NYC’s Special Audiences and Musicians releases first full-length album

Whether you’re listening to your favorite classic rock band on the radio or playing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” on the dusty keyboard in the corner of your bedroom, interacting with music of any kind has been proven to result in a number of cognitive benefits, including reduced anxiety and blood pressure, as well as improved sleep quality, and memory. The Johns Hopkins Institute of Medicine calls this, “a total brain workout.”

Music also allows the listener or musician to more closely engage with the act of communication than spoken dialogue does, making it the perfect outlet for those living on the autism spectrum.

Early last week, the Special Audiences and Musicians, Inc (SAM) released its first major recording project, “The Compositions of Sam Baum”, an album featuring original music performed by 29-year-old autistic pianist, Sam Baum, alongside members of the Special Audiences and Musicians Jazz Sextet. 

“This album symbolizes a major achievement in SAM’s goal of promoting social justice issues by way of creative musical expression,” said SAM’s founder, Jeffrey J. Nussbaum. 

“Prejudice against people deemed ‘the other’ has been a vexing problem forever. However, it must be said that in recent years progress has been made,” and the work of Special Audiences and Musicians has contributed to that progress, he believed.

Because we live in a linguo-centric society, where every word means something different and the mannerisms you make when you speak are so powerfully coded and open to being misconstrued, if you don’t communicate “correctly”, or if you are born with a neurocognitive difference, that can cause a tremendous amount of anxiety. While, on the other hand, music-making environments are more receptive to those neurodiverse individuals, where they can engage and interact in meaningful ways. 

Baum, much like Amadeus Mozart, the prolific composer who displayed autistic behaviors in the eighteenth century, was hooked on music from a very young age— ever since he was entered into a Suzuki piano program at the Third Street Music School. 

“There was nothing particularly exceptional that occurred,” said Nussbaum, “however, when I introduced jazz, blues and improvisation to Sam it was like a literal explosion. Something about the jazz vocabulary and improvisation really spoke to him and he made wonderful and quick progress learning jazz tunes.”

It’s no surprise that Baum took an immediate liking to this genre of music, as jazz is famed for its cool tones, unique riffs and artful rhythms which have been proven to promote natural pleasure to the mind and body.

“Jazz makes me feel good,” Baum said in a recent interview. 

“Observing him on the outside, it is clear that jazz is Sam’s real language. It is where he is most clever, humorous and expressive,” Nussbaum noted.

The young adult’s musical prowess, as an individual on the spectrum, inspired the creation of the Special Audiences and Musicians, Inc, where their highest priority is to provide performance opportunities for musicians from three under-represented groups: musicians with disabilities, senior jazz musicians and…