Do free concerts hurt clubs or build audiences?

This article suggests that while the free jazz concerts in Chicago increase the popularity of jazz, they hurt small club discouraging fans from going to them and by driving up prices for artists.

Chicago Tribune news, 7/01/07: Scatting from clubs to larger concert venues: "Perhaps no one did more to affect that change than Lois Weisberg, commissioner of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs under Mayor Richard M. Daley and a cultural advocate in previous administrations. By steadily expanding free concerts in Grant Park and helping to transform the old Chicago Public Library building into the bursting-with-music Chicago Cultural Center, Weisberg put the city's muscle and money behind music.

'There's no other city in the country that does so much free music,' says Weisberg, noting that the city now spends about $2 million a year on various music events, much of it jazz.

Furthermore, by joining forces with organizations such as the Chicago Jazz Partnership -- a collection of blue-chip corporate foundations that committed $1.5 million to Millennium Park's 'Made in Chicago' jazz series and other jazz events -- the city has leveraged additional resources to jazz concert-going."

Gangs and free concerts

Denver has lots of free concerts. The City Park Jazz series has been going on for 21 years and draws as many as 10,000 people to hear the weekly Sunday concerts. It's been considered a family-friendly event.

However, this year there are reports that gang members are using the event to show their presence.

More police to patrol at jazz series - Rocky Mountain News, 6/13/07: "Denver resident Dana Alexander has crossed the City Park Jazz series off his family’s calendar this year. ...

During the first two weekends this month, gang activity tarnished the popular jazz series, a normally peaceful and family-friendly event."

The experimental music scene in different countries

A discussion of experimental music and jazz in Philadelphia, France, and the rest of Europe.

The Paris Experiment :: Music :: Philadelphia City Paper, 6/7/07: "[Jack] Wright finds a similarity in the explosion of young, enthusiastic improvisers in France, playing anywhere they can, from established venues to house shows, similar to what's happening now in Philadelphia, with one important exception — the makeup of the audience. 'The audiences that I experienced there were pretty much mixed, with children and older people. It wasn't a 'scene' audience like we have in Philadelphia. There was always a lot of curiosity because this music was completely new for these people.'"

Marc Ribot: The Care and Feeding of a Musical Margin

A detailed article about the need for subsidies for music clubs -- particularly jazz and new music clubs.

Marc Ribot: The Care and Feeding of a Musical Margin - All About Jazz, 7/7/07: "The market is failing as a means of funding downtown new music venues. The venues have either abandoned new music booking priorities (like Knitting Factory did at the end of the '90s), switched to being subsidized by musicians (like Tonic and the above mentioned new venues are doing now) or both. Musician benefit concerts and recordings, once a 'special' situation, are being normalized as a means of funding....

New music composers of the '40s through the early '60s didn't expect to make money through the live performance market; many taught to earn a living. John Cage's income wasn't based on packing a nightclub with door-fee paying, drink-buying customers; many of his history making premieres were attended by fewer people than attended an average gig at CBGB. He was supported mainly by commissions and performance fees, by grants from private and public foundations. In experimental jazz, things were much the same, although less generously funded; avant gardists through the '70s played a 'loft' scene not known for generating big bucks. Cecil Taylor worked as a dishwasher while developing his history-changing style. And when he was able to quit his day job, it was due to the backing of mostly European, subsidized festivals....

The idea behind European public arts subsidies, the reason why NYC jazz/new music artists for at least the last 40 years have played Paris, Cologne and Zurich many more times than they've played Hartford (and how many have ever played Des Moines?) is a doctrine called “the European cultural exception”, a set of government policies based on the concept that, even within a market economy, art/culture is to be treated differently from other commodities."

Putting jazz clubs into perspective

An interview with Branford Marsalis.

