Highlighting local jazz in Boston

This article talks about a jazz festival in Boston and gives an overview of Boston's history as a jazz town from the 1950s to the present.

Scene & heard - The Boston Globe: "Jazz Week offers more than 150 events -- concerts, lectures, discussions, and family events -- at 50 venues in the city and suburbs....

The Jazz Week calendar confirms this in abundance: churches, high schools, community centers, bookstores, restaurants, and bars and cafes are all in the mix. Pauline Bilsky, JazzBoston's executive director, points out that many events are ones that would be taking place in a regular week; it's simply taken Jazz Week to highlight them under a common banner.

But the Boston jazz scene also faces some peculiar challenges. One is how to retain some of the talent that leaves town each year. Another is how to properly value what Harvey calls 'the indigenous scene' -- Boston's many professional musicians who might or might not teach at the schools but belong as much to the tradition in which jazz is transmitted through apprenticeship and osmosis, not curricula.

Brown points out that it's hard for these musicians to compete for gigs. 'Some of us have been playing here for up to 40 years,' he says. 'But a lot of promoters will go for a developing musician' -- one who costs less to book. As a result, Brown says, many of Boston's finest musicians are known for having trained major stars but are themselves rarely heard in local venues."