...George Herbert wrote in 1633. A few centuries later, Phil Woods, Rick Chamberlain and Ed Joubert take matters into their own hands, when they found the organization that will eventually become the Delaware Water Gap Celebration of the Arts. Their goal is to help foster an appreciation of jazz and its relationship to other artistic disciplines.

In 1978, the 1st festival is staged, on a shoe- string budget; sponsors include the Delaware Water Gap Chamber of Commerce, the Lions Club, and the Antoine Dutot Museum. Participating musicians, artists, and vendors are all drawn from the northeastern Pennsylvania area, thus establishing a festival precedent - in addition to showcasing the many nationally-known musicians and artists residing in the Pocono area, the annual festival is also designed to provide an opportunity for many talented, though lesser-known, musicians to be heard.

Festival One raises $300 for the Borough; cost of admission: $1.00. Bands play on a makeshift stage in the street, where there is theatre as well. The first Jazz Mass is said and sung at the Presbyterian Church of the Mountain, Celebrate the Arts in the Gap reads the very first festival poster. From such a tiny seedling, great orchards have been grown.

Our orchard metaphor must not be belabored, but perhaps we can already see the thriving rows, as well as a few hardy weeds:

A winning wave, in deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoestring, in whose tie
I see a wild civility;
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Inspired, perhaps, by his imaginary mistress, so wrote Robert Herrick in 1648, in "Delight In Disorder," though he might have been discussing jazz improvisation. The Fred Waring Award, presented in recognition of outstanding contributions to the arts and the community, is initiated by Rick Chamberlain in 1979 during Festival 2, with the initial honor going to the man for whom the award is named. A tradition of honoring community activism is established, and will become a vital part of the COTA endeavor. Cost of admission for Festival Two: $2.00.

In 1980, year three of the festival, the Delaware Water Gap Celebration of the Arts (COTA) officially comes into being as its own organization, when it separates from the DWG Chamber of Commerce and the first COTA Board of Directors is formed. Bob Doney, well known local artist, creates the first full-size festival poster, and a COTA Festival album is recorded. Theatre and classical music are performed on main stage, in addition to the usual great jazz, and that stage is no longer just some tables in the street. Rilke could have put it just like this, strolling through the Jardin des Plantes, contemplating tigers, dreaming of Lester Young:

Only he whose bright lyre
Has sounded in shadows
May, looking onward, restore
His infinite praise.

In 1981, the 4th year of the festival, Pat Dorian responds to Phil Woods' letter about establishing a jazz band made up of young musicians. Of twenty-six high school band directors queried, he's the only one to do so; and the COTA Cats are born. A big band comprised of local high school students, the Cats come together through the continued efforts of Dorian and Woods, and will become a major feature of each festival. Also, new this year is the juried art show, for work with a musical theme, precursor to the Music Motif Show.

May she become a flourishing hidden tree
That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,
And have no business but dispensing round
Their magnanimities of sound.
...so said William Butler Yeats, in "A Prayer for My Daughter."

Other joyful magnanimities of 1981 include theatre and dance presentations inside the Castle Inn recital hall.

Festival Five sees continued growth, and ripe berries appearing on each flourishing vine. There's theater and dance inside the Castle Inn, Saturday night after the main stage music. The Fred Waring Award is presented in 1982 in honor of the memory of Edward Joubert, who helped imagine COTA into being, one night late at the bar in the Deer Head.

He will be getting dark, soon,
And loom through new snow.
I know his ghost will drift home
To the Ohio River, and sit down, alone,
Whittling a root.
He will say nothing.
The waters flow past, older, younger
Than he is, or I am.
These lines are from James Wright's "Youth," written in memory of his father.

Festival Six in 1983 attracts a crowd nearly 4,000. The annual festival budget has increased to $27,000 and for the first time there is a printed program, plus a canopy above main stage. This year's festival is captured on video, for broadcast over public television station WVIA. Gary Bloss's Jazzscape, a multi-media presentation involving slides and live music, is performed inside the Castle Inn. Al Cohn plays the festival this year, with his son Joe on guitar. The Urbie Green Quartet plays, featuring vocalist Kathy Green. Asparagus Sunshine is on this year's bill, plus Nancy and Spencer Reed. Phil Woods' Quartet has Hal Galper on piano. Bob Dorough appears with a Mystery Guest on saxophone. The COTA Cats arrive in their third incarnation.

