[Dixielandjazz] Jazz goes better with Coke (Cola, that is)

[Stephen Barbone]

Coca Cola puts its money where its mouth is, while others falter.

Cheers,
Steve


January 14, 2003 - NEW YORK TIMES

Corporate Donation Buoys Home for Jazz

By ROBIN POGREBIN

       Against a backdrop of generally shrinking donations to arts
groups, the Coca-Cola Company has agreed to give $10 million toward
completion of Jazz at Lincoln Center's new home on Columbus Circle.

The gift is crucial to the $128 million project, which will be a
centerpiece of the new AOL Time Warner headquarters building, because
the project is facing higher construction costs and the withdrawal of
several pledges that were made in flusher economic times. In return for
the $10 million commitment, which leaves the project $32 million short
of its goal, Jazz at Lincoln Center will name one of its three
performance venues, a 140-seat club-like space, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola.

"I feel a profound sense of relief," Wynton Marsalis, the artistic
director, said of the gift, which is expected to be announced formally
today.

Jazz at Lincoln Center was reporting that its building project was short
$33 million a year ago, but Lisa Schiff, the organization's chairwoman,
said the total cost of the project had increased from $115 million then
because of factors like delays in the development of the AOL Time Warner
building, upgrades to the design and additional security measures
included after the terrorist attacks.

"Some of the numbers might not have been as solid as we thought," she
said. "When you build anything, the costs shift."

Ms. Schiff also said several commitments had failed to be fulfilled.
"There are some gifts that were pledged to us that would have put us
over," she said. "Some of it has become a little shaky. I'm going back
out on the road now."

The new complex, designed by Rafael Viñoly and scheduled to open in the
fall of 2004, has additional features that Jazz at Lincoln Center is
hoping to name for generous donors: a $10 million lobby area and a $5
million recording and broadcast studio.

Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola will be one of three main performance spaces
within the 2,500-square-foot Frederick P. Rose Hall, including the
1,100- to 1,230-seat Rose Theater, which, in addition to jazz, can also
accommodate opera, dance, theater, film and orchestral performances, and
the Allen Room, a 300- to 600-seat performance space with a 50-foot-high
glass wall overlooking Central Park.

Club Coca-Cola, the most intimate of the three settings, which was named
after Dizzy Gillespie, will be used for smaller concerts and special
events for young people, like student musician's nights.

"It's going to be a late-night room," Mr. Marsalis said. "Piano trios, a
piano-bar-type situation." During the day the space will be used for the
organization's education programs.

So far Jazz has received $5.86 million of its $25.8 million pledged by
the city.

While large grants continue to be scarce among other arts organizations,
the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced a $14
million grant to National Public Radio as part of a series of gifts to
cultural and international affairs groups.

Most of the Coca-Cola gift — $8 million — will go toward the building's
construction, the rest toward programming.

In the past some nonprofit cultural groups have been concerned about the
potential for corporate money to influence artistic choices. When the
Roundabout Theater Company named its new stage on 42nd Street the
American Airlines Theater, for example, some questioned whether the
airline would have any say in the theater's programming. But Mr.
Marsalis said Coca-Cola's gift came with no strings attached. The
company said the affiliation with Jazz at Lincoln Center made sense for
its brand.

"If you think about jazz and the Coca-Cola Company, each has a dual
personality," said Charles Fruit, senior vice president for worldwide
media and alliances at the company. "Each is uniquely American. At the
same time, wherever you go around the world, the public views it is as
their music or their beverage. We saw that interesting parallel between
our brand and jazz."

Naming the club after Mr. Gillespie was an easy decision, executives of
Jazz at Lincoln Center said. "He's the musician who most embodied what
our music is about in the modern era," Mr. Marsalis said. "He was a
humanitarian. He encouraged musicians. He was a great dancer. He was
always dealing with jazz music holistically, trying to incorporate other
aspects of music like humor."

The Coca-Cola gift is also a strong endorsement for an organization that
has worked to overcome some management turmoil. Rob Gibson, Jazz at
Lincoln Center's founding director and executive producer, was abruptly
ousted in 2000 after 10 years of guiding it from a department of Lincoln
Center to a full-fledged constituent organization and preparing it to
move into a new home.

In August 2001 Bruce MacCombie, dean of the School for the Arts at
Boston University, was named executive director.

Five months later Ms. Schiff, a record executive who served on the
board, was named to replace R. Theodore Ammon as chairman after he was
murdered in his home in East Hampton, N.Y. In March 2002 Hughlyn F.
Fierce, a banker who had served as the board treasurer, was named to the
new post of president and chief executive.

Despite the tough economic times, Mr. Marsalis said he was confident
that Jazz at Lincoln Center could reach its fund-raising goal. "We still
have a ways to go, but we've come a long way," he said. "I have my eyes
open. We all do."