MetroTimes Detroit, 5/16/07 -‘Jazz has never been popular’: "Marsalis: Jazz music has never been popular. I think that we need to get away from that lie. Jazz clubs back in the day, were considered places of counterculture. If you listen to records like John Coltrane Live at the Village Vanguard and Bill Evans Live at the Village Vanguard, what you will hear is a lot of people talking and treating the music with relative indifference. In the '50s, if you wanted to go to a cool place to hang out and have some drinks and talk, you went to a jazz club. Where were you going to go? Lawrence Welk didn't have a club where you could go to. Now they have all kinds of clubs that didn't exist back then. Whoever heard of a cigar bar or a wine bar?"

MT: In those venues the music is secondary to the ambience and the socializing.

Marsalis: The music has always been secondary; that is why you hear people talking. Jazz has never been popular. I think that is just a common thing to say, and I don't know why. Just for research purposes, you should get the Time magazine with Thelonious Monk on the cover [from 1964] and read the entire article. What you'll notice is there's very little in that article about jazz music. It's more focused on the personality and jazz as a lifestyle. The American aesthetic has always viewed all music as a form of entertainment. Any idea of music as an art has always been something that America has rejected since we have had a country.

Revitalizing Denver's "Harlem"

A new theater is opening in what was once Denver's center for black culture. Now the neighborhood is a mixture of 25% black, 43% Latino, and 27% white, so this theater plans to draw upon its neighborhood history but also expand to showcase a variety of cultural influences.

5/10/07, The Denver Post - New theater opening in Five Points neighborhood: "The Denver neighborhood once called "the Harlem of the West" is enjoying a cultural renaissance of its own these days....

Another person who sees the upside on the cultural front is Denver lawyer Kurt Lewis, who sold his house to open a new live theater, Crossroads at Five Points Theatre....

Five Points developer James Ellis is one of his biggest fans.

'One of the things we really like about Crossroads is that there are no boundaries, and that is implied by the name,' said Ellis, who plans to restore the facade of the historic Rossonian Hotel next door and reopen it as a live jazz venue with an upscale restaurant by summer 2008....

Five Points once boasted more than 50 jazz clubs and earned the city's first-ever designation as a neighborhood of 'cultural significance,' Ellis said. It was not only a favorite destination for such legends as Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday, it was a respite from the racism that pervaded just 10 blocks to the south....

And now Lewis, a white man, has leveraged his future to build an 84-seat, $450,000 theater in a building owned by a black man.

Everyone involved with Crossroads believes the theater, and the neighborhood, can best survive into the future if it celebrates its cultural past while also welcoming, even encouraging, all those who dared not go there before. That means celebrating diversity in a rainbow of colors.

That's one reason Lewis' 3,600-square-foot theater is opening with an Irish play. 'Bold Girls' will be followed by a one-woman jazz musical, and the world premiere of 'The Sisters, Sweetwater,' the story of two black women in the 1920s written by Hugo Jon Sayles of Shadow, Denver's only black theater company.

But Lewis envisions a melting- pot community resource open all day every day for classes, jazz, cabaret, poetry, fashion shows and even weekly 'open- mic dance.' Theater performances will start no later than 7 p.m., followed by late-night spoken- word artists Café Nuba and late- late-night screenings of the cult film 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show.'

Allowing many visions

'Denver doesn't really have a place that embraces the creative class, and it doesn't have a place that celebrates ethnicity,' Ellis said. 'Crossroads is a place that plans to do that and then some.'

Crossroads board member donnie l. betts said the theater will be unique because it seeks a convergence of creative cultures with differing values."

Music is happening in Denton, Texas

PopMatters Music Feature | Could Denton, Texas, be the nation's next hot spot for indie rock?: "Is Denton ready to elbow aside the flashier, bigger cities of Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston and, yes, Austin, to take its place atop the Texas-music food chain?

Could it be a town on the verge? Is the next Seattle or Omaha (home of Bright Eyes and the whole Saddle Creek label scene) brewing right up Interstate 35? ...

There are some who would say that Denton, home to an estimated 104,000 people and three universities, including the well-regarded University of North Texas with its acclaimed music department, already has a national reputation as a music mecca. The considerable roster of past and present Denton residents lends credence to the notion. Artists such as Roy Orbison, Norah Jones and Don Henley have spent time in classrooms on the UNT campus (see story on this page)."