Bright Star,
would I were steadfast as thou art!

Fred Waring passes away in July of 1984, and is remembered in the Festival Seven program as a man whose generosity and continued support helped the COTA festival grow, and eventually become established as a yearly event. Kim Parker plays the festival this year, and also Harry Leahey. Solar Energy plays, plus John Coates, Jr., with Dottie Dodgion on the drums. Theater and dance offerings are presented Saturday and Sunday afternoons, inside the Castle Inn. The annual COTA Cats Scholarship, designed to acknowledge outstanding musical achievement and festival spirit, is established and presented for the very first time. In addition to a cash award, each recipient will be given a certificate signed by Phil Woods, and have his or her name inscribed on a plaque displayed inside the Deer Head Inn. For the first time, the festival is broadcast live over WESS-FM, the East Stroudsburg University radio station.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close-bosom friend of the maturing sun,
...as John Keats said in praise of passing Autumn.
Thou hast thy music too.

In the spring of 1985, the main building of the Castle Inn is destroyed by fire, and the landscape for Festival 8 is changed. Phil Woods has a quintet this year, with mercurial Tom Harrell on trumpet. Woods and Kim Parker are guest soloists with the COTA Cats. The Tuesday Jazztet is on this year's bill, plus Alan Gaumer and Craig Kastelnik. The Chris Solliday Trio with Janet Lawson plays, and John Coates, Jr. + 4. The Butch Tucker Quartet features Wolfgang Knittel.

...some jazz fans might have made the drive all the way from Hartford, Wallace Stevens' hometown, to attend Festival 9 in 1986, since attendance continues on the rise. Ramon Fernandez might have come up from the Keys. The Pocono Jazz Quartet plays this year, along with Katchie Cartwright and Richie and Kate Roche. The Mo Rolland Band is on this year's bill, plus the Mark Hamza Quartet. Al Cohn and George Young are guest soloists with the COTA Cats, and JARO's looking sharp in their tuxedos on the stand, posing for the program photo.

And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song.

Festival 10, in 1987, has a full-size festival program, but despite the sunny photo gracing its cover, the weekend is a little damp.Unmentionable meteorological phenomena, however, cannot deter hardy spirits: the festival carries on, inside the ballroom at the Castle Inn, serendipitously readied for use by the art group 80 West. Al Cohn plays with the COTA Cats this year, on the festival's tenth anniversary. A selection of performances presented Friday night in the collaboration with 80 West is another festival first: The Water Gap Brass, The Stroudsburg Ballet Theatre, The Water Gap Players, and Calliope appear. Over the weekend, The Hod O'Brien Trio and Phil Woods' Little Big Band play.

Also on the bill this year are Len Mooney's Aura, and The Bob Dorough Quartet. Though an unfriendly climate cuts into attendance, fundraisers at the Deer Head Inn and donations from generous supporters help the festival survive.

We take simple pleasure from the rain...
...James Whitehead said, in "He Loves the Trailer Park and Suffers Telling Why," though he could have been talking about jazz fans just as well, grooving to the sounds of funky weather.

Festival Eleven, in 1988, is dedicated to Al Cohn, one of the great tenor saxophonists, composers, and arrangers in jazz history, and a long-time COTA supporter, who passes away on February 15 at the age of sixty-two. Cohn is lovingly remembered in the festival program by many of his friends, family members, and fellow musicians, as a singular spirit who touched deeply many lives. This year, the Steve Gilmore/Steve Brown Quintet plays, and the Steamin' Jimmies with Sugar Cone Horns. Neil Braunstein and Local Color play, and Kathy Green fronting her quartet. Phil Woods and Dave Liebman are guest soloists with the COTA Cats. The Al Cohn Memorial Orchestra plays, in mourning and in celebration.

