Nate Chinen has a piece in today's Times about Andrew D'Angelo, a Slope saxophonist and composer who underwent surgery last week to remove a brain tumor, and now has been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. The cancer is treatable through radiation, but D'Angelo suffers from another condition that's all too prevalent among today's musicians: he is without health insurance. (Darcy Argue offers an extensive and incisive first-hand perspective on this totally unacceptable situation.)

If untreated, doctors say that D'Angelo has less than five years to live. (He's 41.) So, the good folks at Tea Lounge and Barbes have teamed up to host a pair of benefit concerts, with all proceeds going to fund D'Angelo's treatment. I don't personally know D'Angelo, but I have friends that do, and they tell me his spirits are high and he's ready to go into this battle fighting. He just needs our help.

Tea Lounge will be holding their benefit tomorrow; Barbes is next Thurs. Go and give whatever you can.