Today’s guest doesn’t just play music—he organizes it into impact. Rick DellaRatta is a world-class jazz pianist, composer, and founder of Jazz for Peace, known for uniting musicians and communities after 9/11 and channeling concerts into real resources for nonprofits. We talk origin stories (a piano on Christmas Eve), improvisation as a path to freedom, the famous United Nations concert, and why Rick believes “the final solution is Love.” He also explains the Jazz for Peace Empowerment Grant model—how it helps outstanding causes become better funded, more sponsored, and more connected.

Highlights:
Improvisation, frequency, and raising human Consciousness
The poem that sparked Jazz for Peace after 9/11
UN concert bringing Israeli, Palestinian, and American musicians together
Transforming communities (from schools to Rwanda)
The “zero to 100” idea: funding peace with the same seriousness we fund war
How any legit cause can tap Jazz for Peace’s grant process

Chapters (timestamps to add after upload):
00:00 Intro
02:00 Piano arrives, a kid starts improvising
07:40 Discovering jazz in a library drawer
12:10 The poem & the UN concert
21:30 Art as activism: case studies
33:15 The Empowerment Grant (how it works)
44:50 “Zero to 100” and the podcast: The Final Solution Is Love
51:00 Closing & CTAs

Guest links:
Jazz for Peace site & grants info
Rick DellaRatta’s podcast: The Final Solution Is Love

EOE links:
Pre-order Experience Over Expectation (launch Sept 23) → marymccorvey.com

Subscribe on Substack & YouTube for episodes, clips, and behind-the-scenes

#ExperienceOverExpectation #RickDellaRatta #JazzForPeace #TheFinalSolutionIsLove #Jazz #ArtAsActivism #PeaceThroughMusic #Podcast #MaryMcCorvey

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Mary McCorvey Mary McCorvey

Mary McCorvey is a veteran of the Gulf War, founder of 7 companies, TV producer, author, radio host, and playwright whose life reads like a memoir—because it is one. From being implicated in a murder at 17 to surviving sarin gas exposure in Kuwait, Mary’s story is defined by resilience, reinvention, and one core question: What do you do… when life keeps rewriting the script?

After being diagnosed with terminal pulmonary fibrosis and told she had two years to live, Mary defied the odds. She rebuilt her life after betrayal, launched a mission to send students’ work to the Moon, and most recently, opened a locked box she’d carried for 35 years—unleashing a memoir-in-motion about love, memory, and healing.

Now the host of the podcast and author of the book, Experience Over Expectation, Mary brings wit, warmth, and depth to conversations about identity, aging, forgiveness, and second chances. She’s equally at home discussing trauma and tenacity as she is laughing through the absurdities of life.

Mary lives—and thrives—in Pennsylvania, with a story to tell and a mic in hand.