During Festival 12 in 1989, COTA joins with the Borough of Delaware Water Gap to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of the town, scene of a storied musical history outlined in this year's program. The Sterling Strauser Award is created this year to honor artistic contributions to the visual arts; the award's name-sake is also its first recipient, one of the area's most accomplished and revered painters, and a long-time supporter of the local arts community.

The COTA Cats appear this year with guest soloists Jerry Dodgion, Nelson Hill, and Urbie Green, charged up by their profile in the June issue of Downbeat. George Young and Low Profile are in this year's bill, with a double sax front line that features Lew DelGatto. Kim Parker and Friends perform the songs of Howard Arlen, Lee Katzman's Bebop Six appear, and the Jimmy Tigue Trio; Phil Woods' Quintet features Hal Crook on trombone. And here comes Mr. Stevens again, to talk about such music and desire:

Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,
Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music

Festival Thirteen, in 1990, marks the tenth anniversary of the COTA Cats, who play this year before a festival crowd of well over 4,000. The Cats have continued to send their alumni (and alumnae) to such institutions as Indiana University, the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and the Eastman School of Music in Rochester.

Guest soloists this year are Rick Chamberlain and Phil Woods. The festival budget has increased this year to $30,000. Friday night's events are moved to the Presbyterian Church of the Mountain, and other surrounding performance areas are utilized as well, when the expanding festival presents performances at the Deer Head Inn and the Antoine Dutot Museum. The first real COTA booth appears this year, morphosed from its picnic table chrysalis. Ralph Hughes Jazz Reunion plays, as well as Grandma's Soup, Dave Liebman's Quintet has Caris Visentin on oboe, plus Vic Juris on guitar. Phil Woods' Quartet has Jim McNeely on piano, while Eric Doney features Joe LaBarbera on drums. Bob Dorough presents Multiplication Rock, performing in the children's area festival, and a tribute to Harry Leahey closes this year's festival.

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of him that walked the waves.

For Festival Fourteen, in 1991, COTA salutes 40 years of jazz at the Deer Head Inn, with a collage of photos and anecdotes scattered through the festival program. The Volunteer of the Year Award, established to honor COTA volunteer spirit, is presented for the first time, in memory of long-time volunteer Joanne Mayer.

Dick Cone (Uncle Dicky), composer, arranger, director of Grandma's Soup, passes away this year as well, and both are lovingly remembered.

The Pocono Jazz Quintet plays this year, in a tribute to the great Cannonball Adderley, with John Swana on trumpet and Bill Mays at the piano. The Eric Doney Trio plays, with Paul Rostock on bass and Glenn Davis on drums. The Drewes-Haddad Band is on this year's bill, plus Stephanie Nakasian with pianist Hod O'Brien. Phil Woods decides to add Vic Juris on guitar, and has Adam Nussbaum guesting on the drums. WRTI-FM, from Temple University, broadcasts the festival live.

Inebriate the Air--am I--
And Debauchee of Dew--
Reeling--thro endless summer days--
From Inns of Molten Blue--
...as Emily Dickinson might very well have said, resting on her way from Philadelphia to Amherst on the porch at the Deer Head Inn.

For Festival Fifteen in 1992, COTA specifically honors its life-source, its core of dedicated volunteers, with an essay in the festival program written by Bob Lehr. For those who might not understand what it takes to stage an all-volunteer festival, Lehr's essay provides some specific elicidation regarding those moments volunteers steal from their lives. This year, on the Sunday before festival weekend, Children's Suite, composed and arranged by Phil Woods, is given its world premiere at Brownie's in the Gap. A festival parade on Wednesday night winds its way down Main Street. The Lee Katzman Quintet, with Teddy Charles on vibes, plays on Friday night inside the Deer Head Inn. The Pete Veltri Quintet and the Robert D'Aversa Band appear on festival weekend.

Jerry Harris & Jazz Renaissance are also on the bill, plus the Dave Liebman Group celebrating Coltrane. Phil Woods and Jim McNeely appear as a duo, while Michele Bautier has Kenny Werner on piano.

Walt Whitman is seen lounging on a camp chair up front:
Loafe with me on the grass,
Loose the stop from your throat,
Not words,
Not music or rhyme I want,
Not custom or lecture,
Not even the best,
Only the lull I like,
The hum of your valved voice.