How the popularity of rock reunions explains the joys of live music

Rock Reunions - Music - Column - New York Times, 5/6/07: "In fact, if it weren’t for sentiment, if it weren’t for our strong but ultimately inexplicable desire to be in the same room as people making music, we might not bother to go to concerts at all. In that sense, a reunion show is the ultimate rock ’n’ roll concert: a sensory experience overwhelmed by an imaginary one; a musical event that is merely a pretext for a social one. Those people onstage are old friends, in a sense; they have been living in our heads for years or decades. (That’s why substitutions are so irritating: what’s the point of being reunited with someone you’ve never met?) At a reunion show, those figments turn back into real people for a few hours."

The above column was in response to this column, published several weeks earlier.

Not Reunions, Reinventions (Back and Better. Really.) - New York Times, 4/22/07: "Ashley Capps, who helps produce mid-June’s Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tenn. — which has booked the Police as one of its headliners this year — put it in a slightly simpler way. 'When I was growing up, the release of an album was an event,' he said. 'We’ve moved away from the notion that the release of a recording is an event. Somebody can release a great album and get fantastic reviews and everybody’s talking about it, but how long does that last? Six weeks? In that sense, live performances are becoming the important event.'

Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, the concert-industry magazine, is so used to old acts propping up the industry that he doesn’t believe this year’s picture is substantially different. 'Last year you had Bob Seger, this year you have Genesis,' he said evenly over the phone recently. He is not sure whether new bands — Arcade Fire, say — are striking deeply enough into the soul of the culture to necessitate their own reunions down the road. I think context will determine it. If there are lots of great new bands in the next 10 years, we won’t feel we need an Arcade Fire reunion. If there aren’t, we will.

It seems now that the audience position for rock is coming closer to that of jazz around the mid-1970s. Most of the forefathers are still with us; increasingly, they seem to have something important to teach us. And we are developing strange hungers for music of the not-so-distant past that might be bigger and deeper than the hunger we originally had. That feeling people talked about during the Pixies shows a few years ago — the word 'eerie' was used a great deal — seems similar to descriptions of the feeling generated in the Village Vanguard when Dexter Gordon played his comeback shows there in 1976, after living abroad. Since then, jazz has advanced into a culture of incessant re-experience, endless tributes. Actual reunions are barely noticed: a huge percentage of the music refers to great moments of the past. Yet that doesn’t mean that jazz can’t still be fantastic, even transformative. It is, all the time.

We have to allow for the possibility that Rage Against the Machine — or the Police, or the Jesus and Mary Chain — could be as good as it ever was, if perhaps a little more wizened, a little more skeptical. (It will depend on their practicing of course.) If you’re still looking for something sacred, it probably can’t be found in their values or politics or cult significance. It’s in you: It is your own reaction to how they sound. Nobody can take that away from you."

New Orleans Jazz Fest shows off local music scene

New Orleans Jazz Fest: A celebration of a city reborn - USATODAY.com: "Though shuttered hotels and fewer conventions have hurt musicians, particularly jazz players, the club scene has bounced back full force, with more live venues per capita than any U.S. city....

The 2006 fest crowd was 70% regional. Outsiders hesitated, Davis suspects, because they were uncertain clubs and restaurants were functioning and because media images of Katrina horrors scarred memories....

A recent Mount Auburn Associates study commissioned by Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu estimates that close to two-thirds of the city's musicians have returned [to live there]. "

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."

How to open a new jazz club

This article discusses how a new jazz club in Toronto plans to avoid the problems which closed two others. Three differences: (1) The new club will not try to be a restaurant, which doomed one club. (2) It will not be hit with rising rents, which closed the other club. (3) It has been designed to provide great sound and ambiance. "Instead of looking like a restaurant or bar, its cavernous ceiling, muted lighting and working fireplaces create an ambience that's somewhere between a concert hall and a private club."

globeandmail.com: The rebirth of cool: "When long-time jazz club the Montreal Bistro shut its doors last July, a year after fellow jazz joint the Top o' the Senator went dark, a lot of fans felt the closings marked a downturn for jazz in Toronto.

