I’m glad now I never wrote it. Now I recognize these are two different events.
Two years ago I planned to type a blog post comparing the Prairie Village Jazz Festival to the Rhythm and Ribs Festival (this year renamed Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival). But the Prairie Village event was rained out. I then planned to write it last year, until Rhythm and Ribs was hit by rain.
Yes, they’re both Kansas City area music festivals centering on jazz. But the Prairie Village event books straight ahead jazz with a Kansas City focus, charges nothing for entry, and (if it doesn’t rain) draws a crowd. The 18th and Vine event pursues national names with cross-over appeal, charges $10 to $25 for entry and (if it doesn’t rain) draws a crowd.
I understand the need to attract a base of support beyond jazz fans when charging for entry. The 500 or so people who turn out for a Jammin’ at the Gem or Folly jazz concert do not fill a festival’s grounds. When organizing the Kansas City Jazz Festival in the 1980s – which was a free event but promised sponsors crowds in the tens of thousands – we recognized we needed to reach beyond a jazz base. We understood jazz fans alone in Kansas City do not number in the tens of thousands.
George Duke was an ideal choice to headline this year’s 18th and Vine event, bringing both solid jazz credentials and wide appeal. He was proudly announced at a press conference. His name was spread largest over the festival poster. Promotion was built around the draw of George Duke.
Then George Duke died.
I’m not an organizer of this festival. But I’ve helped stage jazz events off and on since the 1980s. And never in that time have I had to deal with the death of a headliner. There’s no guidebook to tell an organizer what to do. No manual says, “If the headliner of your jazz festival dies after he or she is announced but before the day of the festival, do the following and everything will be fine.”
Everything is not fine.
Because organizers need to work within a long-established budget and quickly find a popular replacement for a specific open date. And popular musicians aren’t standing in a queue like taxis, waiting for the next hand to wave. They have long since been booked or may require an extra financial inducement to be coaxed onto your stage on short notice.
I’ve considered what I would have done. Start, of course, by searching for a suitable replacement. If one isn’t identified, I suspect I’d recommend investing much of the freed headliner money on advertising and promotion to build the image of a major event that nobody will want to miss.
Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival chose to fill the hole with a couple of groups of solid talent and credentials but limited renown. The festival was rebranded as a tribute to George Duke.
While Duke himself had the potential to draw a broad cross-section of music fans to 18th and Vine, he held no special connection to the district. The appeal of a tribute to him strikes me as limited. Yet, there is no right or wrong response. There is no handbook. You scramble for the best solution.
Then, a week ago Saturday, four people were shot, two critically, just a block from the event’s grounds.
This is a festival reaching beyond its inner-city district, looking to attract an audience from throughout the metropolitan area. But with news of the shooting fresh, some people enticed to test the area next weekend are now making other plans. And the loss of a broad-appeal headliner likely already limited the number of those people.
It’s a genuine shame. Because the fact is that since its revival several years ago, organizers of this festival have staged an extraordinarily well-produced event. Flow through the grounds is excellent. The staging, sound and lights, on all three stages throughout the area, are solidly professional. The audience is friendly. Vendors are diverse and those with whom I’ve spoken are pleased by both their treatment and sales. Details, right down to the signage, are handled with care.
It all matters. It all builds a positive image of the district. It all leaves a spirited audience with a joyful story to tell.
Even last year, when rain forced closing the main stage and vendor booths, staff insured that those of us who turned out anyway left with an enjoyable experience and few complaints.
Only parking cried out for improvement. Maybe this year that has been addressed.
Because despite the loss of George Duke, next Saturday, a collection of exceptional talent will be commanding this year’s festival stages. I’m looking forward to soul star Bettye LaVette and the Messenger Legacy Band (a tribute to Art Blakey, with saxophonist Donald Harrison and bassist Reggie Workman).
This isn’t what those of us organizing a jazz festival in Prairie Village are attempting. The Prairie Village event is more parochial. The two festivals are not competitive. They’re complementary.
But unfortunately, this year’s 18th and Vine event appears snakebitten. I wish the festival organizers the terrific weather and outstanding crowds they deserve. That’s what it’s going to take to overcome what must feel like bites from an entire pit of snakes.
Showing posts with label Rhythm and Ribs Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rhythm and Ribs Festival. Show all posts
Monday, October 7, 2013
Monday, July 29, 2013
Bending the Mold
1983 saw the rebirth of the Kansas City Jazz Festival. Organizers wisely placed a call for volunteers in the program, to help plan and organize the 1984 event. I was looking for an entrée to civic involvement and responded. I remained involved, to varying degrees, through the next seven festivals.
That may be why I still hold a keener interest in jazz festivals than most people.
The festival I helped organize would eventually, after I left, merge with the Blues festival and grow into a much larger event. But it eventually died, reportedly succumbing to a massive debt.
The Rhythm and Ribs Festival was born eight years ago as a grand event. It encompassed two days and all of Parade Park. But financial reports available online tell us it lost money each year.
That’s easy to do with festivals.
In 2009, in the face of the recession, Rhythm and Ribs retired. The next year, a different festival with the same name replaced it. This new event filled a single day, and embraced a much more concise footprint. The downsizing, let’s be honest, was a disappointment. But those online financial reports tell us this was the first Kansas City festival named Rhythm and Ribs to turn a profit. The wisdom of the change is clear.
The new Rhythm and Ribs adopted a formula: A jazz headliner, a blues headliner, and an R and B headliner whose sole purpose was to draw a crowd. Commercially, it worked. Two years ago, when the repackaged musical band War took the festival stage and started singing The Cisco Kid, Rhythm and Ribs, in that year, stopped being a jazz or a blues festival. But give organizers credit. That band drew the largest audience of the day and the audience loved it.
Still, after three years of the same formula, of jazz headliner/blues headliner/r and b headliner to draw a crowd, the format was growing stale. When you’re turning a profit, it takes courage to change. And it takes wisdom to recognize when an event needs to evolve.
This year, Rhythm and Ribs has been rechristened as Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival. The name could stand some pruning, but if that turns out to be the biggest complaint, who cares.
Last week, the lineup was announced. Its emphasis is crossover appeal.
Top headliner George Duke brings solid jazz credentials, but is a name also known in rock and R and B circles. I know little about the second jazz headliner, the Art Blakey Tribute Band, but YouTube videos suggest this group may hold more appeal to jazz traditionalists.
Bettye LaVette is claimed by both the Blues and R and B sides of the fence. I just categorize her as the headliner I most want to hear. Kelley Hunt, who in December will be performing with The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra, delivers solid Blues.
(In the ad replicating the festival poster in JAM magazine, both Bettye LaVette’s and Kelley Hunt’s names are misspelled. Let’s hope those typos didn’t make it to the final poster.)
And there’s the R-and-B-Band-Whose-Purpose-Is-To-Draw-A-Crowd: Con Funk Shun.
Last week I noted that in booking the Prairie Village Jazz Festival, a goal was to see it evolve and grow. I believe the goal, however modestly, was met. The renamed festival at 18th and Vine seems to have modestly grown as well. Two solid jazz headliners and two blues headliners expands on the one/one/one formula.
If it seems I sometimes whine about Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival, or show overt interest, it’s because my festival planning years leave me caring for the event. Yes, I’ve helped plan the jazz festival in Prairie Village. But the festival at 18th and Vine is the one bearing the most potential. It clearly has the bigger budget with the more broadly recognized acts. And it has been extraordinarily well organized and executed, minding the details which make a difference to the audience experience.
Kansas City doesn’t need a festival on the scale of Newport’s. Jammin’ at the Gem and the Folly Series and Jazz Winterlude and The Blue Room bring nationally recognized jazz talent to Kansas City throughout the year. But this city, one of a rare few where jazz was born, deserves a major jazz festival. And Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival is the event showing the greatest potential to grow into that event.
Curiously, though, the festival situated where jazz and blues were born in Kansas City seems convinced that acts with crossover appeal are needed to draw a crowd to the neighborhood. Meanwhile, the festival situated out in the suburbs is placing its faith in a day of music that can only be sold as jazz.
If I could make a suggestion to organizers at the American Jazz Museum: When booking this festival, have more faith in jazz.
And shorten the name.
That may be why I still hold a keener interest in jazz festivals than most people.
The festival I helped organize would eventually, after I left, merge with the Blues festival and grow into a much larger event. But it eventually died, reportedly succumbing to a massive debt.
The Rhythm and Ribs Festival was born eight years ago as a grand event. It encompassed two days and all of Parade Park. But financial reports available online tell us it lost money each year.
That’s easy to do with festivals.
In 2009, in the face of the recession, Rhythm and Ribs retired. The next year, a different festival with the same name replaced it. This new event filled a single day, and embraced a much more concise footprint. The downsizing, let’s be honest, was a disappointment. But those online financial reports tell us this was the first Kansas City festival named Rhythm and Ribs to turn a profit. The wisdom of the change is clear.
The new Rhythm and Ribs adopted a formula: A jazz headliner, a blues headliner, and an R and B headliner whose sole purpose was to draw a crowd. Commercially, it worked. Two years ago, when the repackaged musical band War took the festival stage and started singing The Cisco Kid, Rhythm and Ribs, in that year, stopped being a jazz or a blues festival. But give organizers credit. That band drew the largest audience of the day and the audience loved it.
Still, after three years of the same formula, of jazz headliner/blues headliner/r and b headliner to draw a crowd, the format was growing stale. When you’re turning a profit, it takes courage to change. And it takes wisdom to recognize when an event needs to evolve.
This year, Rhythm and Ribs has been rechristened as Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival. The name could stand some pruning, but if that turns out to be the biggest complaint, who cares.
Last week, the lineup was announced. Its emphasis is crossover appeal.
Top headliner George Duke brings solid jazz credentials, but is a name also known in rock and R and B circles. I know little about the second jazz headliner, the Art Blakey Tribute Band, but YouTube videos suggest this group may hold more appeal to jazz traditionalists.
Bettye LaVette is claimed by both the Blues and R and B sides of the fence. I just categorize her as the headliner I most want to hear. Kelley Hunt, who in December will be performing with The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra, delivers solid Blues.
(In the ad replicating the festival poster in JAM magazine, both Bettye LaVette’s and Kelley Hunt’s names are misspelled. Let’s hope those typos didn’t make it to the final poster.)
And there’s the R-and-B-Band-Whose-Purpose-Is-To-Draw-A-Crowd: Con Funk Shun.
Last week I noted that in booking the Prairie Village Jazz Festival, a goal was to see it evolve and grow. I believe the goal, however modestly, was met. The renamed festival at 18th and Vine seems to have modestly grown as well. Two solid jazz headliners and two blues headliners expands on the one/one/one formula.
If it seems I sometimes whine about Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival, or show overt interest, it’s because my festival planning years leave me caring for the event. Yes, I’ve helped plan the jazz festival in Prairie Village. But the festival at 18th and Vine is the one bearing the most potential. It clearly has the bigger budget with the more broadly recognized acts. And it has been extraordinarily well organized and executed, minding the details which make a difference to the audience experience.
Kansas City doesn’t need a festival on the scale of Newport’s. Jammin’ at the Gem and the Folly Series and Jazz Winterlude and The Blue Room bring nationally recognized jazz talent to Kansas City throughout the year. But this city, one of a rare few where jazz was born, deserves a major jazz festival. And Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival is the event showing the greatest potential to grow into that event.
Curiously, though, the festival situated where jazz and blues were born in Kansas City seems convinced that acts with crossover appeal are needed to draw a crowd to the neighborhood. Meanwhile, the festival situated out in the suburbs is placing its faith in a day of music that can only be sold as jazz.
If I could make a suggestion to organizers at the American Jazz Museum: When booking this festival, have more faith in jazz.
And shorten the name.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Because I See the Potential
The 1984 Kansas City Jazz Festival lost $128,000.
A show at Starlight Theater with Sarah Vaughan and Ray Charles drew a fraction of the audience that Ella Fitzgerald and George Benson attracted there the year before. Then rains scattered the crowd at Volker Park on September 2nd, at the festival’s big outdoor finale, leaving a meager crowd for the delayed conclusion of Joe Williams with the Duke Ellington Orchestra conducted by Mercer Ellington.
Leaders of the event negotiated with vendors and slowly repaid the debt. In 1989, the last of it was paid off.