Festival Sixteen is dedicated to the Borough of Delaware Water Gap, which in 1993 celebrates its 200th anniversary. The town and its immediate surroundings are duly recognized in the festival program for providing the necessary atmosphere, physical and otherwise, essentail to staging a successful event. COTA gets back to basics this year, presenting performances Friday through Sunday only. The Katchie Cartwright Quintet plays this year, plus Bill Goodwin's Three with special guest Bill Dobbins. The Phil Markowitz Trio is on this year's bill, plus the Steve Gilmore Trio with Greg Gisbert on trumpet. Phil Woods has Brian Lynch on trumpet this year, while Craig Kastelnik features trumpeter Tim Hagans.

From dust I rise,
And out of nothing now awake;
These brighter regions which salute mine eyes,
A gift from God I take.

Festival Seventeen in 1994, is presented on a newly-constructed $10,000 stage. Dave Liebman's Group plays Miles Davis this year, while George Young and Friends feature Steve Turre's trombone. Eric Doney features John Coates, Jr. on the vibes, while the great Billy Hart plays the drums with Janet Lawson. Michelle Bautier sings on Friday night this year, accompanied by Wolfgang Knittel on piano. Phil Woods and Lew DelGado are guest soloists with the COTA Cats. This year, COTA receives the Spectrum Award from WVIA-FM in Scranton, in recognition of its contributions to the advancement of the arts and its enrichment of the cultural life in the WVIA-FM Public Radio listening area.

In 1995, the year of Festival Eighteen, COTA reaches a long-term lease agreement with the National Park Service, which allows organization to make improvements on the land across from main stage. A master plan is developed for the phased development of a natural amphitheater-like festival setting. New Kind of Talk plays this year, plus the Alex Watkins Quartet. The Dave Liebman Group presents Songs for My Daughter. The Bill Mays Trio is on this year's bill, with Tim Horner on the drums. The Absolut Trio plays, as well as the Deb Gaber Group. This year, the Jazz Mass is available on CD, having been recorded in June at Red Rock Studios in Saylorsburg, PA. The 15th anniversary of the COTA Cats is celebrated in the festival program, and the force behind the Cats, director Pat Dorian, is feted in an essay by Phil Woods.

The Music Motiff Show, a juried art exhibit, moves to the Antoine Dutot Museum. COTA loses another great friend this year, when pianist and composer John Scully dies, on January 19th. He's remembered in the festival program for his cantata in honor of Martin Luther King.

Festival 19 is dedicated to the memory of Bob Lehr, COTA Board of Directors Chairman and owner of the Deer Head Inn for forty years, who passes away in 1996. In honor of the man variously described as our "resident poet" and "consummate volunteer," "who did more for the arts in this community than anyone," COTA temporarily retires all of its awards. The Phil Woods Quartet, with Bill Charlap on piano, movingly remembers Lehr this year with a rendition of Woods' elegy for pianist Bill Evans. The Bill Goodwin Trio performs this year, plus the Cartwright/Oppenheim Quintet. Bob Dorough and Reunion play, and the Riverside featuring Kate & Richie Roche.

The COTA Cats, augmented by a string section, perform works composed orchestrated by Phil Woods which honor the memories of musicians such as Willie Dennis, Paul Desmond, Oscar Pettiford, and Charlie Parker. Flo Cohn, singer, composer, wife of tenor sax great Al, passes away in 1996 as well, and is remembered in the program by Dave Frishberg.

Here's John Donne from 1635:
Since I am coming to that Holy room
Where, with Thy choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made Thy music; as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before.

Death is the mother of beauty, Stevens said, and he was talking about time. He was talking about musicians standing on a stage, a big flashy new one or some boards propped in the street, making beauty out of the time with the sounds they place inside it, something nearly permanent outstripping the brief sun. Andrew Marvell, legendary pre-bopper, addressing the mistress he found too coy, wishing, perhaps, to persuade her to the dance, as well as into his warm bed, said...

