New Orleans Comes to Needham With Cool Hot Jazz

New Orleans comes to Needham with Cool Hot Jazz, an evening to support VNA Care Network & Hospice’s home health services and hospice care for the terminally ill in Dedham and surrounding communities, on Friday, Sept. 25, at 6 p.m. in the Needham Golf Club, 49 Green St., Needham.

VNA Care Network & Hospice has brought health care into the homes of Dedham residents since 1891, then known as the Dedham Visiting Nurse Association. Home health care focuses on helping people with injuries and illnesses, such as COPD, cardiac disease, diabetes, total joint replacement and wounds, improve their health while continuing to live independently. When an illness is terminal, the hospice team brings comfort and support to patients and their loved ones. Hospice care is provided in patients’ homes and the Stanley R. Tippett Hospice Home in Needham.

Cool Hot Jazz kicks off with cocktails, heavy hors d’oeuvres and silent auction at 6 p.m. Henri Smith New Orleans Friends and Flavours will perform at 7 p.m.

Henri Smith was born and raised in the birthplace of jazz, New Orleans. Today he thrills audiences with his sophisticated and dramatic vocal delivery of jazz, blues, Creole, and Cajun flavored music, touring extensively throughout the United States and Europe. He frequently performed and served as the emcee at The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the largest Jazz festival in the world. Hurricane Katrina took Smith’s home in New Orleans, so he now lives on Cape Ann, where he shares his Creole and Cajun heritage.

The evening also features dancing, live auction and cash bar. Tickets for the benefit are $60 per person and may be purchased at www.vnacarenetwork.org or by calling VNA Care Network & Hospice at 888-663-3688, ext. 1361.

Cool Hot Jazz is organized by VNA Care Network & Hospice’s Needham Area Community Cabinet, volunteers dedicated to raising awareness of and support for the agency’s nonprofit mission of caring. Gold sponsors of Cool Hot Jazz are Louise Condon Realty and Mutual of America. Silver sponsors are Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham, Grander Capital Partners, Needham Bank and Needham Golf Club Charities. Bronze sponsors are Cabem Technologies, Dedham Institution for Savings and Vita Needle Company. Friends are Copley Motor Cars, Kerivan-Lane Oil & Plumbing, Needham Women’s Club, Muzi Motors, On Time Companies and PTC, Inc.