That, coincidentally, was the year I served as festival president, and the year Pat Metheny’s performance succumbed to storms.
I was delighted to turn over a debt-free festival to the organization’s next president. But rains do more than spoil a year of planning. They illustrate to sponsors the risk inherent with their support and lay out vividly that the recognition expected by association with a successful outdoor festival can be washed away faster than you can say Bryan Busby.
A successful event breeds more and more generous donors. I’m seeing it this year with the Prairie Village Jazz Festival. A rainout makes the arduous art of fundraising even more grueling. I saw it after the 1984 and 1989 Kansas City Jazz Festivals and after the 2011 Prairie Village fest.
So I understand the risks. I recognize the obstacles.
And I see the potential.
I chaired the Kansas City Jazz Commission from 1987 into 1989. Different members of the City Council approached me with different agendas: An international jazz hall of fame. Convert the KCMO tower (at 31st and McGee) into a giant saxophone, to rival the St. Louis arch. And, from more than one, combine this city’s multiple jazz festivals – at the time, we hosted the Kansas City Jazz Festival and the 18th and Vine Jazz and Heritage Festival – into one mega-jazz-fest to compete with New Orleans.
The desire has long simmered for this city to host a major celebration of our internationally-renowned heritage. Not one to compete with New Orleans. Recognize that some events are unique and beyond our reasonable reach. But something more grand than any of the relatively minor jazz celebrations that currently pepper this town.
Last week, I bemoaned the formula of the festival staged the last few years by the American Jazz Museum, and that it appears positioned not as an independent event but as a fundraiser for the Museum.
I understand the risks of breaking a successful, if uninspiring, formula. I recognize the obstacles organizers must face coming off a year devoured by rain.
And I point to it because I see the potential for that festival to grow into something grand.
Say it plainly: In Rhythm and Ribs, organizers have executed an outstanding event. They have outlined an excellent flow to the festival grounds, including performance spaces inside the museum. Likewise, there’s a flow to the schedule. The event hosts an overwhelmingly happy crowd. Vendors I spoke with two years ago were pleased (one I knew said demand exceeded his expectations). Details are where many such events go wrong, and here the details are exceptionally well managed. For example, look at the signage. It’s not hand-scribbled slop, but professionally produced placards. This may seem insignificant, but it makes a difference to the image projected.
Even last year, when rain rendered most of the festival grounds unusable, the staff coped, shoehorning crowds into the Gem Theater. Despite the storms, the festival went on. Two years ago, the Prairie Village Jazz Festival was called on account of rain. Likewise the second day of this year’s Corporate Woods Jazz Fest. Where Johnson County wimps out, 18th and Vine perseveres.
The American Jazz Museum has established the base of an extraordinary event. But it hurts not to see the festival grow beyond this base. It hurts knowing Kansas City deserves a major jazz festival, and seeing the start of one, but not yet seeing it grow beyond that start.
I’ve listed the plethora of jazz stars headlining the Newport Jazz Festival this August. As wonderful as it would be, Kansas City doesn’t need to match that. I suspect those three days in August are Newport’s lone gasp of jazz air for the year. We have the Folly and Jammin’ at the Gem jazz series. We have special guests visiting throughout the year, especially at The Blue Room. Kansas City’s jazz exposure isn’t limited to three days. We don’t need to equal Newport’s three days.
Yet we need to improve. The Museum cannot risk losing the kind of money The Kansas City Jazz Festival once lost. But the Museum’s festival nevertheless holds the potential to grow beyond a jazz name, a blues name, and some R-and-B group to draw a crowd.
Perhaps that’s happening.
Not officially announced, as far as I know, the festival known as Rhythm and Ribs is changing its name. The American Jazz Museum’s online newsletter (here) promotes early ticket sales for “Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival (formerly Rhythm and Ribs).”
The newsletter doesn’t actually give us the date of the event, but Ticketmaster (here) is selling tickets for “Kansas City’s 2013 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival” starting at 11 a.m. on Saturday, October 12th.
Does the name change portend a shift in focus? In the wake of a rain-damaged year, has the festival retrenched, or is it building on its exquisitely executed potential?
I’m optimistic.
Because I see the potential.
A show at Starlight Theater with Sarah Vaughan and Ray Charles drew a fraction of the audience that Ella Fitzgerald and George Benson attracted there the year before. Then rains scattered the crowd at Volker Park on September 2nd, at the festival’s big outdoor finale, leaving a meager crowd for the delayed conclusion of Joe Williams with the Duke Ellington Orchestra conducted by Mercer Ellington.
Leaders of the event negotiated with vendors and slowly repaid the debt. In 1989, the last of it was paid off.
That, coincidentally, was the year I served as festival president, and the year Pat Metheny’s performance succumbed to storms.
I was delighted to turn over a debt-free festival to the organization’s next president. But rains do more than spoil a year of planning. They illustrate to sponsors the risk inherent with their support and lay out vividly that the recognition expected by association with a successful outdoor festival can be washed away faster than you can say Bryan Busby.
A successful event breeds more and more generous donors. I’m seeing it this year with the Prairie Village Jazz Festival. A rainout makes the arduous art of fundraising even more grueling. I saw it after the 1984 and 1989 Kansas City Jazz Festivals and after the 2011 Prairie Village fest.
So I understand the risks. I recognize the obstacles.
And I see the potential.
I chaired the Kansas City Jazz Commission from 1987 into 1989. Different members of the City Council approached me with different agendas: An international jazz hall of fame. Convert the KCMO tower (at 31st and McGee) into a giant saxophone, to rival the St. Louis arch. And, from more than one, combine this city’s multiple jazz festivals – at the time, we hosted the Kansas City Jazz Festival and the 18th and Vine Jazz and Heritage Festival – into one mega-jazz-fest to compete with New Orleans.
The desire has long simmered for this city to host a major celebration of our internationally-renowned heritage. Not one to compete with New Orleans. Recognize that some events are unique and beyond our reasonable reach. But something more grand than any of the relatively minor jazz celebrations that currently pepper this town.
Last week, I bemoaned the formula of the festival staged the last few years by the American Jazz Museum, and that it appears positioned not as an independent event but as a fundraiser for the Museum.
I understand the risks of breaking a successful, if uninspiring, formula. I recognize the obstacles organizers must face coming off a year devoured by rain.
And I point to it because I see the potential for that festival to grow into something grand.
Say it plainly: In Rhythm and Ribs, organizers have executed an outstanding event. They have outlined an excellent flow to the festival grounds, including performance spaces inside the museum. Likewise, there’s a flow to the schedule. The event hosts an overwhelmingly happy crowd. Vendors I spoke with two years ago were pleased (one I knew said demand exceeded his expectations). Details are where many such events go wrong, and here the details are exceptionally well managed. For example, look at the signage. It’s not hand-scribbled slop, but professionally produced placards. This may seem insignificant, but it makes a difference to the image projected.
Even last year, when rain rendered most of the festival grounds unusable, the staff coped, shoehorning crowds into the Gem Theater. Despite the storms, the festival went on. Two years ago, the Prairie Village Jazz Festival was called on account of rain. Likewise the second day of this year’s Corporate Woods Jazz Fest. Where Johnson County wimps out, 18th and Vine perseveres.
The American Jazz Museum has established the base of an extraordinary event. But it hurts not to see the festival grow beyond this base. It hurts knowing Kansas City deserves a major jazz festival, and seeing the start of one, but not yet seeing it grow beyond that start.
I’ve listed the plethora of jazz stars headlining the Newport Jazz Festival this August. As wonderful as it would be, Kansas City doesn’t need to match that. I suspect those three days in August are Newport’s lone gasp of jazz air for the year. We have the Folly and Jammin’ at the Gem jazz series. We have special guests visiting throughout the year, especially at The Blue Room. Kansas City’s jazz exposure isn’t limited to three days. We don’t need to equal Newport’s three days.
Yet we need to improve. The Museum cannot risk losing the kind of money The Kansas City Jazz Festival once lost. But the Museum’s festival nevertheless holds the potential to grow beyond a jazz name, a blues name, and some R-and-B group to draw a crowd.
Perhaps that’s happening.
Not officially announced, as far as I know, the festival known as Rhythm and Ribs is changing its name. The American Jazz Museum’s online newsletter (here) promotes early ticket sales for “Kansas City’s 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival (formerly Rhythm and Ribs).”
The newsletter doesn’t actually give us the date of the event, but Ticketmaster (here) is selling tickets for “Kansas City’s 2013 18th and Vine Jazz and Blues Festival” starting at 11 a.m. on Saturday, October 12th.
Does the name change portend a shift in focus? In the wake of a rain-damaged year, has the festival retrenched, or is it building on its exquisitely executed potential?
Because I see the potential.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Thor Hates Jazz
Apparently, Thor doesn’t like jazz.
Thor, of course, is the Norse god of thunder (and, outside of Marvel comics, of lightning and storms). Two years ago, Thor wiped clean the second Prairie Village Jazz Festival. Last year, he vented his rage on Rhythm and Ribs. And this past weekend he decided one day of smooth jazz in Corporate Woods was quite enough, as an afternoon storm tore through and cancelled Saturday evening’s Jazz in the Woods.
I know how it feels. I helped on the Prairie Village festival that Thor decimated (though the event returned last year and plans are proceeding for a fourth festival this year). And I was president of The Kansas City Jazz Festival in 1989 when Thor looked down on a packed Volker Park, Brush Creek Boulevard jammed with cars, and nevertheless decided to pummel the grounds with torrid rains and force cancellation of The Pat Metheny Group.
There was no Norse god of music. Too bad. Thor could use a little culture, and someone to tell him to back off of our festivals.
At least Jazz in the Woods managed one night of celebration. Its soft music focus is not my cup of jazz tea. I’m programming this year’s Prairie Village Jazz Festival. You’ll find a sampling of my type of tea when contracts are finalized and that lineup is announced.
But give Jazz in the Woods, the Corporate Woods Jazz Festival, credit for 24 continuous years as a free outdoor jazz festival. Its organizers have built a successful event that, in recent years, has typically attracted tens of thousands of people with blankets and lawn chairs to hear music and, by purchasing concessions, raise thousands of dollars for local charities.
The Corporate Woods Jazz Festival was started by a pair of refugees from the rained-out 1989 Kansas City Jazz Festival I presided over. Two board of directors members of my Thor-shortened event did not like the person who took over as president of the Volker Park festival in 1990 and fled to Johnson County to start a new jazz festival.
In 1990, the Kansas City area hosted The Kansas City Jazz Festival, The 18th and Vine Jazz and Heritage Festival, and the Corporate Woods Jazz Festival. Today, only the Corporate Woods event survives.
My friends turned over organization of the festival to a civic group. I’ll cite that as proof that the success and continuation of a jazz festival is not dependent on jazz fans. The success and continuation of a jazz festival requires civic support and involvement.
And some way to keep Thor appeased.
*****
This past weekend’s Jazz in the Woods and the Coleman Hawkins Jazz Festival up north in St. Joseph, Missouri, starring a plethora of Kansas City’s best jazz ensembles, reminds us that festival season has arrived.
And it reminds us that Kansas City is not home to a major jazz festival.
Newport, in early August, hosts a major jazz festival. Among their 33 announced headliners: Wayne Shorter, Esperanza Spaulding, Natalie Cole, Chick Corea, Robert Glasper, Joshua Redman, Jim Hall with Julian Lage, Roy Haynes, Paquito D’Rivera, Marcus Miller, Terrance Blanchard.
Hopefully, Rhythm and Ribs will return, surviving last year’s storms. It’s an extraordinarily well produced festival. Organizers manage all of the details (except parking) extremely well, which is key to a wonderful experience for guests.
But this event seems content presenting an unimaginative formula of a mid-level jazz name, a mid-level blues name, then an R-and-B name to draw a crowd.
According the the American Jazz Museum’s 2012 audit report (downloadable from a link on the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation’s web site, from this page; click on View Financial Details to go to the audit links), the previous two Rhythm and Ribs turned a profit, the first in the festival’s history. I suppose that reduces any incentive to risk producing something more grand. And if, as the audit suggests (but does not spell out), that profit feeds the museum rather than seed the next fest, there will never be a base from which the festival could grow. If Rhythm and Ribs survives, it appears destined to live its life as a Jazz Museum fundraiser.
