[Dixielandjazz] Funding For The Arts

[Steve barbone]

Mike Vax wrote:

> I am probably getting in late in this discussion, but it is one that is very
> close to me, both artistically and financially.
> I understand that you are using symphony orchestras as an example and that
> they are like huge elephants, when it comes to arts funding.
> I still believe that arts need to be funded.  With the apathy of audiences
> everywhere in this country, and the belief that musicians should be paid a
> "liveable" wage, ticket sales alone just won't make it.
> My nonprofit "Friends of Big Band Jazz" raises money and supports:
> Concerts of my big band in the Bay Area - Mike Vax Jazz Orchestra
> The Stan Kenton Alumni Big Band Tours - which include free clinics every
> afternoon
> The Prescott Jazz Summit (A festival in Arizona that has a huge educational
> element as well as pros performing all over the city.)
> Concerts in schools
> And....................... we do give away free seats to students to some
> concerts.
> Our website www.bigbandjazz.net where part of every CD sale in the sales shop
> part, goes into our scholarship fund.  (We have also linked up other jazz
> sites all over the world.)
> We have given away around $15,000 in scholarships for young people to go to
> jazz camps and to high school jazz bands to buy music.
> I am really proud of what we have accomplished, and it has been done with
> individual donations.  We don't get the "big bucks" from corporations.
> (Although 
> I sure wish we could!)

Mike & List mates:

What Mike Vax does is well regarded by those of us who are familiar with his
efforts to promote the music to a new audience. That should be the primary
reason for most funding for the arts.

The Baltimore Symphony would do well to perform Peter & The Wolf to school
audiences, and/or perform other such concerts for them. Funding should be
available for "Music Appreciation" in the schools. Etc., etc.

And other Jazz Societies might well follow the lead of Sacramento and
Arizona in promoting concerts with, or for school kids. And bands should
follow your lead, and that of Blue Street and Johnny Mac and other groups.

Barbone Street (my band) encourages kids to sit in with us at our many
summer concerts in the Philadelphia area. Youngest at 8 years old, most in
their teen years. We also have a very viable year round jazz program that we
perform in elementary, middle and high schools. We try and promote a 9 year
old Jazz Violin prodigy outside of our area, to fellow DJMLers and are
greeted with polite yawns and comments like, so what?

Jazz musicians helped kids all the time when I was growing up in NYC in the
40s, 50s. One of the greatest thrills of my teen life was to play a couple a
tunes beside Phil Napoleon, then Pee Wee Erwin, then Billy Maxted when each
of them performed at Nick's. I later got to talk with all those folks who
are legends to us now, like Omer Simeon, Bird, Miff Mole, Bechet, et al.

That led to my love of jazz and gigs with all sorts of Jazz Elders in the
Big Apple from Haggart, to Lawson to Hawkins to Eldridge to Monk.

Too damn few of us are accessible to the kids these days. What's worse, most
of us make absolutely no effort to pass the torch. SHAME ON US.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone