Riff of Love

Every neighborhood is filled with songs. Some are joyous, some are laments, and some are both. In every place those songs are nestled right together, in the air and buried in the ground, waiting to be heard.
Since 2005, saxophonist and author Greg Jarrell has been learning the songs of Enderly Park, his Charlotte neighborhood. In the Key of Life explores the riffs and melodies that comprise the life of the neighborhood and of QC Family Tree, the hospitality house where he lives. Though neighbors there face significant economic and political barriers, they still thrive. Funny, heartbreaking, and challenging in equal measure, these stories and essays about life in Enderly Park will surely inspire new improvisations towards community and neighbor-love for everyone who reads them.
""Participate in an inspiring spiritual drama in search of the 'blue note,' with scales and scores which soar beyond boundaries of injustice and the underground economy. Join in this session of transformation, hopefulness, and a conversation about a strange land in a familiar neighborhood. Enderly Park is continuously fresh and engaging, turn around once more, 'one more once' and gaze through broken windows seeing we are all one.""
--Clifford A. Jones, Senior Minister, Friendship Missionary Baptist Church
""Greg . . . weaves together experiences from life in a radical Christianity community with unexpected insights from his work as a saxophonist to tell a love story about the people of Enderly Park. This is one of the most human books I've read in a long while, and I heartily recommend it.""
--Mark Van Steenwyk, founder, Center for Prophetic Imagination
""Greg Jarrell walks the walk through his high-poverty Charlotte neighborhood, learning the names behind the statistics, finding jazz and Jesus in their stories. If you want to hold onto prejudices about what poor people are like, this book is not for you. It's for the open-minded, and open-hearted, and for all of us who want to understand our fellow human beings a little better.""
--Tommy Tomlinson, author of the forthcoming Elephant in the Room
""This book reads like a series of profound prayer walks, with Jarrell taking us into homes and parks and street corners we might not otherwise have access to. Through vivid, evocative language, and a propensity for connecting history to the present day, Jarrell made me fall in love with his neighborhood. There is no need quite so pressing as the challenge to learn to love our neighbors as ourselves in an unequal and unjust country such as the US, and Jarrell approaches this task with wisdom, humility, and humor.""
--D.L. Mayfield, author of Assimilate or Go Home: Notes from a Failed Missionary on Rediscovering Faith
""Greg Jarrell provides readers unique insight on issues related to racism, housing segregation, gentrification, and community building from his firsthand experiences as a community organizer on the ground in Charlotte, North Carolina . . . He moves it from the theoretical to the concrete by focusing on the humanity of those impacted by racial inequality, and includes an examination of his own personal learning process.""
--Bree Newsome, American filmmaker, musician, speaker, and activist from Charlotte, North Carolina
Greg Jarrell is a founder of QC Family Tree, a community of hospitality in Charlotte, NC, where he shares life with his wife, Helms, their two kids, and a host of other neighbors who have become kin.