Having booked this year’s Prairie Village Jazz Festival, I can predict a step up from last year’s event. And with solid support from the Prairie Village City Council and the community, there’s reason for optimism that this fest can continue to grow without resorting to the Woods’ soft jazz mush.
But this is still a six act, one day jazz festival in a Kansas City suburb, just two years removed from a near-death cancellation. Newport need harbor no fears that Prairie Village, Kansas is close to stealing its thunder.
Kansas City, this home to jazz with institutions and a tradition other cities can envy, sits mired in minor festivals.
Reviewing that Newport list, we’re the city deep with envy.
Thor, of course, is the Norse god of thunder (and, outside of Marvel comics, of lightning and storms). Two years ago, Thor wiped clean the second Prairie Village Jazz Festival. Last year, he vented his rage on Rhythm and Ribs. And this past weekend he decided one day of smooth jazz in Corporate Woods was quite enough, as an afternoon storm tore through and cancelled Saturday evening’s Jazz in the Woods.
I know how it feels. I helped on the Prairie Village festival that Thor decimated (though the event returned last year and plans are proceeding for a fourth festival this year). And I was president of The Kansas City Jazz Festival in 1989 when Thor looked down on a packed Volker Park, Brush Creek Boulevard jammed with cars, and nevertheless decided to pummel the grounds with torrid rains and force cancellation of The Pat Metheny Group.
There was no Norse god of music. Too bad. Thor could use a little culture, and someone to tell him to back off of our festivals.
At least Jazz in the Woods managed one night of celebration. Its soft music focus is not my cup of jazz tea. I’m programming this year’s Prairie Village Jazz Festival. You’ll find a sampling of my type of tea when contracts are finalized and that lineup is announced.
But give Jazz in the Woods, the Corporate Woods Jazz Festival, credit for 24 continuous years as a free outdoor jazz festival. Its organizers have built a successful event that, in recent years, has typically attracted tens of thousands of people with blankets and lawn chairs to hear music and, by purchasing concessions, raise thousands of dollars for local charities.
The Corporate Woods Jazz Festival was started by a pair of refugees from the rained-out 1989 Kansas City Jazz Festival I presided over. Two board of directors members of my Thor-shortened event did not like the person who took over as president of the Volker Park festival in 1990 and fled to Johnson County to start a new jazz festival.
In 1990, the Kansas City area hosted The Kansas City Jazz Festival, The 18th and Vine Jazz and Heritage Festival, and the Corporate Woods Jazz Festival. Today, only the Corporate Woods event survives.
My friends turned over organization of the festival to a civic group. I’ll cite that as proof that the success and continuation of a jazz festival is not dependent on jazz fans. The success and continuation of a jazz festival requires civic support and involvement.
And some way to keep Thor appeased.
*****
This past weekend’s Jazz in the Woods and the Coleman Hawkins Jazz Festival up north in St. Joseph, Missouri, starring a plethora of Kansas City’s best jazz ensembles, reminds us that festival season has arrived.
And it reminds us that Kansas City is not home to a major jazz festival.
Newport, in early August, hosts a major jazz festival. Among their 33 announced headliners: Wayne Shorter, Esperanza Spaulding, Natalie Cole, Chick Corea, Robert Glasper, Joshua Redman, Jim Hall with Julian Lage, Roy Haynes, Paquito D’Rivera, Marcus Miller, Terrance Blanchard.
Hopefully, Rhythm and Ribs will return, surviving last year’s storms. It’s an extraordinarily well produced festival. Organizers manage all of the details (except parking) extremely well, which is key to a wonderful experience for guests.
But this event seems content presenting an unimaginative formula of a mid-level jazz name, a mid-level blues name, then an R-and-B name to draw a crowd.
According the the American Jazz Museum’s 2012 audit report (downloadable from a link on the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation’s web site, from this page; click on View Financial Details to go to the audit links), the previous two Rhythm and Ribs turned a profit, the first in the festival’s history. I suppose that reduces any incentive to risk producing something more grand. And if, as the audit suggests (but does not spell out), that profit feeds the museum rather than seed the next fest, there will never be a base from which the festival could grow. If Rhythm and Ribs survives, it appears destined to live its life as a Jazz Museum fundraiser.
Having booked this year’s Prairie Village Jazz Festival, I can predict a step up from last year’s event. And with solid support from the Prairie Village City Council and the community, there’s reason for optimism that this fest can continue to grow without resorting to the Woods’ soft jazz mush.
But this is still a six act, one day jazz festival in a Kansas City suburb, just two years removed from a near-death cancellation. Newport need harbor no fears that Prairie Village, Kansas is close to stealing its thunder.
Kansas City, this home to jazz with institutions and a tradition other cities can envy, sits mired in minor festivals.
Reviewing that Newport list, we’re the city deep with envy.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Rhythm, No Ribs
It reminded me of a festival in the mid-80s. Was it 1984, ’85, or ’86?
The 18th and Vine Festival was staged in the historic district each September back then. 18th Street was closed between The Paseo and Woodland. A stage was erected at the northeast corner of 18th and The Paseo, another at the northwest corner of 18th and Woodland – both corners then were grassy lots – and the location of a third stage changed from year to year. Vendors lined 18th Street. The Mutual Musicians Foundation was open all day and filled with music, too.
But that year it rained, and the outdoor performances were cancelled. One I was looking forward to was Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Harry “Sweets” Edison. That night, “Lockjaw” and “Sweets” relocated to a club then at the corner of 18th and Vine, Eblon, where Danny’s Big Easy sits today. They set up in the corner, right about where a band was playing in Danny’s last Saturday night. And there, backed by Rich Hill’s trio in a noisy club, maybe a hundred of us heard “Lockjaw” and “Sweets” perform some fantastic jazz.
At an outdoor festival, you can control everything but the weather. If you stage a festival enough years, you will be rained out. I know. I was president of the Kansas City Jazz Festival in 1989 when a performance by The Pat Metheny Group – arguably the biggest name of that festival’s Volker Park years – succumbed to a storm. Last year’s Prairie Village Jazz Festival staged two acts before a storm blew in, damaged equipment, and forced the cancellation of the rest of the day’s schedule.
Last Saturday, rain curtailed the 2013 Rhythm and Ribs Festival in the 18th and Vine Historic District. Acts scheduled for The Blue Room and the museum’s atrium went on. But, like “Lockjaw” and “Sweets” in the ’80s, the big names were moved indoors, this time into The Gem Theater. Even with extra chairs and people packing the aisles, The Gem accommodated maybe 600 fans. And with the daylong rain, that was enough. A festival which last year drew a crowd of, by my estimate, perhaps 7000 people, this year counted an audience in the hundreds.
Give the staff of the American Jazz Museum credit. They made the best of a bad situation. Apparently, food vendors (and the ribs) went home. But the organizers staged some outstanding music for those of us who came.
I shot a few photos. Take a look. As always, clicking on one should open a larger version of it.
The 18th and Vine Festival was staged in the historic district each September back then. 18th Street was closed between The Paseo and Woodland. A stage was erected at the northeast corner of 18th and The Paseo, another at the northwest corner of 18th and Woodland – both corners then were grassy lots – and the location of a third stage changed from year to year. Vendors lined 18th Street. The Mutual Musicians Foundation was open all day and filled with music, too.
But that year it rained, and the outdoor performances were cancelled. One I was looking forward to was Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Harry “Sweets” Edison. That night, “Lockjaw” and “Sweets” relocated to a club then at the corner of 18th and Vine, Eblon, where Danny’s Big Easy sits today. They set up in the corner, right about where a band was playing in Danny’s last Saturday night. And there, backed by Rich Hill’s trio in a noisy club, maybe a hundred of us heard “Lockjaw” and “Sweets” perform some fantastic jazz.
At an outdoor festival, you can control everything but the weather. If you stage a festival enough years, you will be rained out. I know. I was president of the Kansas City Jazz Festival in 1989 when a performance by The Pat Metheny Group – arguably the biggest name of that festival’s Volker Park years – succumbed to a storm. Last year’s Prairie Village Jazz Festival staged two acts before a storm blew in, damaged equipment, and forced the cancellation of the rest of the day’s schedule.
Last Saturday, rain curtailed the 2013 Rhythm and Ribs Festival in the 18th and Vine Historic District. Acts scheduled for The Blue Room and the museum’s atrium went on. But, like “Lockjaw” and “Sweets” in the ’80s, the big names were moved indoors, this time into The Gem Theater. Even with extra chairs and people packing the aisles, The Gem accommodated maybe 600 fans. And with the daylong rain, that was enough. A festival which last year drew a crowd of, by my estimate, perhaps 7000 people, this year counted an audience in the hundreds.
Give the staff of the American Jazz Museum credit. They made the best of a bad situation. Apparently, food vendors (and the ribs) went home. But the organizers staged some outstanding music for those of us who came.
I shot a few photos. Take a look. As always, clicking on one should open a larger version of it.
Joe Louis Walker's group in The Gem Theater
Joe Louis Walker
David Basse Orchestra in The Blue Room
David Basse
Book of Gaia in the museum atrium
The ladies of Book of Gaia. Left to right: Nedra Dixon, Pamela Baskin-Watson and Angela Hagenbach
Brian McKnight in The Gem Theater
Arturo Sandoval in The Gem
Monday, June 25, 2012
Wanted: Aspirations
Headliners for this year’s Detroit Jazz Festival, over Labor Day weekend, in Detroit’s Hart Park: Sonny Rollins, Wynton Marsalis Quintet, Pat Metheny Unity Band, Chick Corea and Gray Burton, Wayne Shorter Quartet, Joe Lovano, Art Blakey Tribute with Terence Blanchard, Lew Tabackin Quartet featuring Randy Brecker, Charles McPherson/Tom Harrell Quintet, Donald Harrison Quintet, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Pancho Sanchez, Artuto O’Farrill Septet with Donald Harrison, Ellery Eskelin Trio, Kenny Garret Quartet, Louis Hayes Quaret.
Wow.
Headliners for this year’s Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival, on October 13 in the 18th and Vine district: Arturo Sandoval, Joe Louis Walker, Angie Stone.
Bleh.
This year we’ll see the third downsized festival since Rhythm and Ribs’s resurrection. And let’s recognize that last year, organizers staged an extraordinarily professional event. They expertly managed virtually every detail, from the staging of the music right down to the signage. It was marketed strongly. The vendors with whom I spoke were thrilled. I estimated crowd size at around 7000 for the day (as far as I know, no official numbers were announced), and most of them appeared thrilled, too.
The American Jazz Museum’s 2011 audit report, available on the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation website (download PDF here) covers the first revived festival, in 2010. Without breaking out details, it notes that 2010 was the first Rhythm and Ribs Festival ever to turn a profit. It seems reasonable to assume last year’s did, too.
But something is missing.
Museum officials two years back spoke of the 2010 event as a fresh start. After a year’s absence, in 2010 Rhythm and Ribs was back. It was downsized, out of Parade Park, into a more confined (and, presumably, more affordable) space between the American Jazz Museum and the Gregg Community Center, and with a more limited line-up. But that was just the start, officials said. The festival would grow from there.
Two years later, the festival shows no aspirations of growing.
The space is good, the right fit for the crowd the festival currently attracts.
But festival talent seems settled in a pattern of one good but not particularly major jazz headliner, one blues headliner, and one headliner with crossover appeal who presumably will be the one to draw a crowd.
That’s a pattern to bring about 7000 people into 18th and Vine for a day. That’s a pattern to maintain a day of profit and high profile for the American Jazz Museum. Both are solid goals.
But that’s a pattern, not a start. It’s not a pattern showing any confidence in jazz. It’s not a pattern showing any aspiration of building into a significant jazz festival.
And it’s largely not the American Jazz Museum’s fault.
Look at the Detroit Jazz Festival’s web site (here). Look at its history. That festival started in 1980 and received an endowment of ten million dollars in 2006. That’s why it can afford Rollins and Marsalis and Metheny and dozens more in 2012.
The Kansas City Jazz Festival in the 1980s grew not from a bunch of jazz fans, but from a civic organization of young professionals, with strong connections to Kansas City’s business and philanthropic communities, looking to make a contribution to the city.
