Jazz fest impressions, part 3 - Coda

I've had a number of thoughts banging around in my head following the conclusion of the 2006 US Bank St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival, but haven't had the chance to set them down until now.

First, some news: Festival organizers were very pleased with this year's turnout. I spoke last week with Cynthia Prost, executive director of Cultural Festivals, the organization that produces the jazz fest, and she told me that it was "probably a record-setting weekend. Both nights were very strong." Although still awaiting sales reports from Metrotix and Borders, and thus not able to give a final total, Prost said that the Festival organization sold 12,000 tickets on its own, via its Web site and at the gate. Add in the tickets sold by those other outlets, and it seems plausible that the total may be very near to surpassing the overall attendance record of 20,000 set several years ago with George Benson as headliner.

So, what accounts for the dramatic turnaround in attendance? The consensus seems to point to three things: better marketing, good weather, and a musical lineup featuring performers with established fan bases in St. Louis.

In my earlier interview with her, Prost mentioned that the 2006 festival's advance sales were well ahead of any previous year, thanks to some substantial discounts for early purchasers, a volunteer "street team" out working in the community, and the addition of direct ordering on the festival's Web site. I find it encouraging that the organizers were able to find some new and successful marketing strategies this year, and one would hope that they'll be able to build on those successes in the future.

As for the weather, this year's was very good, and undoubtedly contributed to people coming earlier and staying longer. Without knowing what percentage of tickets are sold at the gate, it's hard to quantify the effect of weather on walk-up sales, but common sense dictates that you're going to sell more tickets when it's 85 and pleasant than when it's 95 and extremely humid.

Not every jazz festival is so dependent on good weather, though. If you look at events held in other cities, you can see an alternate model, one in which a number of concerts are held in different locations over a period of several days or even weeks. The just-concluded Montreal festival is one example.

In our StLJB roundtable discussion about jazz festivals this spring, we bandied about a number of ideas for expanding the St. Louis festival beyond a single-site event, including presenting different concerts in various local venues appropriate to the style of music and expected attendance, and adding other types of events -such as workshops, film screenings, symposia, a pub crawl or a jazz cruise - to the mix.

From a programming standpoint, this is definitely the sort of thing I'd like to see here in St. Louis. And it does have a practical advantage over a two-day outdoor concert in that it's much less likely that a couple of days of bad weather could wipe out the whole thing.

However, the folks at Cultural Festivals seem strongly oriented toward the single-site paradigm. It is, after all, what they do for a living. So, as long as the St. Louis jazz festival continues to be a single-site outdoor event held on a single weekend, attendance will be vulnerable to the effects of bad weather.

As for the musical talent on display at the 2006 festival, Ms. Prost has consistently maintained to me, and to all other reporters, that the fest's bookings are largely at the mercy of performers' summer schedules. This year, organizers were able to book a group of headliners who all seemed to have some sort of St. Louis fan base already, save perhaps Lizz Wright, who nevertheless benefited from having David Sanborn performing right before her.

Those pre-existing fan bases surely helped the turnout, but while organizers always look for some names with commercial appeal, they're not going to get a similar collection of acts every year. And anyway, I don't think having a big local fan base should be a pre-condition of getting booked for this event - I want a jazz festival that brings us something new and challenging as well as familiar favorites.

So what about trying to create or commission something especially for the St. Louis festival? At one point, I asked Ms. Prost about the notion of trying to generate some original programming - for example, what about a tribute concert dedicated to, say, Lester Bowie or Oliver Nelson? While she termed the general idea "very interesting," that's about as far as it went.

Implementation is another story entirely. It isn't clear at all how one gets from having a festival that must take whatever's on menus of the big booking agencies for a particular year to one that generates original programming ideas that can attract audiences, musicians and media attention.

But it seems to me that if an event consistently is having trouble getting attractive programming based on what booking agencies are offering, that's actually an argument in favor of attempting to develop your own distinctive original programming. After all, if you have your own artistic agenda, and are reaching out to musicians well in advance of festival booking season to involve them in specific project ideas and fill your calendar, you have less need for whatever touring packages are out there that will also be getting booked in Indianapolis, Kansas City, Memphis and so on. For this reason alone, the organizers ought to be considering how they can develop some original ideas for the St. Louis festival.

On the other hand, I give Ms. Prost and her colleagues high marks for showing a greater commitment to St. Louis based musicians this year. The 2006 fest included more local and regional acts than ever before, and it was a diverse mix of music of generally high quality. I hope they'll continue to book lots of local and regional groups at future festivals, and, when it makes sense, find ways to give them more prominent roles

As a side note, the crowd that turned out for the Preservation Hall Jazz Band demonstrated that there's still a good sized audience for traditional jazz here. And with St. Louis-based bands like Cornet Chop Suey and Jean Kittrell traveling all over the U.S. headlining traditional jazz festivals, it would seem that we have a significant local talent base in that style, too. So, I'm thinking that it makes sense to include at least one traditional jazz group as part of every future festival lineup, and by using St. Louis acts to fill that slot, organizers can control costs without compromising quality.

Overall, this year's jazz fest lineup didn't present much music that was new or challenging, but as a fan of Dr. John, David Sanborn, Stanley Clarke and George Duke, I had a pretty good time on both days of the festival anyway. I would have liked to have heard at least one major, national touring act playing uncompromising, acoustic or acoustic-electric modern jazz - something along the lines of what the Dave Douglas Quintet did last year, featuring one of the many major jazz artists who haven't performed in St. Louis recently.

Had the organizers swapped Lizz Wright for said act, and juggled the time slots so that Sanborn closed the show on Saturday, I doubt if attendance would have been hurt at all, and the festival would have gained a significant amount of musical substance. But all in all, I think the 2006 US Bank St. Louis Jazz and Heritage Festival has to be considered a success by most measures.

However, that success also raises the bar for the future. And based on everything I've seen to date, the current artistic leadership of the festival - which seems to be Ms. Prost and Paul Reuter of the Sheldon, with counsel from the management of Jazz St. Louis and an "advisory board" of unnamed others - seems pretty set in its ways. If the festival is to grow, both artistically and in terms of attendance, some new programming ideas are needed. I just can't see producing an outstanding festival year after year by simply waiting around to see what the booking agents are offering.

Instead, I'd like to see the festival organizers get some new people involved in the programming process for next year. Certainly, there are potential advisors in the community not currently included in the festival's core group who have informed viewpoints and a lot of ideas of their own, and there ought to be a way to get at least some additional input from local musicians, academics and perhaps even us slobs in the media.

True, the festival does operate under a certain amount of fiscal uncertainty from year to year, but that's no reason not to hold some brainstorming sessions, solicit proposals, and try to come up with some fresh, innovative ideas. Once funding is assured, the fest could start reaching out to musicians who can make some of those ideas into reality. Then, perhaps next year we might enjoy a St. Louis jazz festival that has a distinct local identity and is that is as viable artistically as it is financially.