[Dixielandjazz] Jazz Festivals Spread to the Suburbs

[Steve barbone]

Those oldies on the DJML know that I've been pushing generic summer
jazz/music/ street/county/township, festivals for 5 years now, as venues to
seek out for performances. And stating that these venues, as well as the
market for jazz, have been increasing since Ken Burns Jazz on PBS. The trend
has finally been noticed by The New York Times which notes, among other
things, that The Preservation Hall Jazz Band will be a featured act at the
North Fork Bank Jazz Festival in Oyster Bay, N.Y. etc., etc., etc.

The Time article below touts these festivals in the NYC area, but you can be
sure that they are overspreading the USA if the news reports I monitor are
anywhere near accurate.

How lucky we are to be in an expanding market. But, it will not find our
bands . . . we must find it.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Jazz Festivals Are Spreading Through the Suburbs

NY TIMES - By PHILLIP LUTZ - May 21, 2006

JOE LOVANO is a jazz saxophonist at the peak of his powers. Seasoned enough
at age 53 to have won a bucketful of awards, yet vigorous enough to be
blowing as hard as ever, he spends most of the year performing in premier
concert halls and clubs around the world and in the mecca of jazz, New York
City.

But come summer, Mr. Lovano puts on another hat: artistic director of the
Caramoor Jazz Festival, a two-day event on a former estate in the
Westchester village of Katonah. The festival is one of dozens of outdoor
summer jazz events now dotting the New York suburbs that attract top players
and programmers. 

"The scene has been growing through the years," Mr. Lovano said. "It can
only get better."

Caramoor is a case in point. In 1993, its first year, the event drew 300
people for a one-day series of piano duos held in the 600-seat Spanish
Courtyard, said Jim Luce, the festival's producer. These days, with an
expanded schedule (the last Saturday in July and the first in August) and
performance space (the 1,750-seat Venetian Theater), the festival attracts
about 3,000 people, he said, and could top that this year with a rare
appearance by the septet of the pianist McCoy Tyner and a tribute to the
saxophonist Joe Henderson. The pianist Kirk Lightsey will play another
tribute, to the pianist John Hicks, who was scheduled to perform but who
died this month. 

A bigger event, the Litchfield Jazz Festival in Connecticut, draws about
10,000 people to the Goshen Fairgrounds, said Vita West Muir, the festival's
executive director. That is more than double the number who came in 1996,
the festival's first year, when Diana Krall, then a little-known singer and
pianist, won raves on the original, smaller stage at the White Memorial
Foundation. This year, the festival will run from Aug. 4 through 6 and will
feature 14 acts, including the saxophonist Lee Konitz and Dr. John.

One of the newer events in the metropolitan area is the OSPAC Jazz Festival,
a two-day affair held at the performing arts center in West Orange, N.J.,
named for Oskar Schindler. It, too, is growing, with attendance rising to
about 5,000 from 3,000 in its three years of existence, said Kate Baker, a
singer and the festival's executive director.

Unlike the Caramoor and Litchfield festivals, the West Orange concerts,
which are to be held on Sept. 9 and 10 this year, are free. All three
festivals run from afternoon to evening, but not all outdoor jazz events
follow that format. Throughout July and August, a nonprofit group, Jazz
Forum Arts, run by the trumpeter Mark Morganelli, will produce more than 40
concerts, mostly in the late afternoon or evening, in Westchester and
Rockland Counties. That is up from the 24 concerts Mr. Morganelli put on
when the series began six years ago.

The concerts, each of which attracts about 1,000 people, are free and
generally feature musicians on the brink of stardom, though veterans like
the saxophonist Lou Donaldson and Mr. Morganelli himself will perform this
year. 

Mr. Luce, the Caramoor producer, said that Mr. Morganelli has
"single-handedly been able to present music in places where you'd never
think you could do it," citing parts of Mount Vernon and Yonkers that
ordinarily do not see shows of similar caliber.

The obstacles have been many. Mr. Morganelli hauls his own sound system to
the concerts, and more than once has run into logistical problems.

But those issues pale next to financial concerns. Indeed, as he sat in his
office in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., last month, Mr. Morganelli had just received a
call from the mayor of Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., telling him that, after paying
for concerts on Thursdays through July and August for six straight years,
the village no longer had the money. Each concert costs upward of $4,000,
and the decision left Mr. Morganelli scrambling to find a town to fill the
scheduling hole. 

Complaints about financial problems are a constant refrain of festival
producers. On Long Island, the North Fork Bank Jazz Festival, which attracts
some 6,000 people over three days to a stage in the Planting Fields
Arboretum State Historic Park in Oyster Bay, has had a series of banks come
and go as major sponsors, said Maryann K. Beaumont, the festival's executive
director.

This year, with concerts scheduled for Aug. 11 through 13 and performers
like the saxophonist David Sanborn and the violinist Regina Carter on the
bill, North Fork seemed to be settling in as sponsor. But the bank was
acquired in March by Capital One, throwing into question next year's
sponsorship, Ms. Beaumont said. The festival, which costs $150,000 to
produce, is running a deficit, she said, and will be raising prices this
year by as much as $10 a ticket.

Competition for corporate sponsorships of the arts generally, and for jazz
programming specifically, has grown, Ms. Beaumont said. On Long Island, for
example, the North Fork festival now vies for corporate dollars with jazz
programming at the Inter-Media Art Center in Huntington.

Despite increased interest in recent years, jazz remains "almost as rarefied
as classical music," said Ms. Muir of the Litchfield festival. Few summer
festivals sell out. To help fill seats, some festivals present performers
who stretch the definition of jazz but have broad commercial appeal, like
Dionne Warwick, who will perform on opening night at Litchfield this year.

Others feature jazz acts with a strong dose of showmanship, like the
Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which is scheduled to appear at the North Fork
Bank event. 

Mr. Lovano, in his third season as artistic director of Caramoor, says that
joining the festival's programming team has given him the chance to present
groups of various sizes and instrumentation to play material that he has
recorded. Being near New York has also helped, he said, since so many top
jazz musicians live in the region.

At the same time, getting out of the city inspires the musicians, Mr. Luce
said. That was evident on a warm spring day recently as Mr. Lovano, tenor
sax in hand, strolled the fragrant gardens among Caramoor's 90 acres. At one
point he stopped to join Michael Barrett, Caramoor's chief executive and an
accomplished pianist in his own right, on the Venetian Theater stage, in an
impromptu take on a Beethoven sonata.

Audiences can expect that kind of spontaneity at the festival this year, Mr.
Lovano said. Though he is not scheduled to lead a group, he will probably
sit in with others, perhaps with McCoy Tyner.

Mr. Tyner, credited with revolutionizing the role of pianist as a member of
the John Coltrane Quartet in the 1960's and as a leader of his own groups,
is no stranger to festivals near New York. Last year, he played at the
Litchfield festival, where he was joined onstage by the tap dancer Savion
Glover. 

At Caramoor this year, Mr. Tyner's septet will close the festival,
revisiting music he recorded in the early 60's. Mr. Tyner said his
interpretations would reflect his growth as a player ‹ and the outdoor
chemistry. 

"Usually when you go to a particular place, there's a feeling that's there,"
he said. "It's like stepping into an environment. You never know how it's
going to affect you."