That’s the support a jazz festival needs to grow beyond a well organized annual fundraiser. Lacking a ten million dollar benefactor, it requires the resources and stature which follow the civic community stepping forward and saying Kansas City needs and deserves something better.
I wrote after last year’s festival that it appeared the civic community had coalesced behind Rhythm and Ribs as Kansas City’s annual jazz event. Now, I’m dubious. Rather, some businesses are contributing to a fundraising day for the Jazz Museum in the guise of a festival.
Every one of us should support that.
But in its third year, Rhythm and Ribs appears to have settled into a comfort zone, and that zone includes no apparent aspirations to be anything more than a profitable day with a jazz guy, a blues guy and someone who will draw a bigger crowd than either the jazz guy or blues guy will draw.
Unquestionably, this city will support a major jazz event. The Kansas City Jazz Festival of the 1980s attracted tens of thousands of people over a weekend. It can happen again.
But it requires more than jazz fans. It requires an organization with strong business ties.
Or maybe there’s another answer.
Maybe an organization can build a jazz festival in Kansas City with the support of a company looking to bring its brand into this market with a major new venture, looking to garner civic support and acclaim, which can be sold on the benefit of attaching itself to a major community celebration.
The Kansas City Google Jazz Festival, anyone?
Wow.
Headliners for this year’s Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival, on October 13 in the 18th and Vine district: Arturo Sandoval, Joe Louis Walker, Angie Stone.
Bleh.
This year we’ll see the third downsized festival since Rhythm and Ribs’s resurrection. And let’s recognize that last year, organizers staged an extraordinarily professional event. They expertly managed virtually every detail, from the staging of the music right down to the signage. It was marketed strongly. The vendors with whom I spoke were thrilled. I estimated crowd size at around 7000 for the day (as far as I know, no official numbers were announced), and most of them appeared thrilled, too.
The American Jazz Museum’s 2011 audit report, available on the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation website (download PDF here) covers the first revived festival, in 2010. Without breaking out details, it notes that 2010 was the first Rhythm and Ribs Festival ever to turn a profit. It seems reasonable to assume last year’s did, too.
But something is missing.
Museum officials two years back spoke of the 2010 event as a fresh start. After a year’s absence, in 2010 Rhythm and Ribs was back. It was downsized, out of Parade Park, into a more confined (and, presumably, more affordable) space between the American Jazz Museum and the Gregg Community Center, and with a more limited line-up. But that was just the start, officials said. The festival would grow from there.
Two years later, the festival shows no aspirations of growing.
The space is good, the right fit for the crowd the festival currently attracts.
But festival talent seems settled in a pattern of one good but not particularly major jazz headliner, one blues headliner, and one headliner with crossover appeal who presumably will be the one to draw a crowd.
That’s a pattern to bring about 7000 people into 18th and Vine for a day. That’s a pattern to maintain a day of profit and high profile for the American Jazz Museum. Both are solid goals.
But that’s a pattern, not a start. It’s not a pattern showing any confidence in jazz. It’s not a pattern showing any aspiration of building into a significant jazz festival.
And it’s largely not the American Jazz Museum’s fault.
Look at the Detroit Jazz Festival’s web site (here). Look at its history. That festival started in 1980 and received an endowment of ten million dollars in 2006. That’s why it can afford Rollins and Marsalis and Metheny and dozens more in 2012.
The Kansas City Jazz Festival in the 1980s grew not from a bunch of jazz fans, but from a civic organization of young professionals, with strong connections to Kansas City’s business and philanthropic communities, looking to make a contribution to the city.
That’s the support a jazz festival needs to grow beyond a well organized annual fundraiser. Lacking a ten million dollar benefactor, it requires the resources and stature which follow the civic community stepping forward and saying Kansas City needs and deserves something better.
I wrote after last year’s festival that it appeared the civic community had coalesced behind Rhythm and Ribs as Kansas City’s annual jazz event. Now, I’m dubious. Rather, some businesses are contributing to a fundraising day for the Jazz Museum in the guise of a festival.
Every one of us should support that.
But in its third year, Rhythm and Ribs appears to have settled into a comfort zone, and that zone includes no apparent aspirations to be anything more than a profitable day with a jazz guy, a blues guy and someone who will draw a bigger crowd than either the jazz guy or blues guy will draw.
Unquestionably, this city will support a major jazz event. The Kansas City Jazz Festival of the 1980s attracted tens of thousands of people over a weekend. It can happen again.
But it requires more than jazz fans. It requires an organization with strong business ties.
Or maybe there’s another answer.
Maybe an organization can build a jazz festival in Kansas City with the support of a company looking to bring its brand into this market with a major new venture, looking to garner civic support and acclaim, which can be sold on the benefit of attaching itself to a major community celebration.
The Kansas City Google Jazz Festival, anyone?
Monday, April 9, 2012
Jazz Fests
Kansas City, I present the competition.
Last week, the Detroit Jazz Festival, staged over the Labor Day weekend, announced a portion of their 2012 lineup (here): Sonny Rollins, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Wynton Marsalis, Wayne Shorter, Gary Burton, Randy Brecker, Joe Lovano, Lew Tabackin, Poncho Sanchez, Arturo O’Farrill, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. And I’m just hitting the highlights.
This year’s Newport Jazz Festival (here), staged the first weekend in August, this year features Dr. John, Pat Metheny, Kurt Elling, Diane Reeves, Jason Moran, Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, Jack DeJohnette, Christian McBride, Maria Schneider and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
The Monterey Jazz Festival, September 21st through 23rd (here), this year stars Tony Bennett, Esperanza Spaulding, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Jack DeJohnette, Melody Gardot, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Christian McBride, Eddie Palmieri and Trombone Shorty.
The Atlanta Jazz Festival (here), staged over Memorial Day weekend, this year features Cyrus Chestnut, Kathleen Bertrand, Roy Ayers and Lionel Loueke.
The Jacksonville Jazz Festival, Memorial Day weekend in Jacksonville, Florida (here, here and here), this year headlines Sonny Rollins, Chick Corea with Stanley Clarke, the Jazz Crusaders, Madeline Peyroux, Trombone Shorty and Karrin Allyson.
The Chicago Jazz Festival will be held the same weekend as Detroit’s. Their lineup is not yet announced, but after looking at Detroit’s, I’m not sure who’s left.
It seems likely that the Kansas City area will again host a pair of jazz fests, Rhythm and Ribs at 18th and Vine and the Prairie Village Jazz Festival. Full disclosure: I’m helping Prairie Village’s jazz festival committee book talent for their September 8th event. Prairie Village’s fest is a small-budget day with a local focus, and no pretensions of competing with any lineup above.
Which leaves us Rhythm and Ribs as Kansas City’s major jazz event. I noted after last year’s festival that the city’s civic community has coalesced its resources behind this festival (here). This year, it’s time for the civic community to step up that support.
Last year’s Rhythm and Ribs headlined a jazz star, an elderly bluesman, and a once-popular funk group with baby-boomer name recognition. This year, that’s not good enough. Look at the lineups above. Sure, some of those festivals also include has-been pop groups which I didn’t bother to list. But you can get away with that when you’re selling an extravaganza of legitimate jazz stars.
I’m not proposing that this year’s Rhythm and Ribs should outshine long-established name festivals in Monterey or Newport. But for pity’s sake, why should we be partying in Jacksonville’s shadow? This is Kansas City. This is a city where jazz was born. This is our heritage, our international renown.
Last week, our friend Plastic Sax posted his annual plea for Kansas City’s jazz community to come together in a kumbaya moment to produce a major jazz event (here). He compared our more tepid jazz festivals to last week’s bigger and broader Middle of the Map music event in Kansas City.
One point of the comparison is solid: Middle of the Map secured a wide breadth of sponsorships to financially support their festival. That’s what it took to stage jazz festivals in Volker Park through the 1980s. Beer sponsorships, soft drink sponsorships, airlines, hotels, an ice cream brand, a retailer in Crown Center, an insurance company, American Express, they all contributed.
Success doesn’t require a jazz community kumbaya, because success means reaching beyond the jazz community. Success requires a dedicated group of people who want to do something for this city. It requires more time and energy than you’ll ever expect. And it requires Kansas City’s civic community stepping in with greater support.
That civic involvement can come from people with high level connections spearheading the festival and drawing on their own network of monied interests. It can come from a spirited leader inspiring civic excitement for the festival.
And it can come from civic leaders realizing that this is Kansas City. This is a city where jazz was born, this is our heritage, this is our international renown.
18th and Vine is where the civic community has chosen to anchor its jazz festival support, behind an event presented by the American Jazz Museum. This is the third year of the reborn festival. The economy is improving. This year, everyone needs to take the next step. The American Jazz Museum needs to assume the leadership that drives a bigger festival. And Kansas City’s civic leadership needs to understand the significance of that event and pull in broader support. Complacency only ignites a path to failure.
After all, wouldn’t it be monstrously embarrassing to Kansas City to see our jazz festival trumped by Jacksonville, Florida? Especially when I run this comparison:
Great jazz names who came out of Kansas City: Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Lester Young, Mary Lou Williams, Jay McShann, Big Joe Turner, Pete Johnson, Ben Webster, Buck Clayton, Jo Jones, Pat Metheny, Bobby Watson. That's for starters.
Great jazz names who came out of Jacksonville, Florida: Um, need a little help here.
Last week, the Detroit Jazz Festival, staged over the Labor Day weekend, announced a portion of their 2012 lineup (here): Sonny Rollins, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Wynton Marsalis, Wayne Shorter, Gary Burton, Randy Brecker, Joe Lovano, Lew Tabackin, Poncho Sanchez, Arturo O’Farrill, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. And I’m just hitting the highlights.
This year’s Newport Jazz Festival (here), staged the first weekend in August, this year features Dr. John, Pat Metheny, Kurt Elling, Diane Reeves, Jason Moran, Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, Jack DeJohnette, Christian McBride, Maria Schneider and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
The Monterey Jazz Festival, September 21st through 23rd (here), this year stars Tony Bennett, Esperanza Spaulding, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Jack DeJohnette, Melody Gardot, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Christian McBride, Eddie Palmieri and Trombone Shorty.
The Atlanta Jazz Festival (here), staged over Memorial Day weekend, this year features Cyrus Chestnut, Kathleen Bertrand, Roy Ayers and Lionel Loueke.
The Jacksonville Jazz Festival, Memorial Day weekend in Jacksonville, Florida (here, here and here), this year headlines Sonny Rollins, Chick Corea with Stanley Clarke, the Jazz Crusaders, Madeline Peyroux, Trombone Shorty and Karrin Allyson.
The Chicago Jazz Festival will be held the same weekend as Detroit’s. Their lineup is not yet announced, but after looking at Detroit’s, I’m not sure who’s left.
It seems likely that the Kansas City area will again host a pair of jazz fests, Rhythm and Ribs at 18th and Vine and the Prairie Village Jazz Festival. Full disclosure: I’m helping Prairie Village’s jazz festival committee book talent for their September 8th event. Prairie Village’s fest is a small-budget day with a local focus, and no pretensions of competing with any lineup above.
Which leaves us Rhythm and Ribs as Kansas City’s major jazz event. I noted after last year’s festival that the city’s civic community has coalesced its resources behind this festival (here). This year, it’s time for the civic community to step up that support.
Last year’s Rhythm and Ribs headlined a jazz star, an elderly bluesman, and a once-popular funk group with baby-boomer name recognition. This year, that’s not good enough. Look at the lineups above. Sure, some of those festivals also include has-been pop groups which I didn’t bother to list. But you can get away with that when you’re selling an extravaganza of legitimate jazz stars.
I’m not proposing that this year’s Rhythm and Ribs should outshine long-established name festivals in Monterey or Newport. But for pity’s sake, why should we be partying in Jacksonville’s shadow? This is Kansas City. This is a city where jazz was born. This is our heritage, our international renown.
Last week, our friend Plastic Sax posted his annual plea for Kansas City’s jazz community to come together in a kumbaya moment to produce a major jazz event (here). He compared our more tepid jazz festivals to last week’s bigger and broader Middle of the Map music event in Kansas City.
One point of the comparison is solid: Middle of the Map secured a wide breadth of sponsorships to financially support their festival. That’s what it took to stage jazz festivals in Volker Park through the 1980s. Beer sponsorships, soft drink sponsorships, airlines, hotels, an ice cream brand, a retailer in Crown Center, an insurance company, American Express, they all contributed.
