Is live jazz thriving or dying in your city?

[The Real MC]

When I moved to a new job here there is very little live music, much less jazz. I play in our company jazz quartet that plays events, and the only show outside the company is an annual fundraiser. Jazz usually appeals to intellectuals and there are a LOT of PhDs, masters and bachelors degrees where I work.

 

If jazz ever wants to get popular again, it has to appeal to the common man and not to the musician. Please leave Kenny G out of this. Jazz has a fascinating history of evolution but it lost a lot of its audience when the musicians started preaching to the choir.

[MonksDream]

In Vancouver there is a huge pool of jazz talent. The challenge here is keeping a venue open. This city has some of the highest property values in the Americas. It is far more profitable to tear down an existing building, put up a condo in its place and sell the units than it is to lease the space to anyone, much less a performance venue. The cost of space here makes it hard to keep any business open. it;s not just music venues either. Movie theatres, live theatre, dance, and visual arts suffer from the same lack of venues and competition for audiences.

[Jazzmammal]

I did NYE on Catalina at the Marlin Club. That's a small beach bar that can pack in maybe 75 people standing. It was a good, loud classic rock band and it's a good thing I wore my Hero ear plugs.

 

The club stayed open until 1:30 to catch the crowd leaving the Casino that shut down about 12:15 or so. The reason this applies to jazz is the band in the Casino was a "small" big band, about 10-12 piece. My bandleader's 80 something parents were there and came over to the bar later. I asked them what kind of music the band did and they were disappointed they only did one classic big band swing tune, the rest of the night was all rock. This is exactly the same thing I did with another small big band at the LA Country Club on Dec 7th. The band was booked last year as a full 18 piece big band and it was maybe 50/50 classic big band stuff and rock, not this year. The person who booked it specifically said they wanted rock and that's it. When we started at 7PM they were still eating so we did some light stuff but then the guy who booked it came up and complained, what are you doing? We want rock so the bandleader, thinking because they were still eating, did In The Mood announcing it as the biggest dance song in history. Nobody danced. He then thought ok, they want rock I'll give em rock so we did 25 6 to 4 and in seconds the dance floor was packed. This was only 7:20 or so and people were still eating.

 

This is the LA Country Club for pete's sake. This is the kind of place where my Mercedes is the butler's car, the members show up in their Bentley's. Things are definitely changing and it's because of the demographics. The average age there is still upper class wealthy types 45-65 maybe with a few younger and older. 60 year olds grew up with what again? All rock, they could care less about In The Mood or Ipanama and it was exactly the same thing at the Casino on Catalina.

 

Jazz is certainly not dead in SoCal but it's very limited for us regular locals.

 

Where are you at this week JazzWee, I'll come and say hi. And, there's four of us living in Redondo? We should all get together sometime. Maybe we can meet at one of your gigs.

 

Bob

 

 

[ITGITC]

I think this is the ideal business model: Blues Alley - Washington, DC.

 

Seems to be a mainstay of the DC jazz scene, but because of the location (Georgetown - not easily Metro accessible, also has expensive parking), high ticket prices, and requirement to buy dinner (also expensive), the audience is limited to well-to-do patrons. Bad combination for attracting a younger crowd. Also, it's not a go-to place for younger, local jazz musicians working to establish themselves.

 

Bohemian Caverns follows a similar model to Blues Alley (upscale jazz venue) but at least is Metro-accessible, and once in a while hosts events featuring local performers (musicians, poets, etc.), as well as Twins Jazz on a smaller scale. HR-57 (http://www.hr57.org/aboutus.html) though still has the best reputation as an incubator of local jazz talent, and an affordable (to younger people anyway) venue for live jazz. The newest venue is a Union Arts, which is unfortunately in a scary looking part of town. But it has attracted young artists looking to set up studios (hence the name), and some established jazz acts like William Hooker have played there.

 

All of these venues are mentioned on the Capital Bop site, which has the best coverage on the DC jazz scene: http://capitalbop.com/

 

Thanks! Those places are good to know about.

 

To be honest, I travel to DC on an expense account. Blues Alley is a fine place to go - on an expense account.

