[Dixielandjazz] Times are Changing

[Stephen G Barbone]

Folks who get the American Rag may have seen a letter to the editor  
from a disgruntled moldy fig blistering the Sacramento Music  
Festival's adding non trad jazz acts to their program. He said he and  
other moldy figs would no longer attend etc. I guess you can neither  
teach old dogs new tricks, nor educate some of them to the fact that  
the "Old" audiences, moldy fig or not, just don't attend in sufficient  
numbers to keep Festivals (or other jazz venues) the way they were. We  
oldsters no longer have clout. Get used to it . . . or maybe shut up  
and attend live jazz events. Bring your kids and grandkids. Or, suffer  
the consequences of Sacramento, other Festivals, and  jazz  
nightclubs / record labels as mentioned in the below NY Times article.  
When reading it, note especially the following quote:

“Jazz has always been conservative,” Mr. Sturm said. “You have people  
say this is jazz, and this is not jazz. You build up these walls and  
guess what? There is no audience left.”

IMO we are rapidly approaching the "no audience left" stage because of  
our collective stupidity.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

Jazz Guitar Shrine Expands Beyond Jazz to Survive

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

For years the Iridium has been known as not only the home of Les Paul,  
the electric-guitar pioneer, but also as one of the city’s premier  
jazz clubs, where on any given night you can hear big-name performers  
like the pianist McCoy Tyner or the bassist Charlie Haden.

But these days its calendar is full of guitarists from the worlds of  
rock, blues and pop, as the owner tries to transform the Iridium into  
a guitar Mecca, a shrine of sorts to Paul, who died in August 2009.  
Take the October lineup: It included jazz musicians like the guitarist  
Stanley Jordan and the saxophonist Richie Cole, as well as rock  
guitarists like Robby Krieger, formerly of the Doors; Adrian Belew, of  
King Crimson fame; and Marshall Crenshaw, who wrote the pop hit  
“Someday, Someway.”

On tap for this month are the jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, as well  
as veteran rockers like Albert and Joe Bouchard of Blue Oyster Cult  
and younger rock musicians like Devon Allman and his group, Honeytribe.

“What do you do when you lose Les Paul?” the owner, Ron Sturm, said in  
an interview at the club, at Broadway and 51st Street. “Do you go out  
of business? How do you adapt to change?”

His answer is to lure more rock and blues fans — especially guitar  
aficionados in their 40s and 50s — who might be open to expanding  
their tastes to jazz or jazz-rock.

“I want to turn them on to jazz and to turn them on to rock,” Mr.  
Sturm said, “and the fact I’m doing rock is good for jazz, because I’m  
bringing in people who normally wouldn’t be there.”

These are difficult times for jazz clubs, as shrinking audiences and  
an aging clientele make it harder to stay in business. The steps the  
Iridium has taken mirror the moves that jazz labels like Verve and  
Blue Note have made over the last decade to remain profitable, putting  
more pop musicians on their rosters to subsidize jazz recordings.

The club started booking more guitarists and pop musicians a year ago  
and has gradually included more of them in its lineup. The shift  
became more pronounced this summer, and now about half the musicians  
playing the Iridium come from rock, blues and pop backgrounds.

Mr. Sturm has also tried to turn his club into a recording studio,  
installing a state-of-the-art mixing board and digital recording  
system beside the stage. Like the owners of a few other jazz clubs, he  
has plans to start a label, archive performances, produce live albums  
and offer patrons a chance to buy a compact disc of the show they just  
watched.

The club’s new emphasis becomes obvious from the moment you walk in. A  
score of electric guitars are displayed on the walls, some in glass  
cases, all signed by famous musicians: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Tom  
Petty, Steve Miller.

The strategy seems to be paying off, and revenues are up, Mr. Sturm  
said, declining to give details. The club has been packed for  
performances in recent months by rockers like Ted Nugent and Nels  
Cline of Wilco, as well as for a reunion of King Crimson players and a  
night devoted to Frank Zappa’s music.

“It’s more eclectic now,” said one longtime patron, Nelson Onofre,  
before a recent show by a blues band, the Nighthawks. “You have the  
purists that want this to remain a jazz-only club, but I have been  
here on nights when it was jazz only, and the place is half-empty.  
It’s still a business. They can get a guy like Ted Nugent and pack  
them in the place.”

Greg Deller, a former music executive, was also at the Nighthawks  
show. He said he remembered the Iridium fondly as a jazz club but was  
not troubled that it had diversified. “Why not?” he said, as the band  
started playing a country blues song. “To me it’s all related.”

Mr. Sturm said rock and pop musicians welcomed the chance to play the  
club, since many of them revere Paul as the man who electrified the  
guitar. He knows jazz purists might be turned off by the mixing of  
genres, but he sees such concerns as counterproductive. The audience  
for jazz is small, and a strict definition of jazz only excludes new  
listeners, he said.

“Jazz has always been conservative,” Mr. Sturm said. “You have people  
say this is jazz, and this is not jazz. You build up these walls and  
guess what? There is no audience left.”

The new booking policy often includes thematic shows. Mr. Crenshaw,  
57, who has been a Les Paul fan since he was a teenager and found a 78  
of two of that jazzman’s singles in the garbage, recently completed  
three nights at the club in a tribute to famous musicians who had  
adopted the Gibson Les Paul guitar, like the bluesman Freddie King and  
the 1950s R&B and jazz artist Mickey Baker. He performed two nights  
with the Les Paul Trio and a wealth of guests, including the  
keyboardist with the E Street Band, Charlie Giordano, and the  
guitarist Steuart Smith of the Eagles.

“I’ve been a rock ’n’ roll musician all my life but I have loved jazz  
most of my life too,” Mr. Crenshaw said. “I’m not crossing over to  
that world — that will never happen — but it’s an honor to take this  
little step over to that side.”

The genre mixing can make for surprising music. On a recent night the  
Les Paul trio — the guitarist Lou Pallo, the bassist Nicki Parrott and  
the pianist John Colianni — played a set of jazz standards like “All  
of Me” and “Blue Skies.” John Oates, half of the duo Hall and Oates,  
then came out and lent his finger-picking blues guitar sound, covering  
Lightning Hopkins, Jimmy Rogers, Curtis Mayfield and Dave Van Ronk.  
Later in the night Steve Miller sat in with the band.

“It’s not really jazz that we’re doing, but what’s the difference?”  
Mr. Pallo said. “It’s still good music.”

Mr. Colianni said the sets with pop and rock musicians continue a  
trend that started when Paul was alive, and guitarists would show up  
and ask to sit in.

“It was a pilgrimage,” he said. “All these guitar guys worship him.  
And the room represents a challenge. It’s a jazz room. That makes them  
want to have the credibility and prestige of having played a jazz room.”