When the Grand Rapids-based Division Avenue Arts Collective lost its home at 115 South Division two years ago, the organization that for a decade helped give voice to countless local artists and musicians faced an uncertain future. But while it’s been a bumpy ride, the DAAC has managed to avoid fading into obscurity.

If Jeff Haas is a cocktail pianist, he mixes a heady cocktail. The Traverse City-based pianist and composer has been swirling the music of Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and other jazz legends with his own original compositions, along with fresh takes on the Great American Songbook, at two jam-packed summer gigs in northwest Michigan all summer.

When The Pyramid Scheme opened its doors in April 2011, the atmosphere its co-owners had in mind was clear. They wanted employees who cared about their establishment, their neighborhood and, above all, the music. If they had that, everything else would fall in to place.

When he’s out and about in Kalamazoo, little kids will sometimes see Richard Bowser, his portly stature and flossy white hair and beard, and think: Santa Claus. And Bowser, a man with a sense of humor and fun, will engage them. “Have you been good?” he’ll say. If it’s summer, he lets them know he’s on vacation from the North Pole. But Bowser is, in real life, a cultural Santa Claus for the region.