Success doesn’t require a jazz community kumbaya, because success means reaching beyond the jazz community. Success requires a dedicated group of people who want to do something for this city. It requires more time and energy than you’ll ever expect. And it requires Kansas City’s civic community stepping in with greater support.
That civic involvement can come from people with high level connections spearheading the festival and drawing on their own network of monied interests. It can come from a spirited leader inspiring civic excitement for the festival.
And it can come from civic leaders realizing that this is Kansas City. This is a city where jazz was born, this is our heritage, this is our international renown.
18th and Vine is where the civic community has chosen to anchor its jazz festival support, behind an event presented by the American Jazz Museum. This is the third year of the reborn festival. The economy is improving. This year, everyone needs to take the next step. The American Jazz Museum needs to assume the leadership that drives a bigger festival. And Kansas City’s civic leadership needs to understand the significance of that event and pull in broader support. Complacency only ignites a path to failure.
After all, wouldn’t it be monstrously embarrassing to Kansas City to see our jazz festival trumped by Jacksonville, Florida? Especially when I run this comparison:
Great jazz names who came out of Kansas City: Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Lester Young, Mary Lou Williams, Jay McShann, Big Joe Turner, Pete Johnson, Ben Webster, Buck Clayton, Jo Jones, Pat Metheny, Bobby Watson. That's for starters.
Great jazz names who came out of Jacksonville, Florida: Um, need a little help here.
Monday, November 14, 2011
This 'n That 'n More Festival Thoughts
When establishing a location for the Kansas City Jazz Festival in the early 1980s, organizers chose the south lawn of the Nelson Museum – back when it was controlled by the Parks Department and before it was landscaped – and Volker Park, also known as Theis Memorial Mall, immediately south of the Museum. They were chosen, in part, with the hope of presenting a jazz festival in a setting which would draw both Kansas City’s black and white populations. It was a good location.
Later, the jazz festival merged with the blues festival and moved to the more multiple-stage accommodating Penn Valley Park. That was another good and neutral location.
Two weeks ago I wrote about perceptions of 18th and Vine and how they impact the Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival. It drew several comments, all of which are greatly appreciated.
To clarify a few points:
• I don’t accept that racism, with rare exceptions, plays into suburban residents staying away from 18th and Vine. It’s an undeserved perception of danger, an image which has plagued the district for decades, which scares potential patrons away. The failure to overcome that image both frustrates and angers me.
• One commentator noted people not wanting to venture into the areas surrounding 18th and Vine. That’s a valid point.
When I was chairman of the Kansas City Jazz Commission, in the mid to late 1980s, the Executive Director of the Black Economic Union showed me extensive blueprint plans for renovating the jazz district. Most of it was not what was eventually built (though some of the since-constructed housing was there).
My reaction at the time was that these were plans for an oasis surrounded by blight. You could not, I said more than 25 years ago, expect people to come to this jazz mecca if they had to pass through neighborhoods which were then far more uninviting and intimidating than what surrounds 18th and Vine today.
The Executive Director agreed and assured me that renovation would grow beyond what I saw in those blueprints. But that’s never happened. As the Crossroads area has extended east – at one point including a performance space at 18th and Troost, which was featured in a story on KCUR – I hoped the uninviting neighborhoods would be bridged. But that, too, has never happened.
• Also noted was a desire for a jazz festival in a neutral site, no doubt remembering the ones described in the opening of this post.
One commentator is right in noting that parking around 18th and Vine for this year’s Rhythm and Ribs was a challenge. I was frustrated to see most of the known lots blocked off for use by, it seemed, anyone but me. I wound up parking in the VIP lot, on the west side of Paseo, not because I’m a VIP, but because I saw spaces available and nobody standing guard to tell me I couldn’t.
The parks of the old festivals held advantages. But the fact is that in the 21st century, nobody is staging a jazz festival on those sites. Nobody is organizing volunteers, or raising money, or pulling in Kansas City’s civic structure, to stage a jazz festival in Volker Park or in Penn Valley Park. Instead, Kansas City’s civic community has coalesced its resources behind a jazz festival at 18th and Vine.
Look for a moment at the 2007 Rhythm and Ribs Festival. All of Parade Park was fenced off. Headliners included Al Jarreau, George Benson, Pat Metheny and Bobby “Blue” Bland. Unless B.B. King was added, I don’t know how you could come up with a more stellar, all-star lineup for a jazz and blues festival in this century. The space, the star power, everything was in place for a breakout event. I don’t know how that festival drew or how it fared financially. But the fact that two years later there was no festival, and it subsequently returned downsized to accommodate around 7000 people, suggests much.
A person with the proper pull could conceivably walk into Kansas City’s civic structure and use that example to suggest the city would be better served by a jazz festival in Penn Valley Park. But that person had best come prepared with a plan, the organization, and the backing to make the event happen. And that person had best come prepared to counter the participants favoring an 18th and Vine location, participants who this year hit their stride in producing an excellent event.
I don’t see that happening. I’m not suggesting it should. The fact is, this city’s major jazz festival is taking place, for the foreseeable future, at 18th and Vine. I maintain the challenge to overcome is how to draw more people to the area.
*****
When the Mutual Musicians Foundation introduced Kansas City wine last August (here), also introduced was a 2012 Charlie Parker calendar. Each month showcases a photo of the great Kansas City-born alto saxophonist, ranging from age 14 months to a clipping of his funeral notice. In between are ubiquitous photos you’ll recognize – Bird with Jay McShann’s band – and some I haven’t seen, such as one of Parker performing in Birdland with Lester Young and Hot Lips Page.
The Charlie Parker 2012 Calendar is available for $10.00 plus $2.50 shipping from SPG Publications, 1146 Harrison Street, Kansas City, MO 64106, or by phoning 816-842-9068, or by emailing design@serviceprintingonline.com.
Later, the jazz festival merged with the blues festival and moved to the more multiple-stage accommodating Penn Valley Park. That was another good and neutral location.
Two weeks ago I wrote about perceptions of 18th and Vine and how they impact the Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival. It drew several comments, all of which are greatly appreciated.
To clarify a few points:
• I don’t accept that racism, with rare exceptions, plays into suburban residents staying away from 18th and Vine. It’s an undeserved perception of danger, an image which has plagued the district for decades, which scares potential patrons away. The failure to overcome that image both frustrates and angers me.
• One commentator noted people not wanting to venture into the areas surrounding 18th and Vine. That’s a valid point.
When I was chairman of the Kansas City Jazz Commission, in the mid to late 1980s, the Executive Director of the Black Economic Union showed me extensive blueprint plans for renovating the jazz district. Most of it was not what was eventually built (though some of the since-constructed housing was there).
My reaction at the time was that these were plans for an oasis surrounded by blight. You could not, I said more than 25 years ago, expect people to come to this jazz mecca if they had to pass through neighborhoods which were then far more uninviting and intimidating than what surrounds 18th and Vine today.
The Executive Director agreed and assured me that renovation would grow beyond what I saw in those blueprints. But that’s never happened. As the Crossroads area has extended east – at one point including a performance space at 18th and Troost, which was featured in a story on KCUR – I hoped the uninviting neighborhoods would be bridged. But that, too, has never happened.
• Also noted was a desire for a jazz festival in a neutral site, no doubt remembering the ones described in the opening of this post.
One commentator is right in noting that parking around 18th and Vine for this year’s Rhythm and Ribs was a challenge. I was frustrated to see most of the known lots blocked off for use by, it seemed, anyone but me. I wound up parking in the VIP lot, on the west side of Paseo, not because I’m a VIP, but because I saw spaces available and nobody standing guard to tell me I couldn’t.
The parks of the old festivals held advantages. But the fact is that in the 21st century, nobody is staging a jazz festival on those sites. Nobody is organizing volunteers, or raising money, or pulling in Kansas City’s civic structure, to stage a jazz festival in Volker Park or in Penn Valley Park. Instead, Kansas City’s civic community has coalesced its resources behind a jazz festival at 18th and Vine.
Look for a moment at the 2007 Rhythm and Ribs Festival. All of Parade Park was fenced off. Headliners included Al Jarreau, George Benson, Pat Metheny and Bobby “Blue” Bland. Unless B.B. King was added, I don’t know how you could come up with a more stellar, all-star lineup for a jazz and blues festival in this century. The space, the star power, everything was in place for a breakout event. I don’t know how that festival drew or how it fared financially. But the fact that two years later there was no festival, and it subsequently returned downsized to accommodate around 7000 people, suggests much.
A person with the proper pull could conceivably walk into Kansas City’s civic structure and use that example to suggest the city would be better served by a jazz festival in Penn Valley Park. But that person had best come prepared with a plan, the organization, and the backing to make the event happen. And that person had best come prepared to counter the participants favoring an 18th and Vine location, participants who this year hit their stride in producing an excellent event.
I don’t see that happening. I’m not suggesting it should. The fact is, this city’s major jazz festival is taking place, for the foreseeable future, at 18th and Vine. I maintain the challenge to overcome is how to draw more people to the area.
*****
The Charlie Parker 2012 Calendar is available for $10.00 plus $2.50 shipping from SPG Publications, 1146 Harrison Street, Kansas City, MO 64106, or by phoning 816-842-9068, or by emailing design@serviceprintingonline.com.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Ugly Division
A 1980 study on possible uses for the Armory Building (today more commonly known as the Boone Theater) at 18th and Highland in Kansas City’s jazz district, commissioned by the Black Economic Union and funded by Office of the Arts of the Ford Foundation, surveyed 465 black Kansas City residents and 530 white Kansas City residents between October and December, 1979. Among the findings, on page 9 of the report, is this:
“To attract people, the leaders of the jazz effort in the Armory must face the issue of the safety reputation of the 18th and Vine area. Half of the white population and nearly three-quarters of the black, are nervous about the assumed dangers of the neighborhood; our researchers noted that white patrons…who had come into the neighborhood mid-day, were nervous about coming back at night. There would need to be a major public relations effort, to convince black and white customers that the Armory is a safe place to be.”
Earlier this month, on October 8th, organizers at the American Jazz Museum staged a magnificent Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival inside of and in the area behind the museum at 18th and Vine. The crowd loved the music and the environment. The organizers managed all of the details with professionalism and organizational skill, from seating to music to presentation, right down to the designed typeface on the signage (as opposed to hand-scribbled signs so often seen at similar events). They marketed the event well, with a solid web presence and ads in the Kansas City Star reaching out to the entire metropolitan area. I’ve previously mumbled about one of the headliners, and more promotional posters and cards placed around town would have helped build excitement. But the truth is, this was largely a model of how the best jazz festivals are staged in the 21st century.
The festival drew, by my estimate, about 7000 people. The crowd was, by my observation, predominantly urban.
By contrast, the Kansas City Jazz Festival in the 1980s in Volker Park, for which I was an organizer, drew more than 50,000 people over a weekend during its best years. The later Blues and Jazz Festival held in Penn Valley Park attracted even larger crowds.
You can blame the declining popularity of jazz for Rhythm and Ribs not attracting more people. You can blame the price of tickets. You can blame competition during a busy weekend in Kansas City.
But I blame a lingering, entrenched and undeserved reputation, an image identified in that study of the nearby Armory building nearly a third of a century ago, which continues to choke the neck of 18th and Vine. I blame Kansas Citians too naive to recognize a treasure.
I can understand my father’s generation avoiding the area, having grown up with its past. But I thought my generation would fix that. I thought that by building museums and restaurants and staging live music, the vitality and safety of the area would become obvious. I thought the Crossroads district growing east would bridge a path over less desirable neighborhoods to the front door of Kansas City’s history.
We’ve bridged nothing. Neighbors in my suburban neighborhood openly question whether I’ll arrive home from 18th and Vine safely. The truth: I’ve been going there for nearly three decades and have never – I repeat, never – suffered a negative experience.
Yet, perceptions breed divisions.
Last year the suburban community of Prairie Village started its own jazz festival. This year’s event was rained out, but last year’s organizers claimed a crowd of 7000 people for the day.
