In this pinched economic atmosphere, one which has been further constricted by a DC city administration that doesn’t appear as favorably disposed towards the event as in the past (unfortunately no Jazz on the Mall free extravaganza this year), the DC Jazz Festival kicked off its 8th annual edition June 1 very favorably. Swimming mightily upstream against the tide of tight economics, festival founder and Executive Producer Charlie Fishman and hard-working Executive Director Sunny Sumter kept tight upper lips and went about the business of building a mighty rainbow coalition of presenting entities ranging literally across the DC community. In so doing they’ve positioned this festival as a model of community coalition-building and cooperative effort the likes of which seems quite unprecedented in the jazz festival community.

Vocalist Sunny Sumter is the Executive Director of the DC Jazz Festival

Certainly there are other jazz festivals which have built sturdy community coalitions to broaden the artistic reach and audience development of their events. Two such festivals that come immediately to mind are the Discover Jazz Festival, which has done a marvelous job of building a big tent atmosphere that welcomes a coalition of restaurants, bars and grills, and municipal spaces under the big top to literally take over their lovely, compact Burlington, VT community sitting on the banks of Lake Champlain. A big city example in this country would have to be Earshot Jazz, which has done likewise in Seattle. But all too often the attitude is one of suspicious competition; as is the case with certain festivals whose most significant year-round jazz venues cast a sidelong glance at the festival in question, offer lip-service and grudging support, but continue to operate under a veil of jealousy owed to the wrong-headed notion that since the festival is presented by a not-for-profit and is subject to grant support which the year-round venue (a for-profit) isn’t privy to, that they are somehow competitors. Such is the plight of jazz presenting, which for about the last 40 years has uncomfortably straddled the fence between its for-profit, club-based venue system and the newer not-for-profit model that has arisen along with the development of the National Endowment for the Arts and various community arts funding systems. Seems some for-profit venues just don’t get it, that mutual support is to the ultimate benefit of the music, the musicians, and more importantly the local audience, since jazz audience development is job #1; that this is NOT a competition for butts in the seats, but instead should be a hand-in-glove, mutual cooperation society.

But back to the DC Jazz Festival. Where jazz presenting is concerned, the nation’s capital region – and in this case I’m considering the District, Maryland, and Northern Virginia – is blessed with some very significant concert presenters who regularly include jazz in their varied menus. That equation begins with the Kennedy Center, Washington Performing Arts Society, the two gorgeous bordering Maryland venues, the Clarice Smith Center (University of Maryland in College Park with four separate venues) and Strathmore Music Hall (Rockville, with its intimate Mansion space and large concert hall), and to a lesser extent Lisner Auditorium (George Washington University), the Smithsonian (including fostering April as Jazz Appreciation Month and the annual Sculpture Garden offerings), and occasional Library of Congress offerings (including Larry Appelbaum’s annual curated jazz film series). The community has also been blessed recently with several spiffy new venues, chief among them The Hamilton, the beautifully refurbished historic Howard Theatre, and the comfortable mid-sized Atlas, located in a fast-rising sector of the city’s N.E. corridor. The latter is an auditorium, while the former two might well be characterized as 21st century supperclubs due to their larger-than-club size. Yet it is the club venue marketplace that is the DC Jazz Festival sweetspot.

Charlie Fishman and Sunny Sumter have craftily built a sturdy coalition of local venues that in addition to The Hamilton, the Howard Theatre, and the Atlas, also includes DC’s hottest jazz venue Bohemian Caverns, the Phillips Collection art museum, several Smithsonian facilities, a senior wellness center, and the Kennedy Center to boot. They’ve also incorporated a vibrant scene of sorts which is being developed by two sharp young grassroots jazz enthusiasts under their web-based CapitalBop.com banner (you’ll be able to read more about CapitalBop on this site in a minute). The festival’s partnership with CapitalBop.com has also broadened the event stylistically as the two 20-somethings who comprise CapitalBop.com have an eye towards the adventurous edge of the music, engaging non-traditional venues for their DC Jazz Loft Series component of the festival.