Festival Twenty-One swings yet another incredible year. On Friday evening, the Dutot Museum has its opening reception, and the Presbyterian Church of the Mountain features the Calliope, Baroque Wind Ensemble, as well as the Water Gap Players, Michele Bautier,and the Sankofa African Drum & Dance Ensemble.

Saturday's kick-off is from none other than the Phil Woods Quintet at high-noon, followed by the Alex Watkins Quartet, Dave Liebman's Group, and the Eric Doney Trio. Gary Rissmiller's Quartet features June Thomas, and JARO (the Jazz Artists Repertory Orchestra) performs with special guest soloist, Bob Grauso, on drums.

In addition, the Steve Gilmore Quintet performs as well as Bob Dorough's Band. As night falls, Jesse Heckman's Quartet performs and Active Ingredients top off the evening with Marko Marcinko swinging the beat.

On Sunday, the DWG COTA Jazz Mass is worshiped under the clearest and warmest of skies. The entire weekend saw not a cloudy sky nor drop of rain.

Festival Twenty-One resumes at noon with Urbie & Kathy Green, along with the Jesse Green Trio, followed by the Donna Antonow Trio.

At 2:15, the 1998 Cota Cats, Volume XVIII swings with guest soloist Phil Woods. Performed are Allen's Town, as composed by Eric Doney and arranged by COTA Cat Allen Carrescia, Easy Money (Benny Carter), Twisted Blues (Wes Montgomery), and Sunhawk, a composition by Phil Markowitz and arranged by Markowitz for the 1998 COTA Cats. Benny Carter's Souvenir is performed as well as The Rev & I, a composition by Phil Woods in dedication to John "The Rev" Flick.

At 3:30, the David Leonhard Jazz Group performs with Nancy Reed on vocals, followed by Craig Kastelnik & Friends (who are the Friends anyway? - Brian Lynch, Robert Routch, Rob Middleton, Tom Kozic, Gary Rissmiller, and Pat Flaherty).

Come 5:15, the Delaware Water Gap Celebration Of The Arts Festival Orchestra swings hard and loud with all eighteen members tight as ever. The Absolute Trio performs afterwards, followed by Swing 'N Dixie, which brings Festival Twenty-One to a triumphant close.

Each year's COTA Festival has something unique to remember, or several things for that matter. This year, Bob Dorough enjoys the response to his 1997 Blue Note release, Right On My Way Home, featuring Bill Takas, Grady Tate, Christian McBride, Billy Hart and Joe Lovano. Half of the CD was recorded at Red Rock Recording Studios in Saylorsburg, PA; keeping engineer Kent Heckman busy, in that the Grammy nominated Concord release Celebration! was recorded there as well.

Also, this year, Phil Woods heads up with co-veteran-of-the-Monk-day's Johnny Griffin, for a Blue Note release entitled The Rev & I. Also recorded by Kent Heckman at Red Rock, this 1998 release features not only Griffin, but Cedar Walton, Peter Washington, Ben Riley, and none-other than Bill Goodwin as well.

On the title track, written by Phil Woods for his comrade of friendship-computer-golf,-et all, John "The Rev" Flick, Phil plays... the electric piano.

Not all memories are so pleasant however, in that the world lost Kenton Michael Lerch on February 1, 1998. Kenton was a COTA Cat saxophonist in both 1991 and 1992, and had studied saxophone privately with Nelson Hill.

Kenton is fondly remembered in the 1998 Festival Program by Patrick Dorian, where Prof. Dorian completes the tribute with...
...I shall see beauty but none to match your living grace.
I shall hear music...
...I shall fill days but I shall not, cannot, forget.
Sleep soft, dear friend.
- Author unknown.

Kenton Michael Lerch
February 9, 1975 - February 1, 1998

1998 is also the year we lost bassist and COTA veteran Bill Takas. On November 8th, Bill passed away at the age of 66.

Born March 5, 1932 in Toledo, Bill relocated from Indiana to New York, and had made his first recording with friend, compatriate, and lifelong colleague, Bob Dorough, on Bethlehem Records.

The two, (the "Dynamic Duo," as Bob Dorough describes themselves) drifted apart for some years, but had united once again in 1975, and performed as a duo, virtually exclusively since then, up to Takas' unfortunate passing.