 

I'd love to hear of other jazz clubs making a successful go at it in DC, although I don't plan to visit those which are unfortunately in a scary-looking part of town.

 

Ummmmm, no.

 

I bookmarked the Capital Bop Site a few days ago, but the pages loaded slowly, or didn't load at all. I'll try it again.

 

Thanks GovernorSilver, and Happy New Year to ya!

 

Tom

 

[GovernorSilver]

To be honest, I travel to DC on an expense account. Blues Alley is a fine place to go - on an expense account.

 

I'd love to hear of other jazz clubs making a successful go at it in DC, although I don't plan to visit those which are unfortunately in a scary-looking part of town.

 

Ummmmm, no.

 

I bookmarked the Capital Bop Site a few days ago, but the pages loaded slowly, or didn't load at all. I'll try it again.

 

Thanks GovernorSilver, and Happy New Year to ya!

 

Tom

 

Happy New Year to ya too, Tom!

 

I think the upscale jazz venues have their place - the world class jazz musos (Herbie, Pharaoh Sanders, Chick, etc.) need to play somewhere if they come to town, and they need to make enough money for the gig to be worth their while, so venues like Blues Alley, Bohemian Caverns, Wolf Trap, Strathmore, Kennedy Center, etc. are nice for this role.

 

I have to admit, when I hear that a jazz-playing (or other muso) friend is playing at Union Arts, I get a sinking feeling, because while the Union Market area (where it's at) is fine in the day time, it's a 10-min. walk from the Metro at night. I like it less when said gig is in Adams Morgan, which is not as scary looking, but annoying to get to, and go through to get to the venue. The things we do to support our friends...

[Jazzwee]

Jazzmammal, my marketing strategy (if you can call it that), is based on a "local" target market. 80% of my gigs are in one area (within a 2 mile zone). So we saturated this area and we've become known and those interested in Jazz show up. Every month. There's enough residents here to sustain it. The jazz fans are here but I find that in the 50-65 age group, they'd rather stay close to home. They're less picky if they don't have to drive 20 Miles and spend $150 (as ITGITC says). Our gigs have no cover but everyone always tips so I doubt if anyone spends more than $50 a person including food and tip. Probably less because the restaurant is inexpensive.

 

Now my experience is a bit different than you since I also do the "Private Club" circuit. I have quite a few of those and one of my gigs this week is at a private club. Age group is the same as LA Country Club. Net worth is probably similar. Rock isn't doing it for them because it's too loud. The kind of Jazz we do is moderately loud. It's amplified but they can still talk. I've been doing this particular band for years so we are the go to group for these clubs. We get called in for the special events as well. From this, I have known that the music we play appeals to the majority of the age group.

 

Also based on my experience here, the "solo pianists", "solo singer/guitar player" don't get people coming back either at the private club or the public restaurant we play at. I have a singer at the bigger gigs and that's part of the marketing. I can't draw them in playing just straight ahead instrumental. So the singer enlarges the market a bit. We try to focus on groove based tunes for energy. It could be the same regular standards but we just experiment every time and that's the draw (we screw up a lot).

 

Basically, just from target marketing we've been able to control a small market here. It does prove though that the audience is there. It's a matter of matching their current behavior (not prone to travel far).

 

We will mix in Funk or Pop at the end of the set for contrast but that's only a tune or two. Again another strategy to stretch the audience a little bit.

 

Now being a local band means that they're not expecting us to sound like Herbie Hancock. We're no hotshots. But then again, from the fact that some of them have been returning regularly for years suggests that they enjoy it.

 

BTW - I've never played In the Mood at a gig so maybe there's the difference. We do mostly Miles Davis era and up and we're not a Dance band. We also probably do more Latin than Swing.

 

[ITGITC]

 

This is what I'd like to hear at a jazz club:

 

Uli Geissendoerfer Trio Featuring Pascale Elia

 

Wow!

 

 

[Jazzwee]

This is what I'd like to hear at a jazz club:

 

Uli Geissendoerfer Trio Featuring Pascale Elia

 

Wow!

 

 

Yup! That would do it!

[The Wind]

Wee, that's a good strategy. The one off gigs really aren't worth doing because you never know when the next one is. So building a following in a concentrated area where you get repeat customers will get you regular gigs.