Charlie Fishman is the visionary founder and Executive Producer of the DC Jazz Festival

Some of these, and a raft of other partner venues, contribute to the vibrant heart of the DCJF, their Jazz In the ‘Hoods component which as its name suggests brings a jazz presence to all corners of the District (bringing jazz to 21 DC neighborhoods!). This includes areas east of the Anacostia River, a traditional African American community which had been largely bereft of jazz presentation before arts entrepreneur Vernard Gray stepped up with his series of presentations under the rubric of the East River JazzFest. Houses of worship are part of the equation as well, ranging from Faith Presbyterian Church’s presentation of vibist Warren Wolf‘s “Jazz: A Music of the Spirit” to the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue’s presentation of the Anat Cohen Quartet. Reading the DCJF brochure and web site can be a dizzying exercise, the event is literally chockablock with tasty morsels, and one can barely traverse five blocks in the District without encountering part of the big tent of venues that comprises the DC Jazz Festival.

So far the results of this big tent effect have been very promising, with sell-outs in several venues and the town buzzing with activity. Les Nubians sold out two shows at The Hamilton, following a fine opening evening with Randy Weston‘s African Rhythms Trio and vocalist Akua Allrich. Later this week The Hamilton will host Jimmy Heath & Antonio Hart, Roy Hargrove, Cyrus Chestnut, and what should be a kinetic island show (yes ‘mon) with Monty Alexander & Etienne Charles. Dianne Reeves sold out the Howard Theatre, The Fridge loft space was jam-packed for bassist Kris Funn & Corner Store and Tarbaby (with Orrin Evans, Eric Revis & Nasheet Waits), and Ron Carter‘s Quartet sold out four weekend shows at the Bohemian Caverns. Carter’s ensemble, with Renee Rosnes on piano, was a marvelous display of small group interplay and dynamic color.

Another very positive element of the DCJF big tent presentation equation is the broad stylistic spread of the music, which this year ranges from such masters as Weston, Carter, Kenny Barron, Paquito D’Rivera (the latter three – Barron and Carter as part of the Classical Jazz Quartet with Stefon Harris and Lewis Nash – in a stellar Kennedy Center concert titled Jazz Meets the Classics last evening at the Kennedy Center), and Jimmy Heath to John Scofield at The Hamilton, Dianne Reeves, David Sanchez, Mark Turner, Roy Hargrove, Cyrus Chestnut, Marcus Strickland, Anat Cohen, and such promising young artists as Trinidad’s Etienne Charles, Israeli guitarist Yotam Silberstein, and Moroccan songbird Malika Zarra (as part of the Kennedy Center’s free Millennium Stage series for the festival). The majority of these artists have or will be presented under more intimate circumstances than the typical jazz festival big hall/bloated budget scenario. At his NEA Jazz Masters conversation with WPFW jazz show host Rusty Hassan Sunday afternoon at the Phillips Collection, when quizzed about his favorite venue Kenny Barron reiterated the general jazzman’s bromide that although most of his performances these days are made in concert halls, Barron still prefers the club venue purely on the basis of proximity to the audience, saying “In a club I can make eye contact with the audience, but in a concert hall I usually can’t even see the audience.” Get complete information on the DC Jazz Festival at http://www.dcjazzfest.org.

In the always thoughtful NPR jazz blog A Blog Supreme http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme editor Patrick Jarenwattonan poses the question “IF not jazz education, what will rebuild the jazz audience.” In the piece he cites a music educator who questions the tired old saw that suggests that if we just pour more money into jazz/music/arts education in general we will reap the audience development benefits in the end analysis. The educator in question points to the wide gulf disconnect between the increased education dollars dedicated to building jazz education programs on college and university campuses around the world and the fact that there is limited-to-no evidence that said investment has resulted in significant audience development. Further, this particular educator suggests that not only may age-old jazz performance methodologies be outmoded, so too may be the existent language and jargon of the music be an inherent impediment to developing the jazz audience.

The Jazz Arts Group of Columbus, Ohio is in the midst of a funded Jazz Audience Initiative which will hopefully study these and other factors related to our collective desire to grow the jazz audience.

