[Dixielandjazz] Reason for less OKOM at Sacramento Jazz Festival (formerly Dixieland Jubilee)

[Charlie Hull]

Sacramento's 2011 Memorial Day weekend event will include a number of 
trad and swing bands as well as entertainers, including Banu Gibson, who 
have N.O./Chicago-styled backup groups. The full list of bands is on 
www.sacjazz.com. Click on Artists.

In previous years the lineup included a couple of dozen trad jazz bands, 
but the largely-elder audience for those is dwindling and, to make the 
Festival pay its way changes had to be made, including addition of other 
popular music genres to attract a broader audience sufficient to support 
the event. They also dropped the word, "Dixieland" from the event name 
and changed "Jubilee" to "Festival", broadening the title to "Sacramento 
Jazz Festival", to avoid attracting only Dixieland fans and those who 
would associate the word "Jubilee" with Dixieland jazz and might think 
that was all that was offered. To make room for the additional musical 
styles, the number of OKOM bands was reduced.

Foreign bands are no longer included unless willing to come at their own 
expense. That applies also to bands in other parts of the USA whose 
travel expenses would be prohibitive. The full cost of a foreign band 
today could be as much as $30,000 dollars. Coincidentally, that's the 
same amount Jubilee officials told the local bands would be saved by 
eliminating most of them.

Starting small in 1974, the Jubilee decision makers kept adding more and 
more bands and venues until it became the largest such festival in the 
world. As overhead costs grew it eventually outgrew it's ability to be 
self-supporting and ran in the red for a few years. A reduction in size 
was necessary to reduce overhead. The number of venues was cut, 
including all those not located within walking distance in downtown 
Sacramento.

As a strategy to keep the event alive, the Sacramento Jazz Festival is 
now run on a business model. The bottom line is paid attendances. You 
don't tie up valuable shelf space with products that don't sell. And you 
try new products in the continuing quest for those which produce the 
largest sales.

As previously mentioned, more than a dozen of the trad bands which had 
participated regularly for many years have been dropped, especially 
those who were not attracting full houses. Each year the site manager 
for each performance venue, usually a non-musician, evaluates each band 
performing at his or her site, reporting the size of the audience drawn 
by the band, whether the band 'connected' with the audience, and the 
band's deportment and compliance with starting and finishing times and 
behavioral expectations. The bands with small audiences and not 
interacting with the audience, or whose deportment was inappropriate, 
are headed for the drop list.

Evolution. Changes made for survival. I give the Sacramento Jazz 
Festival program directors credit for including at least a few OKOM 
bands. Hopefully enough to satisfy those attendees who come to hear trad 
jazz music.

Charlie Hull

On 5/10/2011 4:28 PM, Coastsidegiraffe at comcast.net wrote:
> I absolutely think that jazz - especially Trad Jazz - is at the back of the bus (maybe not even on it?) at both Sacramento and N.O.J.&  H festivals.
> Karen Brooks Anthony, Pacifica CA