 

There are some cafes/restaurants that do this up here. They don't charge cover as well and I really don't know how much they pay. Esp if you have 4 or 5 ppl in the band.

 

I should try the fancy private clubs.

 

One of the large concert venues in downtown was bought up by a church last year and so performers of all kinds were left scrambling. They hosted jazz, rock shows, live ballet, drama...

but money talks I guess.

[Kevmo]

When I moved to a new job here there is very little live music, much less jazz. I play in our company jazz quartet that plays events, and the only show outside the company is an annual fundraiser. Jazz usually appeals to intellectuals and there are a LOT of PhDs, masters and bachelors degrees where I work

 

IBM...Corning?

 

If jazz ever wants to get popular again, it has to appeal to the common man and not to the musician. Please leave Kenny G out of this. Jazz has a fascinating history of evolution but it lost a lot of its audience when the musicians started preaching to the choir.

[I-missRichardTee]

When I moved to a new job here there is very little live music, much less jazz. I play in our company jazz quartet that plays events, and the only show outside the company is an annual fundraiser. Jazz usually appeals to intellectuals and there are a LOT of PhDs, masters and bachelors degrees where I work.

 

If jazz ever wants to get popular again, it has to appeal to the common man and not to the musician. Please leave Kenny G out of this. Jazz has a fascinating history of evolution but it lost a lot of its audience when the musicians started preaching to the choir.

A great tenor player, Sal Nistico, told me similar things. He was critical of Miles turning his back on audience... I guess that comes under heading of presentation. I forgot his words spoken to me so long ago... but the tone was.. too much introversion ( I suffer from this myself.. and I want to change this about myself... and I hope it is not too late!! ) with the audiences, and even the music itself. We both know what we are talking about here, without going into too many words... just LISTEN to the music of the 1940's it had an exuberance that was unmatched. And I do believe Charles McPherson may have said words about older era's in music as well, though It is a bit fuzzy!

There is room for a resurgence of extroversion and exuberance in music again, and it does not have to be LAtin nor funk to accomplish it.. the cats in the 20's 30's 40's 50's and to a degree the 60's accomplished this!!

[video:youtube]

First solo is Sal Nistico, second soloist is Steve Grossman.

Peace

[Dana.]

Venues need customers to stay afloat.

 

Jazz appeals to a select crowd. Many who are, or have been, musicians.

 

Revenue for a venue primarily comes from sales of alcohol. Food and ticket sales are important, but drink sales are the money-maker.

 

For someone reading this forum, a musician generally in their fifties, how many of us currently venture out to hear jazz?

 

How often? Once a week? Twice a month? Once a month? Once a year on a special occassion?

 

For me, an example may be taking my wife to a venue like Blues Alley (see my post above). We would have drinks & dinner and listen to the music. I would like that, and so would she. I imagine the bill would be around $150, maybe more, maybe less.

 

At $150 I probably wouldn't do this more than a few times a year. So I would be seeking jazz venues that are more affordable.

 

If you and a date go out on a Saturday night for drinks and entertainment, how much do you usually budget? Even if you don't have dinner, drinks and tickets are going to be around $80 ($20/ticket, $20/drinks per person). Otherwise, your options are slim, unless you can find a place that charges less for tickets, you go to a jazz jam session, or you decide to leave your date at home.

 

Venues that don't have all three sources of revenue listed above will have a tight budget to work with. They'll need a larger number of patrons per show just to break even.

 

But it's a small market. I believe the primary criteria could be people who:

 

* Enjoy jazz music,

* Have disposable income and are willing to spend it,

* Actually leave the house from time to time,

* Have transportation and stay sober enough to drive home.

+1 to all of this.

 

An advantage of living in NYC is not having to deal with driving and parking; however, the cost of a ticket/drinks/food can be more. The scene here sustains itself because the both the talent and listeners are here.

[Dglavko]

I moved to Toronto in 1986 to study jazz. There were a few jazz only clubs and it was thriving to me (but I came from a small city with very little jazz). There were maybe 10 heavy local saxophonists in those days (my first instrument) and many more opportunities to tour etc.