Yes the increase in jazz education programs has resulted in more than enough competent-to-good jazz players – technicians might be a more apt description in most instances. However the jazz academy has failed to teach its students about the care and nurturing of their eventual audience. In her excellent blog Alternate Takes http://alternatetakes.com past Independent Ear contributor Angelika Beener explores the whys & wherefores of the contemporary jazz musician’s magnetic compulsion towards exclusive performance of their own originals (“The Modern Standard: What is it?”), perhaps to the detriment of building a 21st century canon of tunes and setting new standards. This steadfast stance on a platform of standards – and, I might add, standards that have little to no shelf life after their original recording, and standards that are too complicated to stick with the average listener’s memory (and thus set a “standard”) – is I maintain also an roadblock to audience development.

I’ve yet to see a jazz education program that offers innovative coursework to its young musicians on audience development, on nurturing and growing an audience through proper programming, staging, and other elements that might better engage and grow an audience. Evidence suggests that jazz education programs and coursework do little if any actual teaching on subjects as elemental as proper stage comportment and effective artist-to-audience communication methods. There remain far too many young musicians who figure if they simply play technically correct and with vigor… that’s more than enough, assuming a sort of Audience of Dreams mentality that says ‘if we play it, they will come…’ That’s not enough for today’s audience. What then must we do to grow the jazz audience?

One of the subsequent comments in response to Patrick’s piece suggests that the typical jazz venue is simply not conducive to today’s audience. The feeling being that the jazz supper clubs and venues one respondent has experienced, with their detached staging and audiences seated like “robots” at tables imbibing while a group of musicians plays seemingly for their own pleasure, is simply outmoded; and frankly where it concerns generations born since the late-70s, I’d have to agree to a point. However the commenter then goes on to lament the loss of the old smokey jazz lofts and clubs as a reason today’s venues do not appeal to today’s arts consumer market. Sorry my friend, that outmoded scenario won’t work either. Today’s would-be audience requires more of a sense of give and take between artist and audience, interactive options, more of a sense of shared experience.

The venerable Monterey Jazz Festival recently copped a $300K grant from the James Irvine Foundation, the core of which will assist MJF in diversifying its audience.

How’s this for one potential jazz performance scenario: since the art of improvisation – the art of creative expression period – remains pretty much a mystery to all but those who’ve taken the time to investigate the creative process, would it provide a more meaningful audience experience if at some point during a performance there was some very real sense of give & take between artists and audience? What if after a couple of pieces were played, an informed interlocutor (bandmember, MC, presenter, journalist, etc.) were to pose questions (and take a couple of audience questions as well) to the performing musicians on how they came to make their creative choices, why they chose that particular piece and what they hoped it said to their audience; what was the story behind that composition; why the saxophone player made an extended statement; why at the close of the piece the band seemed to go back-and-forth in short bursts (i.e. trading four bars or whatever); how does that particular piece fit in with the rest of the set in terms of telling a cohesive story? Would that level of audience/artist interaction better assist the consumer/audience member in unlocking the inherent mysteries in the art of the improvisor? Would that kind of in-set give-and-take distract the artists unnecessarily? (On the latter point, so what; sorry musicians but ya’ll have got to do more to nurture and interact with your audiences if we are ever to build an audience for your creative expressions.)

The Independent Ear featured a recent dialogue with Kennedy Center artistic adviser, pianist-composer Jason Moran about his plans for the Jazz at the Kennedy Center program. Among those plans, Moran appears to be carefully observing and considering the very environment where the music is made. Is the current listening environment conducive to building audience for creative music? Does today’s audience require more than a comfortable seat and an applause interlude in between supposedly satisfying music-making? Is the option of being able to enjoy the beverage or refreshment of one’s choice just the tip of the audience-enjoyment iceberg? Are we missing a level of interaction that today’s growing consumer market craves but is not getting from the typical creative music performance environment? What’s your take?

We applaud, and want to lend a helping hand to our friends and colleagues at CapitalBop (http://www.capitalbop.com)- erstwhile purveyors of adventurous jazz music in DC loft spaces and major supporters and promoters of Washington, DC’s vibrant jazz scene = are undertaking an ambitious project as part of the forthcoming DC Jazz Festival, which promises to be better than ever this year (http://www.dcjazzfest.org). Dig this…

Hi friends –

We want to let you know about CapitalBop’s exciting plans at the DC Jazz Festival next month. It’s all part of our mission to ensure that D.C.’s vibrant jazz scene retains its rightful place in the creative renaissance that’s underway all across this city. Next month’s second annual D.C. Jazz Loft Series at the DC Jazz Fest is absolutely the most ambitious thing we’ve undertaken in our two years of work – and it stands to cultivate a whole new crop of jazz fans. But we won’t be able to make this happen without your help, which is why we’re asking you to head to our Kickstarter campaign http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/capitalbop/capitalbops-dc-jazz-loft-series-at-the-2012-dc-jaz and check out the video and the awesome rewards we’re offering to supporters. There’s only one week left before time runs out!