We’re dividing into a city of provincial jazz festivals. One in the city for an urban crowd, one out south for suburban patrons. Why can’t these 14,000 people – an apparent 7000 per festival – and more, mingle at a single celebration? Given our heritage, Kansas City deserves a major jazz festival.
Such a vision, to happen here, would first require a neutral site easily accessible from throughout the community. That shouldn’t be the case, but it is, because too many of my neighbors will enjoy jazz in Prairie Village but not at 18th and Vine. Attitudes anchored in ignorance cripple the jazz district’s ability to attract a substantially larger festival crowd.
It’s not because of the music. It’s not because of festival organizers. It’s because of misbegotten perceptions ingrained in too many Kansas Citians of my generation.
Still, at one place, I see a thread of hope.
I go down to the Mutual Musicians Foundation, at 1823 Highland, late on a Friday or Saturday night, and there I see young, diverse crowds interact. I see them mingle. There I see the potential of 18th and Vine.
There I see hope that the next generation might do better.
“To attract people, the leaders of the jazz effort in the Armory must face the issue of the safety reputation of the 18th and Vine area. Half of the white population and nearly three-quarters of the black, are nervous about the assumed dangers of the neighborhood; our researchers noted that white patrons…who had come into the neighborhood mid-day, were nervous about coming back at night. There would need to be a major public relations effort, to convince black and white customers that the Armory is a safe place to be.”
Earlier this month, on October 8th, organizers at the American Jazz Museum staged a magnificent Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival inside of and in the area behind the museum at 18th and Vine. The crowd loved the music and the environment. The organizers managed all of the details with professionalism and organizational skill, from seating to music to presentation, right down to the designed typeface on the signage (as opposed to hand-scribbled signs so often seen at similar events). They marketed the event well, with a solid web presence and ads in the Kansas City Star reaching out to the entire metropolitan area. I’ve previously mumbled about one of the headliners, and more promotional posters and cards placed around town would have helped build excitement. But the truth is, this was largely a model of how the best jazz festivals are staged in the 21st century.
The festival drew, by my estimate, about 7000 people. The crowd was, by my observation, predominantly urban.
By contrast, the Kansas City Jazz Festival in the 1980s in Volker Park, for which I was an organizer, drew more than 50,000 people over a weekend during its best years. The later Blues and Jazz Festival held in Penn Valley Park attracted even larger crowds.
You can blame the declining popularity of jazz for Rhythm and Ribs not attracting more people. You can blame the price of tickets. You can blame competition during a busy weekend in Kansas City.
But I blame a lingering, entrenched and undeserved reputation, an image identified in that study of the nearby Armory building nearly a third of a century ago, which continues to choke the neck of 18th and Vine. I blame Kansas Citians too naive to recognize a treasure.
I can understand my father’s generation avoiding the area, having grown up with its past. But I thought my generation would fix that. I thought that by building museums and restaurants and staging live music, the vitality and safety of the area would become obvious. I thought the Crossroads district growing east would bridge a path over less desirable neighborhoods to the front door of Kansas City’s history.
We’ve bridged nothing. Neighbors in my suburban neighborhood openly question whether I’ll arrive home from 18th and Vine safely. The truth: I’ve been going there for nearly three decades and have never – I repeat, never – suffered a negative experience.
Yet, perceptions breed divisions.
Last year the suburban community of Prairie Village started its own jazz festival. This year’s event was rained out, but last year’s organizers claimed a crowd of 7000 people for the day.
We’re dividing into a city of provincial jazz festivals. One in the city for an urban crowd, one out south for suburban patrons. Why can’t these 14,000 people – an apparent 7000 per festival – and more, mingle at a single celebration? Given our heritage, Kansas City deserves a major jazz festival.
Such a vision, to happen here, would first require a neutral site easily accessible from throughout the community. That shouldn’t be the case, but it is, because too many of my neighbors will enjoy jazz in Prairie Village but not at 18th and Vine. Attitudes anchored in ignorance cripple the jazz district’s ability to attract a substantially larger festival crowd.
It’s not because of the music. It’s not because of festival organizers. It’s because of misbegotten perceptions ingrained in too many Kansas Citians of my generation.
Still, at one place, I see a thread of hope.
I go down to the Mutual Musicians Foundation, at 1823 Highland, late on a Friday or Saturday night, and there I see young, diverse crowds interact. I see them mingle. There I see the potential of 18th and Vine.
There I see hope that the next generation might do better.
Monday, October 10, 2011
A Wonderful Festival, and a Conundrum
Crowds filled the field behind the American Jazz Museum last Saturday night – I’m guessing 7000 people by that point – for the 2011 Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival.
Maybe half the audience was standing, swaying along to the music, clearly enjoying the beautiful night. Some grasped their partner’s hands and started to dance. The vocalist on stage cried out, “You know the words!” as he thrust his microphone towards the crowd.
The jazz and blues festival audience started chanting:
The Cisco Kid was a friend of mine,
The Cisco Kid was a friend of mine,
He drink whiskey, Poncho drink the wine,
He drink whiskey, Poncho drink the wine.
Don’t kid yourself: The audience loved this show. They loved hearing the songs they knew from pop radio performed live. They loved swaying to the groove. They loved singing along.
And don’t kid yourself: When the group War started performing, Rhythm and Ribs stopped being a jazz and blues festival.
It’s a conundrum to which I have no answer. From Newport to New Orleans, jazz festivals are booking pop acts to draw the crowds necessary to attract the sponsorships necessary to build the money necessary to stage a significant event. Today, jazz and blues are apparently too narrow a niche to draw sufficient festival crowds without a pop push.
It’s not a new phenomenon. In the 1980s, we sold the Kansas City Jazz Festival not as a jazz festival but as the city’s major event the weekend it was staged. We tried to sell the idea that if you missed this event, you were missing what everyone would be talking about on Monday morning. We signed the city’s top rock station as a sponsor, to draw people out to party. We did that because we knew jazz alone was an insufficient sell to fill an outdoor festival in Kansas City. Booking the funk group War is simply another means to the same end.
I don’t accept that War’s funk is really just another version of jazz and blues, as a panel discussion in The Blue Room a couple weeks back tried to establish. I accept that funk contains elements of each. I accept that it’s an evolution from earlier genres. I’ve demonstrated to friends many times rock and roll growing out of the blues via Big Joe Turner. But rock grew into a new genre. Likewise, funk is no more jazz and blues than my smartphone is a desktop computer, though in both cases one evolved from the other.
Yet it’s those tenuous ties that justify a funk band in a jazz and blues festival. You could argue that’s no better or worse than marketing a jazz festival on the back of rock radio, and I couldn’t argue you’re wrong. To fill the field at an outdoor festival, jazz needs the support of its offspring.
It’s a conundrum to which I have no answer.
*****
That commiserating aside, let’s recognize that the 2011 Rhythm and Ribs Festival was a wonderful success.
Crowds packed the American Jazz Museum’s atrium and The Blue Room for what were, effectively, the side stages. By the time Bobby “Blue” Bland walked onto the main stage, the outdoor field behind the museum was hosting thousands of guests. Before the last act took that stage, food vendors were selling out, delighted with their day. The crowd was friendly and happy. Plenty of legitimate jazz and blues acts were showcased throughout the schedule. I know nothing about the festival’s finances, but by every other measurement, this year’s festival met its goals in a magnificent way.
I’ll offer more observations about the festival in future posts. But for now, let’s enjoy a few photos from the weekend. I’ll also offer more photos in future posts, but those take a while to sort through. Until I have that opportunity, here's a sampling:
Maybe half the audience was standing, swaying along to the music, clearly enjoying the beautiful night. Some grasped their partner’s hands and started to dance. The vocalist on stage cried out, “You know the words!” as he thrust his microphone towards the crowd.
The jazz and blues festival audience started chanting:
The Cisco Kid was a friend of mine,
The Cisco Kid was a friend of mine,
He drink whiskey, Poncho drink the wine,
He drink whiskey, Poncho drink the wine.
Don’t kid yourself: The audience loved this show. They loved hearing the songs they knew from pop radio performed live. They loved swaying to the groove. They loved singing along.
And don’t kid yourself: When the group War started performing, Rhythm and Ribs stopped being a jazz and blues festival.
It’s a conundrum to which I have no answer. From Newport to New Orleans, jazz festivals are booking pop acts to draw the crowds necessary to attract the sponsorships necessary to build the money necessary to stage a significant event. Today, jazz and blues are apparently too narrow a niche to draw sufficient festival crowds without a pop push.
It’s not a new phenomenon. In the 1980s, we sold the Kansas City Jazz Festival not as a jazz festival but as the city’s major event the weekend it was staged. We tried to sell the idea that if you missed this event, you were missing what everyone would be talking about on Monday morning. We signed the city’s top rock station as a sponsor, to draw people out to party. We did that because we knew jazz alone was an insufficient sell to fill an outdoor festival in Kansas City. Booking the funk group War is simply another means to the same end.
I don’t accept that War’s funk is really just another version of jazz and blues, as a panel discussion in The Blue Room a couple weeks back tried to establish. I accept that funk contains elements of each. I accept that it’s an evolution from earlier genres. I’ve demonstrated to friends many times rock and roll growing out of the blues via Big Joe Turner. But rock grew into a new genre. Likewise, funk is no more jazz and blues than my smartphone is a desktop computer, though in both cases one evolved from the other.
Yet it’s those tenuous ties that justify a funk band in a jazz and blues festival. You could argue that’s no better or worse than marketing a jazz festival on the back of rock radio, and I couldn’t argue you’re wrong. To fill the field at an outdoor festival, jazz needs the support of its offspring.
It’s a conundrum to which I have no answer.
*****
That commiserating aside, let’s recognize that the 2011 Rhythm and Ribs Festival was a wonderful success.
Crowds packed the American Jazz Museum’s atrium and The Blue Room for what were, effectively, the side stages. By the time Bobby “Blue” Bland walked onto the main stage, the outdoor field behind the museum was hosting thousands of guests. Before the last act took that stage, food vendors were selling out, delighted with their day. The crowd was friendly and happy. Plenty of legitimate jazz and blues acts were showcased throughout the schedule. I know nothing about the festival’s finances, but by every other measurement, this year’s festival met its goals in a magnificent way.
I’ll offer more observations about the festival in future posts. But for now, let’s enjoy a few photos from the weekend. I’ll also offer more photos in future posts, but those take a while to sort through. Until I have that opportunity, here's a sampling:
Jazz headliner Christian McBride (playing Jeff Harshbarger's bass)
Saxophonist Jaleel Shaw, a member of McBride's group
In The Blue Room, Millie Edwards, of The Wild Women of KC, sings to a saxophonist joining the front window just for the festival
The Warner Project fills the American Jazz Museum's atrium
Headliner Bobby "Blue" Bland
Monday, October 3, 2011
Classic Shots: More Rhythm and Ribs Past
A year ago a I posted photos taken at past Rhythm and Ribs Festivals. That post remains a popular one. And there’s plenty more photos where those came from.
So let’s do this again.
The 2012 Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival (with a funk headliner…but that’s not part of the official name) happens behind the American Jazz Museum at 18th and Vine this Saturday, October 8th, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. You can find all the details here. I plan to be there, taking photos. You should plan to be there, enjoying the music.
You can see below just how much everyone enjoyed past Rhythm and Ribs Fests. After all, how could a jazz fan not enjoy the acts pictured below? As always, clicking on a photo should open a larger version of it.
So let’s do this again.
The 2012 Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival (with a funk headliner…but that’s not part of the official name) happens behind the American Jazz Museum at 18th and Vine this Saturday, October 8th, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. You can find all the details here. I plan to be there, taking photos. You should plan to be there, enjoying the music.
You can see below just how much everyone enjoyed past Rhythm and Ribs Fests. After all, how could a jazz fan not enjoy the acts pictured below? As always, clicking on a photo should open a larger version of it.
Koko Taylor, 2005
Christian McBride with Pat Metheny's group in 2007. McBride with his own group is a headliner of this year's festival.
Al Jarreau, 2007
George Benson, 2007
Pat Metheny, 2007
Al Green, 2006
Karrin Allyson, 2005
Shemekia Copeland, 2006
Lonnie Smith, 2007
George Benson and Al Jarreau, 2007
Pat Metheny and Christian McBride, 2007
Monday, September 5, 2011
Festival Season
Never mind, for the moment, the promotional image with circles outlining a 1970s-style afro. Does that really appeal to the age group which attends outdoor music festivals?
