Jazz musicians of long ago could not have imagined that their art would live strong by the side of today’s newest advances in technology and culture as it did at the Live Green Connecticut! Festival.

In Norwalk this past weekend. the classic sounds of blues and swing enveloped the dozens of tents that lined a field of Taylor Farm Park, which housed exhibits featuring eco-friendly products, services, foods and health.

One of the most popular of these exhibits focused on a Tesla Roadster, one of the first and fastest fully-electric automobiles on the market. With a top speed of 130 mph and a range of 250 miles on a single charge, this ideal alternative-fuel car for both the sports car enthusiast and the long-distance commuter.

Owner of the car on display, Ken Edwards, in his teslamotors.com blog, cites “achieving personal energy independence,” and “cleaning up the environment,” as his motives for being a electronic vehicle enthusiast. While prices for Tesla electronic cars still remain too high to be mainstream, Edwards says that “it’s only tomorrow’s technology if you’re from General Motors or Nissan.”

Similarly popular to the Tesla, and possibly more groundbreaking, was the Honeywell WT6500 wind turbine on display.  With a six-foot diameter, and a design that nearly eliminates all mechanical resistance, this zero-emissions generator caught the eye of nearly every home owner in attendance. Since the Honeywell WT6500 can produce up to 1,500 kilowatt-hours (kW·h’s) of electricity per year, and Connecticut electric bills can charge from 10 cents to 25 cents per kW·h, yearly savings derived from the generator can number in the hundreds of dollars.

As a relatively new and advanced green product on the market, the wind turbine is also sold for a price (approximately $6,000 to $7,000) that many average-income home owners would not find attractive or viable in this economy.

Scott Albertson, an accomplished Jazz vocalist from Norwalk, took the stage as the festival neared its end Saturday afternoon. Amidst a scene of solar-powered attractions and organic food presentations, he said the main focus of the event was to “learn to be in harmony with our environment.”

The statement was almost immediately followed by the first downbeat of a Blues melody laid down by Dr. Joe Utterback.

As Albertson’s piano accompaniment, and the composer of 360 published pieces, Utterback represented almost everything that Live Green Connecticut had to offer. He knew from his experience in the Sierra Club and Green Peace in the 1970s what it was like to be part of a not-so-popular grassroots movement.

He saw no irony in the mixture of fringe technology with the century-old classic art of Jazz in the same venue because Jazz began with a small minority of people on the periphery of American culture. He said of the two, “It’s quite fitting that they would be displayed together because they both have the same type of origin.”

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