Here’s what’s planned for the D.C. Jazz Loft Series: On June 1 and June 2, we’re presenting two double-bill shows, both at alternative venues and both featuring an innovative D.C. band paired with a national ensemble. The next weekend, on June 9, we’re upping the ante with a daylong Jazz Loft MegaFest at a converted loft space in downtown D.C. The MegaFest will feature …
four bands (including Marc Cary’s amazing new future-fusion project, Cosmic Indigenous);
food and drink catered by the Taste of DC;
a pop-up retail shop with vintage clothes and records, organized by SHAM;
specially commissioned art installations by many local artists in a “floating gallery,” also presented by SHAM;
a film screening (Icons Among Us);
a panel on the synthesis of jazz and hip-hop, hosted by Shaolin Jazz.
The MegaFest (flyer below) is our attempt at presenting jazz in a way that it’s never been showcased in this town – a way that’s especially hospitable to younger, artistically curious crowds, while also serving longtime fans of the music. The goal is for this show to offer a range of experiences and “entry points,” so that we can draw in a bunch of people that might not think to go to a jazz show otherwise. We know that once they’re there, they’ll hear the music and be thrilled by it.

Please check out our Kickstarter page, where you’ll find a range of awesome rewards – a downloadable modern-jazz mixtape, signed CDs, a poster autographed by all the series headliners, a private music lesson with the great Todd Marcus, your very own slot as a DJ on WPFW 89.3 FM… the list goes on. If we can just raise another $2,000 in the next week, we’ll have enough to compensate musicians, outfit the venues, and help prove that jazz is relevant and vital to D.C.’s contemporary artistic conversation.

Thanks so much for your support,
Gio and Luke

NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron is one of the featured artists in the 2012 DC Jazz Festival – http://www.dcjazzfest.org
—
Giovanni Russonello
Editor-in-Chief
CapitalBop.com
202.255.0392
editor@capitalbop.com
@capitalbop

Ain’t But a Few of Us
Black music writers tell their story: STEVE MONROE

DC-based jazz writer Steve Monroe recently pondered the plight of African American jazz writers based on his own experience in this latest installment in our ongoing series of Ain’t but a Few of Us dialogues…

What motivated you to write about serious music in the first place?

I was working for the sports desk of a daily newspaper and wanted to go to features, to cover music, theater, the arts, do profiles of interesting people, especially those in the black community of Rochester, N.Y., where I was. While working features, I started covering all kinds of music and since I was a jazz fan, became especially interested in the jazz performers who came through town and reviewed and interviewed the ones I could, like Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Taylor, Ron Carter, Bill Evans, Grant Green, many others. The first review and profile I did was of Phil Woods and I was fascinated of the stories he told of Charlie Parker and how he was so influenced by him in the music. That started my jazz reviewing and writing career, was in the mid 70s. Up to then was just a fan, but became interested in reviewing and profiling the greats of the music, the trends, because it was so original American music and had so many genres within its own genre to cover, from soul jazz to avant garde, from the vocalists to the whole swing, big band thing, etc.

When you first started writing about the music were you aware of the dearth of African Americans writing about serious music?

No, but since in the 70s there were only a few even writing professionally about general news to some extent, and features,, sports and business in most media, I did not think much of it then

Why do you suppose that’s still such a glaring disparity – where you have a significant number of black musicians making serious music but so few black media commentators on this music?

Because such a minority of our group are writers, and those of us who are writers maybe have had to be drawn to more prosperous, money making type of writing or communications careers. Jazz/black American music itself has become such a niche art form, within that niche only a few have the time to devote to something that doesn’t make enough money on its own to support anybody, not even most of the musicians, I think that has to be a factor.

