Thursday, March 02, 2006

The StLJN Jazz Roundtable: Jazz festivals, part 4

For background on this roundtable discussion and more information on the participants, go here.

Read
Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

From: Terry Perkins
Responding to Steve's point regarding the excellent talent that was booked back in 1989 for the (then) VP Fair. That goes back to my point regarding community support for a major jazz event. That particular year, the stars aligned for some reason and some major bucks came through for funding for a proposal by some dedicated music fans to really bring some great avant-garde jazz (and some interesting, but neglected mainstream artists such as Cedar Walton) to the VP Fair. And it was free for the public.

The unfortunate part was that while some great music made it to the stages... some didn't. The primary example is the one cited by Steve. Cecil Taylor was booked... actually showed up in St. Louis and made it to his hotel room across from the Arch grounds. But he never ventured out of that room to play. My guess is no one organizing the event had the brass huevos to call his bluff and make him do it...and Taylor still picked up his hefty check.

So for all the good music that came about, poor management and a lack of budgetary control in other areas basically killed the chances of any repeat of such bookings the following year... and it was back to Charlie Daniels, Mike Love's imitation version of the Beach Boys and other non-descript fodder.

I guess my point is that we can all dream big and put some pretty impressive festival lineups together, but unless we can bring the organizational skills to bear to make it happen -- and if not make a little or break even at the end -- at least show the sponsors (both corporate and civic) that they got some major bang for the investment... it's all just an intellectual exercise.

With the U.S. Bank Fest, the organizational skills and support are clearly there... and the appropriate sponsorship connections have been made. But there's definitely an artistic and cultural black hole there somewhere as well. There has to be a way to bring some imagination to bear in programming (some of Dean's ideas are great!) and in a commitment to local musicians.

From: Steve Pick
It's interesting to see that both Terry and Dean propose festivals that combine outdoor events with smaller events at other venues. Dean's idea of even more events, such as film screenings, was good, too. The BAG retrospective at Wash U last week, that I didn't get to, sounded like something that could have been tied to a festival. There were a number of interesting things going on for that.

Twangfest has a nice event called Twangclips, in which very rare footage is shown. I would think a similar event for jazz would be a big hit. I betcha Joe Schwab at Euclid Records would be able to put something together like that.

Making an event that combines live music with a large number of other social and intellectual experiences seems the best way to help build up a jazz community.


From: Dennis Owsley
I want to point out that in the research for my book, I've come across neglect of local artists that goes back into the 1890's. This is both in interviews and in the media. For example, Turpin's Rosebud Bar was THE place for ragtime up to 1905. The Globe-Democrat ignored the ragtime players, the Post-Dispatch ran one article praising Joplin, St. Louis Palladium (the black newspaper of the time carried ads but said nothing about the musicians there. Going forward to the Black Artists' Group days, The Globe carried ads and a couple of stories, the Post totally ignored it, the Argus and the American totally ignored it and St. Louis Pride magazine reviewed a couple of their events. Closer to the present day, the Webster Jazz Series has been going on since 1980. The Globe actually reviewed some concerts up to the mid-1980's, but there has not been one review ever in the Post. At least one of the concerts each has musicianship and repertoire as good or better that what appears regularly at the Bistro. The last two concerts were very well attended because of stories in the Get Out section (one at least, by Terry).

I think that most of us have realized that St. Louis has some kind of a weird inferiority complex in regards to any intellectual endeavor. This includes both the arts and sciences. For an artist of any kind to succeed in this place, there must be some sort of validation in the form of a review, or outside work that validates the artist in the eyes of St. Louisans. If it is only from here, it can't be any good. When I retired from Monsanto in 1996, I was one of the top 30 scientists. I remember one CEO and one vice president at another time saying that the research community at that company wasn't good enough and anything they really wanted to develop would come from outside. The only local musicians that are reviewed (i.e. validated in someone's opinion) are the symphony musicians and they get reviewed wherever they perform. Nobody else in music from here gets reviewed unless they have left and come back.

So the neglect of the local artists by the Shaw Park organizers or the media is no surprise to me.

I would also suggest that the organizers are going for name recognition, not talent, in the selection of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. When I've heard them, the music was wonderfully nostalgic (another St. Louis characteristic--never forget the 1904 World's Fair or Gaslight Square), but out of tune and out of time. I'm not an expert in the traditional jazz field, but I believe that the two best bands in terms of repertoire and musicianship are the Jim Cullum Jazz Band (heard every Saturday on WSIE) and the Jeanne Kittrell St. Louis Rivermen. I've been trying to get the Bistro to bring in the Cullum band for a couple of years, along with more avant-garde groups (for at least five years). The success of the WSQ will hopefully move things along in that direction.

For me, there is hope in the audience demographics of my show. 1/3 of the audience is 18 and below and the largest audience is often in the 11:00 pm hour--the avant-garde hour.

Last year the Shaw Park festival only had 8,000 customers. The Dave Douglas Band had no name recognition, except through my show. Roy Hargrove had dropped off the radar for a period, but Jane Monheit was a big name. The drop in the audience was attributed to the oppressive heat, but what if it was the Peabo Bryson, Everette Harp, et. al. stuff hoping to attract African Americans (see my earlier comments). We will know this year if it was the weather or the programming.

From: Steve Pick
First question, Dennis: What book? This sounds interesting.