 

There were some clubs where out of town legends like Joe Henderson, Charles McPherson, Marion Mcpartland and even "local" Oscar Peterson played and stayed for a week. Those clubs are long gone since the early 90's for the most part.

 

But most complained about the scene being less than vibrant.

 

Fast forward to 2014. The complaints about the scene being dead are still being made and certainly there is less $ to be made but the caliber of players has increased ten fold as has the number of local heavy players. So there are fewer playing opportunities now because there are way more players, largely thanks to local music college/University programs. But the caliber of playing and writing, especially modern jazz is much better. So I would say it is still thriving but in a more modern sense.

 

That said, most of the action is at one club (The Rex) which runs live jazz 7 days//25 shows per week so if we were to lose that it would decimate the scene.

[I-missRichardTee]

But those high rents, if you are talking Manhattan. Yikes. Generally speaking, NYC is likely the greatest environment for being a jazz musician. To add fuel to that: when I asked Freddie Hubbard where should I live if jazz was uppermost, he replied NYC. I departed NYC -(

[Dana.]

But those high rents, if you are talking Manhattan. Yikes. Generally speaking, NYC is likely the greatest environment for being a jazz musician. To add fuel to that: when I asked Freddie Hubbard where should I live if jazz was uppermost, he replied NYC. I departed NYC -(

He's right. There are people who live "upstate" (Holland, Mehldau, and Grenadier, to name a few), and Jarrett and Dave Douglas are in Jersey, but if you're trying to make it, NYC is where it's at.

[I-missRichardTee]

But my practical side, says, jazz has always been a tough way to make a living. Look at the great Wes Montgomery.. I understand he juggled more than one day job, plus gigs and a lot of kids, he passed at 40 or so!

[Dglavko]

But my practical side, says, jazz has always been a tough way to make a living. Look at the great Wes Montgomery.. I understand he juggled more than one day job, plus gigs and a lot of kids, he passed at 40 or so!

True but there was lots of studio work for the local jazzers at least who could read well.

[Jazzwee]

There is room for a resurgence of extroversion and exuberance in music again, and it does not have to be LAtin nor funk to accomplish it.. the cats in the 20's 30's 40's 50's and to a degree the 60's accomplished this!!

 

Won't your own limiting attitudes kill Jazz? Herbie himself hasn't swung ANYTHING in the last few years that I've seen him play live. But he's filling the stage and he's playing straight eights/latin/funk/free.

 

Fact of the matter is that the Jazz around here is more varied rhythmically.

 

Stretch out! Open up! There are other ways to play Jazz and it's not just with Blues.

 

You're a big Herbie fan and so am I but I interpret this also as an appreciation of his openness to music. He's open to new ideas constantly. Just like Miles. And these are the people that moved Jazz forward into bigger and bigger audiences.

 

Fact is that younger people don't relate to swing. I'm not going to overanalyze that. It's just what it is. Now I personally am not selling out by not doing 100% swing. I'm just more flexible since I started off with Rock as a kid and my teacher is a modern jazz guy. My attitude with my set list is a varied rhythmic sound. I believe i'm attracting a demographic that includes the 70's Rockers that want something less ear shattering than loud electric guitars.

 

Here in LA and I bet in NYC as well that your fixed ideas on rhythm are not evident in the jazz clubs. Maybe except for the Lincoln Center with Marsalis. You are definitely of the Marsalis camp.

 

[Theo Verelst]

Swing is something, and nice, but it doesn't speak much to people if there's no musical and stylish message.

 

To answer the thread title a bit: the only time I was part of a small Jazz scene was around the time I graduated (EE), in a Technical University town in Holland called Delft, used to be sort of a small time MIT, European style. I think day was becoming nigh rapidly, and a new morning on this land or the "jazz" scene of a modern, intellectually and musically interesting kind hasn't come, and maybe never will again.

 

There are some Jazz activities, like there's the pretty famous and nicely housed "BIM house" in Amsterdam which is about improvised music, but I couldn't for the life of me in that scene find a bunch or guys (or preferably girls, hilarious thought) that would be able to play a decent blues, have some Jazz knowledge, AND be able and willing to get into some interesting and heavy fusion music, in the good Jazz taste. Classic jazz, not so much either, but I'm sure there are guys there who could throw me of the piano with certain renderings of good Jazz tunes, but that too isn't much alive.