And never mind the headlining group War, which only has a songbook in common with its 1970s funk namesake. As someone who helped organize jazz festivals for seven years, I recognize the importance of a well known name to draw attention and an audience, even if the connection between their music and the festival’s intent is, perhaps, precarious.
Instead, look at the schedule, here, of the 2011 Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival, taking place on October 8th from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. by the American Jazz Museum. With other headliners like Christian McBride and Bobby “Blue” Bland, and with other scheduled performers like Charlie Hunter, Rob Scheps and the Wild Women of KC, this event is musically solid.
This is the second year for a scaled-back, viable-in-a-recession Rhythm and Ribs festival. I applauded the return of the event, in whatever form, last year. I hoped last year established a base from which subsequent festivals would solidly grow.
I realize we're still mired in an economic downturn. I realize that corporations are tighter with donations and civic support today than they were during the Rhythm and Ribs glory years. I know first hand how critical corporate support is to a financially successful festival. And I applaud the American Jazz Museum for staging a financially responsible event, because I also know first hand how easy it is to let ambitions overtake fiscal reality. I know all this.
Yet, it's hard to set aside a twinge of disappointment that this year's festival doesn't appear to have artistically grown.
I missed last year’s fest (a nephew was married that day). So until I experience this year's event, I will refrain from expressing further twinges, and from further comparisons to the grand event this festival was before succumbing to an economic hiatus.
Rather, I’m excited that, for the second consecutive year, the Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival is back. Tickets are just $10 until September 15th (prices increase after that) at the American Jazz Museum. I have mine. I’m looking forward to enjoying a day of solid music.
Despite the dated afro and War.
*****
But before the second year of a resurrected Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival, comes the second year of the Prairie Village Jazz Festival, this Saturday. Last year the volunteer team staged a wonderful inaugural event, a day of free music, which I photographed here.
Full disclosure: The festival recruited me to assist with this year’s event (though I’ve done little more than shoot my mouth off at a few meetings). So I don’t come to this unbiased. I want you to attend to this festival. It’s free, so you have no excuse not to. None.
Besides, take a look at the lineup (here). Nobody should miss a day of jazz starring Bobby Watson, Deborah Brown, Mike Metheny, The People’s Liberation Big Band, and Shay Estes with a reunited Trio ALL. Every one of them except Mike has been featured in photo spreads in this blog. And Metheney’s CDs have been reviewed here twice.
All for good reason. Each one is among Kansas City’s jazz best.
The only clunker of the day looks to be a staging of a weekly radio variety show, 12th Street Jump. A variety show in the middle of a music festival wrecks the day’s flow and is idiocy. Meanwhile, some of last year’s founders left the event while whining to the press that they didn’t get their way, embarrassing only themselves.
But, if you've read about the family squabbles, set them aside. As long as the weather cooperates, the second Prairie Village Jazz Festival promises to be a day mostly filled with spectacular music. Admission is free. It’s this Saturday, September 10th, from 2 to 10 p.m., in Harmon Park at 77th and Mission Road, next to Shawnee Mission East High School.
My job that day? I’ve volunteered to take photos. You'll see them in this blog first.
*****
This Friday, on Steve Kraske’s Up to Date on KCUR-FM (89.3) at 11 a.m., Bobby Watson, Deborah Brown and Brad Cox (leader of The People's Liberation Big Band) are scheduled to discuss the state of jazz, both locally and internationally. Each participant brings a unique background and view. This promises to be a fascinating roundtable.
Then, of course, hear each of them perform the next day at the Prairie Village Jazz Festival.
*****
And the week after Prairie Village is a downtown mystery jazz festival. The Power and Light District’s schedule boasts the 14th Street Jazz Festival for 2 to 9 p.m. (that’s what it says at the top of the page) on Sunday, September 18th. Or maybe it’s 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. The only knowns on this one are in a blurb on their web site (here):
“Enjoy live jazz and blues from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the 14th Street Jazz Festival in the Kansas City Power and Light District. The festival kicks off at 11 a.m. with a Jazz Brunch at participating restaurants…. At 2 p.m., join us on the 14th Street stage for great Kansas City jazz and blues! Performance schedule to be announced soon….”
It’s two weeks before your festival, Power and Light guys. Now is not too soon.
Instead, look at the schedule, here, of the 2011 Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival, taking place on October 8th from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. by the American Jazz Museum. With other headliners like Christian McBride and Bobby “Blue” Bland, and with other scheduled performers like Charlie Hunter, Rob Scheps and the Wild Women of KC, this event is musically solid.
This is the second year for a scaled-back, viable-in-a-recession Rhythm and Ribs festival. I applauded the return of the event, in whatever form, last year. I hoped last year established a base from which subsequent festivals would solidly grow.
I realize we're still mired in an economic downturn. I realize that corporations are tighter with donations and civic support today than they were during the Rhythm and Ribs glory years. I know first hand how critical corporate support is to a financially successful festival. And I applaud the American Jazz Museum for staging a financially responsible event, because I also know first hand how easy it is to let ambitions overtake fiscal reality. I know all this.
Yet, it's hard to set aside a twinge of disappointment that this year's festival doesn't appear to have artistically grown.
I missed last year’s fest (a nephew was married that day). So until I experience this year's event, I will refrain from expressing further twinges, and from further comparisons to the grand event this festival was before succumbing to an economic hiatus.
Rather, I’m excited that, for the second consecutive year, the Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival is back. Tickets are just $10 until September 15th (prices increase after that) at the American Jazz Museum. I have mine. I’m looking forward to enjoying a day of solid music.
Despite the dated afro and War.
*****
But before the second year of a resurrected Rhythm and Ribs Jazz and Blues Festival, comes the second year of the Prairie Village Jazz Festival, this Saturday. Last year the volunteer team staged a wonderful inaugural event, a day of free music, which I photographed here.
Besides, take a look at the lineup (here). Nobody should miss a day of jazz starring Bobby Watson, Deborah Brown, Mike Metheny, The People’s Liberation Big Band, and Shay Estes with a reunited Trio ALL. Every one of them except Mike has been featured in photo spreads in this blog. And Metheney’s CDs have been reviewed here twice.
All for good reason. Each one is among Kansas City’s jazz best.
The only clunker of the day looks to be a staging of a weekly radio variety show, 12th Street Jump. A variety show in the middle of a music festival wrecks the day’s flow and is idiocy. Meanwhile, some of last year’s founders left the event while whining to the press that they didn’t get their way, embarrassing only themselves.
But, if you've read about the family squabbles, set them aside. As long as the weather cooperates, the second Prairie Village Jazz Festival promises to be a day mostly filled with spectacular music. Admission is free. It’s this Saturday, September 10th, from 2 to 10 p.m., in Harmon Park at 77th and Mission Road, next to Shawnee Mission East High School.
My job that day? I’ve volunteered to take photos. You'll see them in this blog first.
*****
This Friday, on Steve Kraske’s Up to Date on KCUR-FM (89.3) at 11 a.m., Bobby Watson, Deborah Brown and Brad Cox (leader of The People's Liberation Big Band) are scheduled to discuss the state of jazz, both locally and internationally. Each participant brings a unique background and view. This promises to be a fascinating roundtable.
Then, of course, hear each of them perform the next day at the Prairie Village Jazz Festival.
*****
And the week after Prairie Village is a downtown mystery jazz festival. The Power and Light District’s schedule boasts the 14th Street Jazz Festival for 2 to 9 p.m. (that’s what it says at the top of the page) on Sunday, September 18th. Or maybe it’s 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. The only knowns on this one are in a blurb on their web site (here):
“Enjoy live jazz and blues from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the 14th Street Jazz Festival in the Kansas City Power and Light District. The festival kicks off at 11 a.m. with a Jazz Brunch at participating restaurants…. At 2 p.m., join us on the 14th Street stage for great Kansas City jazz and blues! Performance schedule to be announced soon….”
It’s two weeks before your festival, Power and Light guys. Now is not too soon.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Classic Shots: Rhythm & Ribs Past
Alas, I will not be at this year’s Rhythm and Ribs Festival, next Saturday, October 9th, 11 to 11 behind the American Jazz Museum complex. A wedding in the family takes priority. So everyone else out there, I’m counting on you to attend and let me know how it goes.
This also means I will have no photos from the fest to later post. So, instead, today I offer shots I’ve snapped from Rhythm and Ribs past, of some of the terrific headliners Kansas City has had the delight to hear.
As always, clicking on a photo should open a larger version of it.
This also means I will have no photos from the fest to later post. So, instead, today I offer shots I’ve snapped from Rhythm and Ribs past, of some of the terrific headliners Kansas City has had the delight to hear.
As always, clicking on a photo should open a larger version of it.
Pat Metheny, 2007. Note the guitar.
Lonnie Smith, 2007
Christian McBride, 2007
Shemekia Copeland, 2006
Al Jarreau, 2007
George Benson, 2007
James Cotton, 2007
Al Green, 2006
Lonnie Smith, 2007
Al Jarreau and George Benson, 2007
Pat Metheny, 2007
Koko Taylor, 2005
Monday, August 30, 2010
Honey, They Shrunk the Festival (And That's Good)
Everyone else thinks they can do it better. But they can’t.
Among the lessons learned in my years of planning jazz festivals is that, when you announce your schedule, everyone else in the world who cares thinks they could have done a better job. They know who they would have booked that you did not.
But theirs are choices made in a world without the restraints of budgets, of artist touring schedules and availabilities on the date of the event, of even if you have enough electrical power in the park to accommodate an act (true: in the 1980s, we passed on Chick Corea’s Electrik Band because we could not bring enough power into Volker Park to meet their needs).
As I sat in The Blue Room, listening to the announcement of acts for the 2010 Rhythm and Ribs Festival (October 9, behind the American Jazz Museum), my first thought was, I could have done better than that.
No, I couldn’t.
Rhythm and Ribs skipped last year, a victim of the economy. Had it missed another year, the festival would have been over. Perhaps another event could someday have taken its place. But had two eventless years passed, so would any sense of continuity, leaving questionable hope of regaining support from key sponsors and fans, and this event would have been stick-a-fork-in-it done.
So it’s wonderful news that the festival is back. Never mind that it shrunk. That’s good. To the credit of American Jazz Museum CEO Greg Carroll and his planners, it’s scaled to meet a mandate that it be staged with financial responsibility.
I speak from experience: It’s amazingly easy when planning a festival to assume the best. God wouldn’t allow rain on our event. The talent we’ll book will draw everyone. We’ll jam that park with tens of thousands of people, who knows, maybe a hundred thousand. So figure out how much cash we’ll take in on that size crowd and spend it, now, on the event.
It’s dumbfoundingly easy to ride the wave of anticipation and excitement.
It’s dumbfoundingly easy to die in debt.
The 1984 Kansas City Jazz Festival lost $128,000. We paid off the last of that after the 1989 festival. In the intervening years, we set a rule that we would spend no more money on the event than we could raise in advance. Money taken in at the festival went to debt repayment and seed money for the next year’s festival.
That meant some years we had headliners I’d rather forget. That also meant that each year we staged a festival.
Sometime after I left, the don’t-spend-more-than-you’ve-raised-in-advance rule was abandoned. The Kansas City Blues and Jazz Festival, which succeeded the event I helped plan, eventually died. And it hurt when I heard it died deep in debt.
I don’t know the financial rules by which Rhythm and Ribs is playing. But what most encouraged me at the press conference was hearing that the festival has been sized to the budget. The grounds are smaller than past years. The projected crowd size is closer to the 1980s’ 18th and Vine Festivals. That’s fine. That’s what the dollars can accommodate. This year is a reset on which to build. When you try to stage a festival every year, that’s how some years play out. That’s also how you come out of the weekend able to stage a festival again next year.
Problem is, past Rhythm and Ribs established an enviable expectation for talent. They headlined jazz geniuses like Pat Metheny (with Christian McBride), blues legends like Koko Taylor, rising stars like Shemekia Copeland, and crossover superstars like George Benson, Al Jarreau and Al Green. This year’s lineup – let’s be honest – doesn’t match that calibre or appeal. When compared to the standards of past Rhythm and Ribs, the initial reaction to this year’s lineup is disappointment.
