[Dixielandjazz] Sign of the times?

[Stephen G Barbone]

Note the third to the last paragraph. While the super hip jazz clubs  
in San Francisco are closing, Preservation Hall is about
to open a club there.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband
Death of Jazz Club Underscores a Changing Scene

December 30, 2010 - NY TIMES - By REYHAN HARMANCI


As another holiday season under a stagnating economy draws to a close,  
it is hardly surprising that San Francisco would lose that rarely  
profitable of ventures, a jazz room.

But Coda, a bar, restaurant and club in the Mission District, did not  
seem like it was going under. In just a year and a half, it had  
established itself as one of the most interesting jazz-based schedules  
in the Bay Area. Acts like the Jazz Mafia tapped into a vibrant  
younger music scene, and salsa Sunday bookings and Latin jazz nights  
sold out. Stevie Wonder dropped by for a set;Liz Phair covered Velvet  
Underground songs.

Two weeks ago Bruce Hanson, the club’s owner, shocked staff members  
and promoters with the news that Coda would close after a New Year’s  
Eve blowout featuring Rayband and 8 Legged Monster.

Mr. Hanson blamed poor economic timing, not the business model or the  
musical genre. “Maybe if we opened today, we’d make it,” he said.

Though Anna’s Jazz Island in Berkeley and Pearl’s in San Francisco  
both folded in recent years, jazz-booking cafes, cabarets and smaller  
barrooms persist.

And Yoshi’s Jazz Club and Japanese Restaurant, with locations in San  
Francisco and Oakland, still attracts stars like Roy Hargrove, slated  
for January. Its schedule, though, is increasingly filled with less  
jazzy headliners like the Ohio Players and Public Enemy.

The booking strategy, said Jason Olaine, Yoshi’s San Francisco Jazz  
Club artistic director who used to work in the Oakland location, “is  
about survival.”

Yoshi’s in San Francisco has also benefited from substantial public  
support — the city gave it about $7 million in loans to open in the  
Fillmore District.

Coda’s death brings home the lack of local booking possibilities for  
jazz musicians. “I can only speak about my experience,” said Marcus  
Shelby, a nationally known bass player and band leader who moved to  
the Bay Area around 15 years ago. “But I used to have regular gigs —  
two, three, four, five nights. I’m not playing nowhere in San  
Francisco these days.”

But others point to a vibrant local jazz scene populated by small  
places like Red Poppy Art House and Jazzschool in Berkeley that foster  
experimentation across genres like world music, hip hop and chamber  
music. Mr. Shelby, speaking from Japan, said he saw great music all  
the time — just not in the smoky supper clubs of yore.

His income, like many jazz musicians’, increasingly comes from  
commissions, grants and teaching.

“Schools now give young players a place to play and learn, rehearsal  
spaces, instruments, things that clubs used to provide,” said David  
Ake, music professor at University of Nevada, Reno, and author of  
“Jazz Matters.”

Mr. Ake cautioned that the movement toward jazz’s being seen as  
“America’s classical music,” came with costs — less lively venues,  
more formal presentation — as well as benefits.

The shift in financing and performance space is both profound and  
invisible.

“It’s always been a hustle,” said Sarah Wilson, a trumpeter and  
vocalist who recently played at Yoshi’s for a record release. “When I  
lived in New York, I remember when the Knitting Factory stopped  
booking jazz, and Tonic closed down.”

But Ms. Wilson said that a weekend workshop on grant-writing and  
business philosophy she attended changed her life. With four tracks on  
her last album financed by commissions, she said, she made more money  
over the past year than in all other years combined.

“Musicians need to be industrious,” said Charith Premawardhana,  
founder of Classical Revolution, a group devoted to finding  
traditional and not-so-traditional locations for classical music, who  
has also played with Jazz Mafia.

“They have to create opportunities to perform, for themselves and  
their friends, “ Mr. Premawardhana said, noting that the group will be  
performing in January at a Haight nightclub, Milk, that just started  
hosting live music.

But there is a rung missing in the jazz ecosystem when small and  
medium-size clubs like Coda go out of business. “San Francisco is too  
underground,” said Adam Theis, Jazz Mafia’s founder. “If it’s only the  
super hip who dig it out, it’s hard for the scene to support itself.”

Mr. Shelby said, “The musicians are already leaving,” and added that  
political leadership needed to help live music clubs like Coda.

As Coda prepares for its final show, the future does bring hope.  
Preservation Hall, the famed New Orleans club and band, has announced  
plans to open on Valencia Street in 2011.

And SF Jazz, a nonprofit that programs 100 or so events a year,  
including the SF Jazz Festival, is slated to open its $60 million  
permanent home in the fall of 2012. It is no coincidence that the  
location is in Hayes Valley, spitting distance from other major music  
spots like the opera and the symphony.

In a nod to both jazz history and the current night-life options,  
though, Randall Kline, founder of SF Jazz, said there would be a  
street-level space, holding around 90 people in addition to a larger  
concert hall. “It’ll feel more like a club,” he said.