Then, onto the discussion: I don't think it's fair to look at historic media ignorance of jazz as any kind of dig against St. Louis. That stuff wasn't covered anywhere, or if it was covered at all, it was very superficial.

As for local artists being covered in the press, both Terry and I have written about lots of jazz acts in the Post over the years, and Rene and Dean have covered 'em in the RFT. Of course, there is a lot more that could be done, but from my point of view, at least, there's a lot more that could be done about covering music in general. And there's so much music to cover.

It's clear that Dennis is jazz-centric, or he wouldn't have said local musicians aren't reviewed in St. Louis newspapers, because plenty of rock and hip-hop acts have gotten a lot of coverage over the years. Dennis makes excellent points about the name recognition of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band vs. the St. Louis artists doing the same thing better. I haven't seen the acts Dennis mentions, but I've seen some amazing traditional jazz in this town back in the 80s. And, I've heard the Preservation Hall group on record, and been decidedly unimpressed.

I think there are a lot of reasons why the Shaw Park Festival didn't draw much last year, but I'm not sure this year will be any better. The same core audience will continue to come, but there isn't much that will grab new audiences.

From: Dennis Owsley
The book is called City of Gabriels: The Jazz History of St. Louis (1890-1973) to be published in conjunction with an exhibit on St. Louis jazz history at the Sheldon Art Galleries opening on September 21, 2006. Reedy Press is the publisher. I've been researching it for over 20 years. It is an oral history book and believe me, when you read some of the things in the interviews, you might change your mind. I am jazz-centric. I don't have any problem with that. I'm aware of other music forms and do listen to them, but I thought this was a jazz forum.

It is one thing to have an article about an upcoming event, but there is something else about an actual review that might convince the people from the "show-me" state that local artists of all kinds have worth. I confess to not spending much time reading the RFT, I'm pretty busy and going out to get it is below my radar most of the time. I don't think I've seen such reviews in the P-D.

From: Terry Perkins
Unfortunately, with the sale of the Post-Dispatch, reviews of any kind of musical event have basically disappeared. Sure, the Stones still get reviewed -- and occasionally the favorite artists of Post staffers -- who evidently will agree to write the occasional review in exchange for free tickets.

But freelancer reviews -- the lifeblood of that system have dried up almost completely. I used to review every major concert at Jazz at the Bistro... and i haven't been able to do that in over a year.

I agree with Dennis regarding reviews -- they are an essential document of musical culture.You can write all the previews you want. But if there's no record of what actually went down... it could all just be 2084 (updated for Bush) speak. There's no record it ever happened.

From: Steve Pick
I'm definitely looking forward to reading your book. Sounds absolutely fascinating.

My only point is that St. Louis isn't exactly alone in historically ignoring the arts in newspapers.

As for concert reviews, well, the Post doesn't run 'em like they used to, that's for sure. At one time, there was a much better chance of getting some reviews of jazz in the paper.

From: Rene Spencer Saller
Whoa! I'm away from my desk all morning, and the next thing I know, I've missed most of the roundtable discussion!

I'm afraid that I can't contribute any original insights -- everyone has already thought of everything that I would have said, and everyone has already said it better than I would have anyway -- but I can put in my two cents, I guess.

Speaking just for myself, I'd be interested in seeing more avant-garde jazz artists come to St. Louis, but I can't imagine any of them going over too well at the USB Bank Jazz Festival (or whatever corporate-sounding name that the Clayton jazz festival is using these days). It seems unlikely that the hallowed 1989 VP fair lineup will ever be repeated, and, from a purely fiscal perspective, I guess I understand. Maybe the answer is to have smaller, more specialized jazz festivals and not try to cater to everyone, from the Jane Monheit fans to the James "Blood" Ulmer fans. Just because all these artists are categorized as "jazz" doesn't mean that they'll appeal to the same audience. The Clayton jazz festival has to appeal to a fairly conservative and bourgeois crowd -- it is in Clayton, after all, hardly a hotbed of progressive culture.

A friend of mine is trying to bring the pianist Matthew Shipp to St. Louis, and it's been more of a hassle than you'd think. I won't name any names, but I was surprised to learn that a faculty member from one of the local universities' jazz-studies programs had never heard of Matthew Shipp. My friend asked me for advice about places that Matthew Shipp might be able to play, and I was saddened that I couldn't think of any (I extended an offer to him to play at my house, using my grand piano, but I don't think we could fit enough people inside to cover his traveling expenses). It seems to me that most of the true outside and experimental jazz artists are performing at places like Radio Cherokee and the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center, where mostly punk-rock fans and the like show up (obviously, places like that won't work for pianists of Shipp's caliber, who expect to play on decent pianos).

I'm not sure what the answer is, quite honestly. It isn't unreasonable for festival promoters to want to cover their expenses, and once you start bringing in corporate sponsors, you generally end up making more concessions to mainstream tastes. That's just the way of the world, no matter what genre of music we're talking about.
From: Dennis Owsley
I hate to belabor this point, but, sure I'm jazz centric. All the jazz on the radio played by people who are not trying to make their living at it (and there is only one that I can think of) are jazz-centric and are doing it for the love of the music and nothing else. If it weren't for us, who occasionally have had to fight station management to keep this music on the air, there would be very little, if any, jazz on the radio. None of us are great personalities and we are not willing to act like fools to get the music across.

(Edited 3/3/06 to fix the headline)

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