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Riffs
Zack Pride (left), Takana Miyamoto and Marcus
Printup at the Diana Wortham Theatre in Asheville, N.C.
Chairman Hancock: Herbie Hancock
took the baton from Christian McBride
as the creative chair for jazz for the Los
Angeles Philharmonic Association on
March 16. Hancock’s two-year tenure
will start with the Hollywood Bowl’s
2010 season. Details: laphil.org
City’s Saints: New Orleans Saints
quarterback Drew Brees will help stage
The Domino Effect, a concert that will
pay tribute to Fats Domino and raise
money to rebuild damaged schools and
playgrounds in New Orleans. The concert
on May 30 at the New Orleans
Arena will feature Chuck Berry, Little
Richard, Taj Mahal and others.
Details: dominoeffectnola.com
Buddy’s Turns 20: Buddy Guy will
celebrate the 20th anniversary of his
Chicago club, Buddy Guy’s Legends,
with a party at the venue on June 16.
Details: buddyguys.com
Motown Lessons: Songwriter Lamont
Dozier will lead a master class in songwriting
on June 16 at New York’s
Kaufman Center as part of the Songwriters’
Hall of Fame Master Class
series. Dozier was part of Motown’s ’60s
house songwriting team with Brian and
Eddie Holland. Details: songhall.org
WGBO Launch: Radio station WBGO
of Newark, N.J., has started a new weekly
jazz show and web site, “The
Checkout.” Details: checkoutjazz.com
Detroit Award: The Detroit International
Jazz Festival received a $50,000
grant from the Joyce Foundation to support
John Clayton’s composition paying
tribute to Thad, Hank and Elvin Jones,
as well as the city’s Guardian Building.
Details: detroitjazzfest.com
RIP, Oquendo: Percussionist Manny
Oquendo died in New York on March
25. He was 77. After working with Tito
Puente and Eddie Palmieri, Oquendo
founded Conjunto Libre.
Grassroots Jazz Societies Bring Major Talent
to Small, Affordable Performance Spaces
As part of April’s Jazz Appreciation Month,
The Smithsonian Institute started listing organizations
that promote jazz performance and
education. It ended up with more than 200
organizations in 44 states. Many of these nonprofit
societies were founded in the 1980s and
1990s to foster a jazz following in musicstarved
communities. In large cities, these
groups promote alternative venues removed
from the circuit of restaurants and clubs. Big
and small, with both meager and healthy budgets,
the goal of these organizations is simple:
provide affordable access to jazz.
In the past decade, additional societies have
entered the picture. Channel Cities Jazz Club
in Oxnard, Calif., was born in 2002, and Jazz
Lovers of the Lowcountry formed in 2004 in
Hilton Head, S.C. New groups in Atlanta,
Santa Cruz, Calif., Palm Beach, Fla., and
Baltimore have also started holding concerts.
Others, like Seattle’s Earshot Jazz, have grown
to the point where they produce an annual festival,
as well as smaller events in museums
and libraries throughout the year.
“Jazz societies try to present this music at
as moderate a price they can,” said Bo Farson,
who runs the Western North Carolina (WNC)
Jazz Society in Asheville, N.C. Tickets for his
six-show concert series, which is housed in the
500-seat Diana Wortham Theatre, are $22
each with a $30 membership. “[Jazz societies]
want to make the music available to as many
people as possible.”
Farson, a New York City transplant, is
from the latest crop of music promoters. He
started producing concerts in 2003, modeling
them after shows sponsored by the Presbyterian
Jazz Society in Mt. Vernon, N.Y., which
started in a small church. Jazz is hard to find in
Asheville. “I wanted more of a jazz scene,”
Farson said. “There’s a lot of dance, a lot of
theater—there’s all kinds of music, but little to
no jazz.”
Concerts in the WNC series are populated
by local artists who serve as the rhythm sections
for musicians like Kenny Barron and
Wycliffe Gordon. These headlining performances
are booked by initiating personal contact
with the players on jazz cruises. “If they
trust that you’re on the up and up and you’re
not going to make a big profit off them, they
will work with you,” Farson said, noting that
most artists perform for a fraction of their normal
fee. “I can’t compete with Dizzy’s Club
Coca-Cola or some jazz festival. By meeting
the musicians, it’s all become possible.”
The Jazz Arts Foundation in Lexington,
Ky., is trying to unite the loose conglomeration
of musicians who call the region home. In
2007, the organization began holding free
monthly concerts at a 140-seat theater in the
Lexington Public Library. The performers
mostly come from nearby universities.
“There’s a wealth of jazz talent in this area,
but there aren’t many opportunities, other than
casual gigs, for them to go out and play,” Jazz
Arts Foundation President Dave McWhorter
said. “The biggest thing in Lexington now is
dueling pianos. It’s a wild and crazy scene—
they go late into the night over there—but it’s
not jazz. We needed to do something to get
jazz alive in our community again.” —Jon Ross
HENRY NEUFELD
14 DOWNBEAT June 2009