[JPL] All what jazz? Not at this fest

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All what jazz? Not at this fest

This week's Paetec Jazz Festival offers little of its namesake musical form

By Stephen Kiehl

Sun reporter

August 8, 2007


The Paetec Jazz Festival, coming to Baltimore this week, has its bases
covered.

Blues? B.B. King.

Rock? Little Richard.

Soul? Al Green.

Funk? Earth, Wind & Fire.

But jazz? Not so much.

"It's a music festival," said Andy Bienstock, host of a nightly jazz show on
WYPR-FM. He said he wouldn't describe it as a jazz festival since the
majority of the 40 acts fall into some other category. But Bienstock knows
the reality of the market: Jazz doesn't sell.

"What's interesting is that jazz as a marketing term seems to mean more than
jazz itself," he said. "We'll call it a jazz festival and people will love
it. But we won't put any jazz in it because people won't come."

In other words, jazz might be respected, even revered as the essence of
cool, but relatively few people listen to it. Sales of jazz CDs are down,
and jazz clubs in Baltimore and across the country have closed. But none of
that has prevented the proliferation of "jazz festivals," such as the one
arriving tomorrow in Baltimore.

True fans, though, say such festivals are jazz in name only.

"No doubt B.B. King, Little Richard and Al Green are well-established,
well-loved artists," said Henry Wong, owner of Baltimore's An die Musik,
which sells jazz and classical CDs. "But only in an umbrella sense are they
jazz. They're not even close to smooth jazz."

To be fair, the three-day Baltimore festival has booked a few jazz acts of
local, national and international renown. From the Hungarian fusion jazz
group Djabe to Baltimore's Todd Butler, jazz does have a (small) place in
the festival. But organizers acknowledge that to sell tickets, they needed
to widen their focus.

"Acoustic jazz is not the biggest selling music we have today," said John
Nugent, the festival's artistic director. "If I put an event together with
only that style of jazz, I wouldn't have any sponsors, and it would sell 3
percent of the tickets" that a more diverse festival would sell.

He's not alone in that assessment, as other jazz festivals also feel
compelled to dilute their jazz content. Even in New Orleans, which some
consider the birthplace of jazz, the Heritage and Jazz Festival has featured
such distinctly non-jazz musicians as Dave Matthews, Rod Stewart, Brad
Paisley and Lucinda Williams.

So why call it a jazz festival at all?

Nugent's rationale is almost philosophical. He insists that the artists
playing in Baltimore this week were all influenced by jazz, even if the
music they are making would not be classified as such. "All forms of music
today came from the form that we know as jazz," said Nugent, a saxophone
player. "Bands like Earth, Wind & Fire and B.B. King, who's a blues artist,
their music did not just come out of nowhere. It came from the traditions of
American music, which is jazz."

Jazz originated in the early 20th century and is marked by an
improvisational style and group interaction. It has constantly evolved,
encompassing swing in the 1930s, bebop in the 1940s and fusion in the '60s
and '70s. Jazz's popularity peaked in the middle of the century, but as
recently as 30 years ago, many cities boasted a rich jazz scene.

Baltimore was among them, hardly a surprise for a town that spawned three
legendary performers, Eubie Blake, Billie Holiday and Cab Calloway. They and
other jazz luminaries, such as John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie and Woody
Herman, made regular appearances in venues on West Baltimore's Pennsylvania
Avenue or in concerts hosted by the Left Bank Jazz Society in the old Famous
Ballroom on North Charles Street.

But most of Baltimore's jazz clubs have closed, and musicians must travel or
teach to get by.

"It's very difficult to make a living just playing jazz," said Todd Butler,
a noted trumpet player who teaches in Baltimore. "There's less and less jazz
venues. Unfortunately, a lot of it is due to folks not wanting to come out
and listen to the music."

He doesn't fault the jazz festival organizers for setting up a festival that
is not strictly jazz.

"I understand what they're doing," Butler said. "They're trying to bring in
national acts that are maybe more popular but not necessarily jazz acts in
order to bring crowds in and expose them to this music."

But another prominent Baltimore jazz musician, pianist Lafayette Gilchrist,
was surprised to hear that the headliners for the festival are B.B. King,
Little Richard and Al Green.

"I don't understand that," Gilchrist said. "It's not improvisational music
of any kind. I mean, it's great music, but, my lord, why are they calling
this a jazz festival?

"Why don't they call it the jazz and R&B and rock 'n' roll festival?"

Organizers said they're trying to make jazz more popular, and one way to
expose people to jazz is to draw them to the festival with mainstream acts.
Organizers also said they hope to make the festival an annual event in
Baltimore, noting that future fests could feature more jazz once the event
is established.

"We need to get some legs on this thing, and then watch what happens," said
Marc Iacona, executive producer of the Paetec festival. He also runs the
Rochester Jazz Festival, which he said draws more than 80,000 people with a
lineup 80 percent jazz.

Musicians seem to know that playing traditional jazz isn't going to win them
many fans. Henry Wong, who has sold classical and jazz albums at An die
Musik for 17 years, said jazz sales are "pretty terrible." Jazz accounts for
just 2 percent of all music sales in the U.S., down from 2.8 percent a
decade ago, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

Still, Wong promotes jazz relentlessly, and even this week, with the Paetec
Jazz Festival taking place, he has scheduled authentic jazz events at his
store on Charles Street.

Tomorrow night he'll screen "Cartoons That Swing," featuring the music of
jazz greats set to animated shorts. The Joel Holmes Quartet will perform in
the store Friday night and double bassist Vattel Cherry on Saturday.

But Wong said he knows his store won't see the crowds that are expected to
stream to Pier Six, Harbor Pointe and Power Plant Live! to take in all that
"jazz" the Paetec festival has to offer.

Said Bienstock: "I wish I knew why the word jazz has a larger folllowing
than the music jazz."


stephen.kiehl at baltsun.com