Nick Di Donato, on the other hand, felt it was the perfect time to get into the jazz business."

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The history of jazz places

An interesting piece on the importance of "place" for music, which is pretty much the theme of my blog.

Jazz Places: "Every art work has to be someplace. Physical works, like paintings and sculptures, have to be someplace: a museum, a gallary, a home, a public square. Music and dance and theater have to be performed someplace; a court, a theater or concert hall, a private home, a public square or street. Books and similar materials take up space too--in bookstores and distributors' warehouses and people's homes. What places are available to exhibit or perform or keep and enjoy works in? Who is in charge of them and responsible for them? How does this organization of place constrain the work done there? What opportunities does it make available? I'll restrict myself to the case of 20th century jazz, for the most part in the United States, for the somewhat unrespectable reason that this is a subject I know well. And I will rely on my own memory as well as on what scholarship is available."

Using jazz to brand Kansas City

Kansas City, Here They Come - Los Angeles CityBeat: "Only four American cities have contributed distinct styles that account for separate epochs of jazz history: New Orleans, Chicago, New York, and Kansas City, Missouri. ...

"So it’s no surprise that some civic leaders are now trying to find ways to turn this legacy into tourist dollars. What is surprising is that opposition looms. The struggle represents larger social, political, economic, and even musical battles within the city."

What makes a good festival?

This author shares his thoughts on why the Montreal Jazz Festival is so good, and what the SF Jazz Festival might do to improve.

ContraCostaTimes.com | 07/30/2006 | How cities can jazz up music festivals: "What makes Montreal such an adrenaline-inducing experience is the way that the festival grabs hold of the city's imagination, becoming the dominant cultural story for a huge metropolitan region of more than 3 million people. With more than 150 performances by a staggering range of musicians, many only tangentially related to jazz, the most exciting part of the festival is discovering musicians you've never heard before. For music fans, it can be an almost overwhelming experience.

"With a typically Canadian embrace of sensible urban planning, Montreal has developed the ideal infrastructure for throwing a huge, multi-venue event. The festival takes over the heart of the city's cultural district, turning several major streets into car-free zones while transforming the plaza in front of the Contemporary Art Museum into a vast outdoor party, with refreshments, food stalls and multiple bandstands offering free concerts.

"The festival's eight indoor venues, which offer ticketed concerts, are either on the plaza or within a few blocks."

Mixing Boomers and Gen Y

Here's another example of venues that are finding ways to appeal to both younger and older fans.

Baltimore's Young Music Fans Move from Hip Hop to Jazz | BaltimoreChronicle.com, 7/12/06: "Small Baltimore jazz clubs are experiencing a resurgence in attendance among an under-30 demographic and have welcomed such diversity....

"Many of Baltimore’s young music lovers prefer to visit jazz establishments over other nightlife venue options. The relaxed atmosphere has most frequently been cited as the main reason many prefer jazz clubs to the rowdier scene of hip hop clubs or sports pubs. The level of talent displayed by jazz artists is another reason why Baltimore’s young people are flocking to local jazz clubs."

Canadian Jazz festivals and their economic impact

The Toronto Downtown Jazz costs about $3.5 million (Canadian) to stage (paid for through ticket sales and sponsorships), but adds $20 million to the local economy. (Not that finding sponsors is ever easy: it took six people making pitches to 75 companies over 12 months to find three new sponsors.) The biggest cost is the entertainment. Jazz festivals in Ottawa and Montreal are held around the same time so that out-of-town artists can play all of them, making it more economical to fly them in.

The Montreal International Jazz Festival costs $20 million and generates at least $100 million for the local economy.

"The most recent economic impact study, by Festivals & Events Ontario, found that the top 17 festivals in Ontario have a combined financial impact of $345 million on the regional economy and create more than 10,000 full-time jobs annually. Smaller festivals generate on average between $400,000 and $2.7 million for local economies. Were even three major festivals to stop operating, more than $100 million would be lost to regional economies every year."

TheStar.com - Festivals give Ontario a financial boost