Jazz I think like many parts of black America, if not all of it, has become something of an archaeological dig for those types who have the time and intellectual leaning to pursue that type of thing and most of those people with that luxury are not black Americans. Not many blacks have the time or inclination….those who have the time and money to devote to it, I think just do not value it as an art form or cultural beacon like we do….they are into their doctor, lawyer, engineer thing above all and just enjoy jazz as recreation, if they do like it at all.

Do you think that disparity or dearth of African American jazz writers contributes to how the music is covered in the media?

Yes, it has become a fringe, niche art form where, if even the African American populace in general doesn’t support the music, why should mass media outlets devote “X” amount of time and space for something only a few white liberals seem crazy about—I think that is a factor for one thing. If there were more black writers beating the drums in all forms of media for our music it would be covered more, and more as a serious art form…to a certain extent…at least it would be covered more by black media itself, which doesn’t seem to cover it even as much as majority media. I have had to fight to get review space, profile space for jazz in black media outlets I have been a part of…and that’s when I was doing it for free!! So if we can’t get it covered prominently by our own, what chance is there for it in the larger media world?

Since you’ve been writing about serious music, have you ever found yourself questioning why some musicians may be elevated over others, and is it your sense that has anything to do with the lack of cultural diversity among writers covering the music?

Yes, have wondered that, and yes, it probably has something to do with that. It would be natural to promote your own. This is not a color neutral or post racial world yet. Maybe people push certain non African American musicians more in order to promote the whole genre of jazz, claiming they have to do that so the masses will pay attention and support it. I give that a grain of possibility.

What’s your sense of the indifference of so many African American-oriented publications towards serious music?

Mind boggling to a certain extent. It may have to do with the fact that so many whites, and others, Europeans, Asians, others around the world think jazz is so great, that some feel it doesn’t need the backing of its own media. Crazy but have no other explanation for it. It seems our media thinks it is more entertainment than culture, than art, and is just appealing to a niche of whites and blacks and others rather than the masses and therefore if the masses don’t get it, black media can’t spend time on it, because black media has to get paid by advertisers who want/demand to be in front of the masses and if the masses want Kayne and Fat Trel, that’s what black media will give them.

How would you react to the contention that the way and tone of how serious music is covered has anything to do with who is writing about it?

Would agree…may go without saying.

In your experience writing about serious music what have been some of your more rewarding encounters?

My first professional music and jazz assignment was to write about Phil Woods. The way he was courteous, patient with me though my knowledge of the music at that time was limited and certainly much more of a fan based thing than as a reviewer or analyst, made me appreciate the art form he and his peers were pursuing as I think about it now. That was not the case in the other things I had covered, general news, sports for example, where veterans of the business like him were often short, discourteous, very unhelpful to a young reporter/writer.

Covering Sarah Vaughn singing with the Rochester Philharmonic was another special event – I didn’t get to interview her, she was at the top then and didn’t give many interviews at all as I understood. But what was special was the interaction between her jazz motif and the classical, for me, since I had not heard much classical music live at that time and it again made this music, jazz/black American music, special, because it seemed to span and engulf so many other art forms and influence other art forms. It was an education on so many levels.
Interviews with Grant Green, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Keith Jarrett (though he was not the easiest person to interview) were so educational early on, they are still special. Violinist Joe Venuti, again, because I was so young in terms of covering music, I was impressed how patient he was in talking about his music and his life. Knowing and covering Buck Hill all these years, and Nasar Abadey, the veteran folks around D.C. has been an ongoing treat. Sonny Rollins, sort of my all time favorite, at least living (Wes Montgomery probably all time all time), concerts at Blues Alley and Wolf Trap have to rank as well as outstanding encounters/events.

Have to add seeing Charlie Mingus and Sun Ra opened my ears to more than just bebop type jazz, and long live D.C. Space, where I heard Don Cherry and got even more into the freer genres of the music back then.

What obstacles have you encountered – besides difficult editors and indifferent publications – in your efforts at covering serious music?

Venues that see you as a fan who just wants to get in free, and not as a journalist covering a legitimate news story, that has bugged me in the past, that some venue owners see the music, the people who make it as not real stories worth telling or letting journalists cover; they are just entertainers, and everyone must pay, and they don’t see value of the publicity, marketing of what I and others do. These days I may just go ahead and pay just not worry about it, unfortunately, tired of fighting the good fight.

What have been the most intriguing new records you’ve heard so far this year?