 

There are some bands/efforts I happen to know about, and probably some more, but not much with thrust levels I'm much interested in, though I sure like a Sunday jam session at times.

 

T.

[I-missRichardTee]

There is room for a resurgence of extroversion and exuberance in music again, and it does not have to be LAtin nor funk to accomplish it.. the cats in the 20's 30's 40's 50's and to a degree the 60's accomplished this!!

 

Won't your own limiting attitudes kill Jazz? Herbie himself hasn't swung ANYTHING in the last few years that I've seen him play live. But he's filling the stage and he's playing straight eights/latin/funk/free.

 

Fact of the matter is that the Jazz around here is more varied rhythmically.

 

Stretch out! Open up! There are other ways to play Jazz and it's not just with Blues.

 

You're a big Herbie fan and so am I but I interpret this also as an appreciation of his openness to music. He's open to new ideas constantly. Just like Miles. And these are the people that moved Jazz forward into bigger and bigger audiences.

 

Fact is that younger people don't relate to swing. I'm not going to overanalyze that. It's just what it is. Now I personally am not selling out by not doing 100% swing. I'm just more flexible since I started off with Rock as a kid and my teacher is a modern jazz guy. My attitude with my set list is a varied rhythmic sound. I believe i'm attracting a demographic that includes the 70's Rockers that want something less ear shattering than loud electric guitars.

 

Here in LA and I bet in NYC as well that your fixed ideas on rhythm are not evident in the jazz clubs. Maybe except for the Lincoln Center with Marsalis. You are definitely of the Marsalis camp.

Jazzwee my name is John, what is yours, I confuse you with Jazz+

Yes, you make many good points. Just look at Headhunters.. Return Forever

Herbies has the ultimate good attitude and it reflects in the openness to musical explorations well outside of swing

Only comment I would make about people not liking swing all that much is this

They have not heard swing in a long while!! Younger cats reinterpret in to such an extent that it is arguably not quite swing.

I mean Louie Armstrong likely did not care for Dizzy's swing, or Miles'.

 

Anyway, swing is very extroverted music, it was anyway.

Peace my Brother

[Jazzwee]

Hey John (I'm too used to Tee), I don't disagree with you about the swing feel of the old days which is different. Didn't we have a long thread analyzing that? From a technical point of view, it is different.

 

But remember that the old swing style was intended for dancing and of course that style of dancing is long gone, except maybe at weddings.

 

So I'm not here to make judgements about good swing vs. bad swing or no swing. I'm just looking at the current demographics and saying, what do I like to do and what does the audience like to listen to.

 

Fortunately in this area, my taste seems to be more mainstream, which is to say, I'm in between. Rhythmically, I like Latin a lot. I've got a guy on percussion and I've found that being active rhythmically is important to the audience.

 

Unfortunately, my rhythm section doesn't swing that well so I realize it's not our forte. This being Southern California, it's of course no surprise that Latin jazz is hot. Just check out how busy Poncho Sanchez is.

 

I guess we have to play what we like or we don't come out as being authentic to the audience. I just find that since my introduction to Jazz was through Maiden Voyage, then I just have different sensibilities. I probably only do a third of my tunes as swing, and usually uptempo so it's probably unlikely I will do an Ellington medium swing unless I'm using one of those sultry Jazz vocalists.

 

I'm just saying that my personal interpretation of Jazz is much broader (inclusive of fusion like Allan Holdsworth, jam bands like Medeski, Martin and Wood, and latin bands like Poncho Sanchez). And under this definition, the genre is healthier than it seems.

 

[I-missRichardTee]

I have played a small handful of gigs with 2 of his sidemen guitarist Rick White and his drummer Ramon Banda.

 

I have pretty much "given up" on older swing being revitalized in my lifetime! I am no longer militant about it. Why argue that a fact is a fact, right?

Herbie is my musical mentor of sorts, he did Headhunters, he di Rockit, he did Possibilities, he played awesomely complex trio music, he did duets with Chick

Why should I fight this fact?

peace my brother

Tee -)