VIP happy hour preceding the event; Russo, Medeski and Ribot–who previously performed to support the Music Workers Alliance and made waves at Big Ears Festival in March–will also be in attendance at the intimate pre-show gathering. Beyond raising funds to support TeachRock’s mission, the event will honor New York City Public School teacher Ben Wides and Wall Street Dead aHead Networking Group founder Deborah Solomon.

Music will run from 6:30 to 10 p.m. Find tickets and more information here, and contact Bill Carbone (bill@teachrock.org) for details on sponsorships and VIP packages. For more information on TeachRock and its inventive offerings–including “the world’s only Grateful Dead curriculum for math, science, social studies, and language arts classrooms”–visit teachrock.org.

Watch Van Zandt speak on TeachRock here. Watch a fan-recorded video of Russo, Medeski and Ribot at Big Ears below.