—Antonio Parker’s “Live at HR-57”
—Ran Blake, Christine Correa, “down here below”
—Robert Glasper “Black Radio”
—Billy Hart “All Our Reasons”

When the DC-area based multi-instrumental wizard and all around percussion renaissance man Tom Teasley asked me to write liner notes for his latest global percussion release All The World’s A Stage it got me wondering about the evolution of one who self-identifies as a jazz percussionist, yet has so successfully broadened his base to include theater, teaching across far reaches of the planet, and seemingly all manner of expressions in the percussion universe. I mean, what kind of brain exercises is this cat doing that his horizons appear so limitless? Obviously some questions for Tom Teasley were in order. But first some video to introduce you to the world of Tom Teasley.

1) You’ve always self-identified as a jazz musician, yet your career is so broad-based. How have you gone about diversifying yourself as a percussionist?

I studied orchestral percussion at Peabody Conservatory when I was just out of high school.While there I began freelancing in orchestras and presenting school programs.My teacher, Charles Memphis, was of Greek decent and began exposing me to middle eastern rhythms which would have a profound impact on my music. Later I began setting the poetry of Langston Hughes and others to my original music for my project Word-Beat with my friend and colleague Charles Williams. That setting of poetry to music was a natural stepping stone to the theater work I do now. The most important aspect however is that I always keep an open mind on where my music can live and still maintain the integrity I want.

2) As far as your overall career is concerned, have these diversification efforts been based more on maintaining steady employment or on broadening yourself as a musician?

The employment has always been a result of my sincere desire to create something new, worthwhile and true to my esthetic. I never feel like any of these “alternative” projects are a compromise. Rather each one informs the other and result in a deeper well that I have to draw from for any future projects. I feel like if I had taken the mindset of diversifying only to create income the result would have had less integrity and therefore less value in every way.

3) Again, from the perspective of a jazz musician, how has your theater and education work affected your perspective on music-making?

The theater work has allowed me to tap into an emotional space that I had previously not explored.The best jazz musicians ” tell a story” with the development of their solos. Having the opportunity to set an existing story to my music allows me to explore that concept in a very real way that I can take with me to all other musical applications. I’m now setting silent movies and experimental film to my original music. I’ve discovered that guideposts in the film create a form to build on. This is a natural extension and perhaps more abstract than a twelve bar blues or 32 bar song form but I find many similarities. I also travel as a cultural envoy for the State Department collaborating with indigenous musicians. As I share American jazz concepts with them and I learn about their music and the culture from which it comes I grow as a person and reflect that in my music.

Poetry, Prose, Percussion and Song chronicles Tom Teasley’s fertile collaboration with poet-wordsmith Charles Williams

4) Your new record seems based mainly on your stage and cinematic experiences; is that a fair assessment?

The new record is based on my theater and cinematic experiences. It is also equally based on my extensive travel and collaborations,mainly in the middle east. I remember being invited to perform with Anachid, the premier Palestinian singing and drumming group in a refugee camp in The West Bank during Ramadan. I also remember presenting a drum clinic in the rural marshland in Iraq where the attendees came at risk to their safety to share music, rhythm and friendship.I remember being in war torn Baghdad collaborating with members of the Iraqi Symphony and virtuoso oud master Dahraid Fadhill. All of these memories manifest in the music I create regardless of the venue.

5) What’s next for Tom Teasley?

I’m looking forward to promoting the new record, “All the World’s A Stage”. Soon to be released is an educational video of my jazz approaches to a variety of ethnic drums including djembe, dumbek, riqq, cajon and many others. This is a culmination of my study of western classical music, my studies with master jazz drummer Joe, Morello and my global music adventures. Soon I open Mary Zimmernan’s “Metamorphoses” with Constellation Theatre Company. In the fall I’ll create original music and perform live with The Folger Theatre in “Conference of the Birds” based on the the Sufi poetry of Farid ud-Din Attar. I hope to soon to have a a video of some avant garde films from the 1920s set to my original music. I’m looking at some residencies in art galleries where I create sound installations that have an opening performance followed by a recorded exhibit. I look forward to following the muse and the music and letting it tell me where to go!

All The World’s A Stage is the latest from Tom Teasley, a title that barely does true justice to his incredible range of percussion exploits…