The initial reaction is, I could have done better.
No, I couldn’t. Not and remain responsible.
Disappointment is quelled through marketing. Sell the event. Sell excitement. This is a rebuilding year, yes, but that’s no more publicly popular to hear about festivals than it is with the perpetually-rebuilding Royals. So let’s keep that talk to ourselves. When comparisons arise, we’re looking forward. There’s going to be a great festival, Kansas City. We’re going to celebrate.
A difficult line has been laid to tread. The poster and site say jazz, while two thirds of the national talent says top 40 oldies. Yet that talent should broaden appeal and provide a base on which the marketing builds. Fans, you know their songs. You know this is going to be fun. No, better than that, this is going to be great. On October 9th, this is where Kansas City gathers. This, you do not want to miss. ‘Cause if you do, you sleep while Kansas City celebrates.
It’s a challenging year. But, if the weather cooperates, results can be good. No, better than that, results can be great. Start the push after Labor Day and build. Through the web site, through constant Facebook posts, through daily tweets, through posters blanketing the town, through talk show appearances and newspaper articles, sell it.
And the stage can be prepped for an even greater festival next year.
Among the lessons learned in my years of planning jazz festivals is that, when you announce your schedule, everyone else in the world who cares thinks they could have done a better job. They know who they would have booked that you did not.
But theirs are choices made in a world without the restraints of budgets, of artist touring schedules and availabilities on the date of the event, of even if you have enough electrical power in the park to accommodate an act (true: in the 1980s, we passed on Chick Corea’s Electrik Band because we could not bring enough power into Volker Park to meet their needs).
As I sat in The Blue Room, listening to the announcement of acts for the 2010 Rhythm and Ribs Festival (October 9, behind the American Jazz Museum), my first thought was, I could have done better than that.
No, I couldn’t.
Rhythm and Ribs skipped last year, a victim of the economy. Had it missed another year, the festival would have been over. Perhaps another event could someday have taken its place. But had two eventless years passed, so would any sense of continuity, leaving questionable hope of regaining support from key sponsors and fans, and this event would have been stick-a-fork-in-it done.
So it’s wonderful news that the festival is back. Never mind that it shrunk. That’s good. To the credit of American Jazz Museum CEO Greg Carroll and his planners, it’s scaled to meet a mandate that it be staged with financial responsibility.
I speak from experience: It’s amazingly easy when planning a festival to assume the best. God wouldn’t allow rain on our event. The talent we’ll book will draw everyone. We’ll jam that park with tens of thousands of people, who knows, maybe a hundred thousand. So figure out how much cash we’ll take in on that size crowd and spend it, now, on the event.
It’s dumbfoundingly easy to ride the wave of anticipation and excitement.
It’s dumbfoundingly easy to die in debt.
The 1984 Kansas City Jazz Festival lost $128,000. We paid off the last of that after the 1989 festival. In the intervening years, we set a rule that we would spend no more money on the event than we could raise in advance. Money taken in at the festival went to debt repayment and seed money for the next year’s festival.
That meant some years we had headliners I’d rather forget. That also meant that each year we staged a festival.
Sometime after I left, the don’t-spend-more-than-you’ve-raised-in-advance rule was abandoned. The Kansas City Blues and Jazz Festival, which succeeded the event I helped plan, eventually died. And it hurt when I heard it died deep in debt.
I don’t know the financial rules by which Rhythm and Ribs is playing. But what most encouraged me at the press conference was hearing that the festival has been sized to the budget. The grounds are smaller than past years. The projected crowd size is closer to the 1980s’ 18th and Vine Festivals. That’s fine. That’s what the dollars can accommodate. This year is a reset on which to build. When you try to stage a festival every year, that’s how some years play out. That’s also how you come out of the weekend able to stage a festival again next year.
Problem is, past Rhythm and Ribs established an enviable expectation for talent. They headlined jazz geniuses like Pat Metheny (with Christian McBride), blues legends like Koko Taylor, rising stars like Shemekia Copeland, and crossover superstars like George Benson, Al Jarreau and Al Green. This year’s lineup – let’s be honest – doesn’t match that calibre or appeal. When compared to the standards of past Rhythm and Ribs, the initial reaction to this year’s lineup is disappointment.
The initial reaction is, I could have done better.
No, I couldn’t. Not and remain responsible.
Disappointment is quelled through marketing. Sell the event. Sell excitement. This is a rebuilding year, yes, but that’s no more publicly popular to hear about festivals than it is with the perpetually-rebuilding Royals. So let’s keep that talk to ourselves. When comparisons arise, we’re looking forward. There’s going to be a great festival, Kansas City. We’re going to celebrate.
A difficult line has been laid to tread. The poster and site say jazz, while two thirds of the national talent says top 40 oldies. Yet that talent should broaden appeal and provide a base on which the marketing builds. Fans, you know their songs. You know this is going to be fun. No, better than that, this is going to be great. On October 9th, this is where Kansas City gathers. This, you do not want to miss. ‘Cause if you do, you sleep while Kansas City celebrates.
It’s a challenging year. But, if the weather cooperates, results can be good. No, better than that, results can be great. Start the push after Labor Day and build. Through the web site, through constant Facebook posts, through daily tweets, through posters blanketing the town, through talk show appearances and newspaper articles, sell it.
And the stage can be prepped for an even greater festival next year.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Rhythm & Ribs 2010
I want to comment more, and in coming weeks, I will. But for now, let’s get out this much.
Talent for the 2010 Rhythm and Ribs Festival was announced at a press conference this morning. The national acts include:
• Trumpeter Nicholas Payton, also coming in as an artist in residence
• A tribute to Donny Hathaway featuring saxophonist Kirk Whalum and singer Lahla Hathaway (Donny’s daughter)
• Sugarfoot and the Ohio Players
(Local acts are still being booked.)
This year’s fest is a one day event, on Saturday, October 9th, running from 11 to 11. The new festival map extends from Vine to Highland and from the back doors of the 18th and Vine museum complex to the Gregg-Klice Community Center grounds. The main stage will fill the community center’s curved drive. Live music will also fill The Blue Room stage and the museum lobby throughout the day. Vendors fill adjacent lots. And crowds – that’s us – will fill the grassy grounds.
Tickets are $18 until 10 p.m. the night before the event, and $25 at the gate. More ticket info is on the American Jazz Museum’s web site (here).
*****
And here’s why I’m so anxious to get out this much.
Do a web search for Rhythm and Ribs Kansas City. Know what the third link listed in a Google search, and the top link in a Yahoo search will be? It’ll be for www.kcrhythmandribs.com. Seems a likely source for festival news to me. Now click on it and you’ll find:
In case you can’t see it, that screen grab reads, “The 2009 Kansas City Rhythm and Ribs Festival has been cancelled, but will be back in 2010. Refunds are available at the American Jazz Museum Box Office or at Ticketmaster.”
Hey, that ought to drive advance sales.
Can somebody kill that web site? Or have it redirect to the current site? Or at least replace the copy with a current site link?
Please?
Then make sure the latest news is on the latest site.
People are looking for festival info. I know. I see hits coming into this blog through the search term Rhythm and Ribs Kansas City.
So to anyone doing that search who wound up here: I can’t wait to party with you October 9th!
(Just doing a community service here.)
• Trumpeter Nicholas Payton, also coming in as an artist in residence
• A tribute to Donny Hathaway featuring saxophonist Kirk Whalum and singer Lahla Hathaway (Donny’s daughter)
• Sugarfoot and the Ohio Players
(Local acts are still being booked.)
This year’s fest is a one day event, on Saturday, October 9th, running from 11 to 11. The new festival map extends from Vine to Highland and from the back doors of the 18th and Vine museum complex to the Gregg-Klice Community Center grounds. The main stage will fill the community center’s curved drive. Live music will also fill The Blue Room stage and the museum lobby throughout the day. Vendors fill adjacent lots. And crowds – that’s us – will fill the grassy grounds.
Tickets are $18 until 10 p.m. the night before the event, and $25 at the gate. More ticket info is on the American Jazz Museum’s web site (here).
*****
And here’s why I’m so anxious to get out this much.
Do a web search for Rhythm and Ribs Kansas City. Know what the third link listed in a Google search, and the top link in a Yahoo search will be? It’ll be for www.kcrhythmandribs.com. Seems a likely source for festival news to me. Now click on it and you’ll find:
Hey, that ought to drive advance sales.
Can somebody kill that web site? Or have it redirect to the current site? Or at least replace the copy with a current site link?
Please?
Then make sure the latest news is on the latest site.
People are looking for festival info. I know. I see hits coming into this blog through the search term Rhythm and Ribs Kansas City.
So to anyone doing that search who wound up here: I can’t wait to party with you October 9th!
(Just doing a community service here.)
Monday, June 21, 2010
Selling Jazz Fests (Rhythm & Ribs, Listen Up)
As an organizer of the Kansas City Jazz Festival, staged in Volker Park through much of the 1980s, I learned early on that there are not enough jazz fans in KC to support a large outdoor jazz festival.
(In fact, Kansas City today is much more a blues town. When the jazz and blues festivals merged and moved to Penn Valley Park, after my involvement, the blues stage consistently drew larger crowds. At the least, KC has more blues fans willing to attend a large outdoor festival.)
Selling a festival isn't like the jazz marketing outlined in earlier posts. This isn't about drawing a targeted audience. This is about drawing everybody. This is about drawing tens of thousands of bodies to impress sponsors so they'll return and there will be a festival for those tens of thousands of bodies – including jazz fans – again next year.
So, despite the name Kansas City Jazz Fest, despite starring acts like the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Joe Williams, Bob James and Wynton Marsalis, to name a few, and despite booking every local jazz act the schedule could hold, we did not market the weekend as a jazz festival. We didn't hide it. But we sold the idea that this festival was the biggest thing happening in Kansas City its weekend, and you sure didn't want to miss what everyone would be talking about come Monday morn.
(I'm not pretending we were always successful in pulling that off. But it was always our marketing goal.)
We recruited the most popular radio outlet in town, a rock station, as a sponsor. They talked us up then broadcast live festival remotes where they threw free frisbees to their partying fans.
Our volunteers plastered Westport with posters in the window of every restaurant and bar that would have us. And our volunteers returned weekly to replace posters stolen (hint: the promotional value of posters far exceeds the dollar value of posters sold at the event, so we didn't care if they were stolen).
We covered any agreeable shopping area with posters and flyers then returned regularly to replenish. We even knew the one building on The Plaza which was then not owned by the Nichols Company, where shops would jump at the chance to display a festival poster in their window (maybe as much to tweak Nichols as to promote the event, but we didn't care).
We courted the media, learning who would invite us on their TV or radio shows to promote, and who would not (an appearance on Channel 5's noon news then was best facilitated by contacting the host sympathetic to your cause). And sometimes you just got lucky, like the year Bryan Busby, unscheduled, dropped by and broadcast the weather from the festival grounds (though I'd argue that with sufficient promotion, you create luck).
Stories in The Star were important, especially a Preview cover or Sunday feature, but so were mentions in The Pitch.
We wanted everyone to know that Kansas City had a (jazz) festival approaching, and you'd better be there or be left out of the Monday morning buzz.
That's how you promote a jazz festival in Kansas City.
(Though today a web site with embedded video and mp3s, and a Facebook page and a Twitter feed with regular updates, are mandatory additions to the marketing plan.)
I bring this up now because we've learned that the Rhythm and Ribs Festival will return to 18th and Vine on October 9th.
I've attended every Rhythm and Ribs. Let's say it clearly, from someone who spent years helping to organize jazz festivals: Rhythm and Ribs is a consistently outstanding event, a jazz festival of which Kansas City jazz fans, the American Jazz Museum and Kansas City at large can be supremely proud.
Festivals rely on corporate largess for large chunks of funds. I'm neither surprised nor disappointed that, in this economy of corporations losing largess, it will have taken an extra year-and-a-third to identify the dollars to stage the next event. I'm disappointed but not surprised by the announced reduction of the fest to a single day.
But this festival cannot let disappointment become any part of its promotional discussion. On the contrary, the delay provides prime opportunity to reintroduce the event with the excitement and anticipation selling a (jazz) festival in KC demands.
Back in the '80s, we’d start our promotion with a well-attended press conference announcing the line-up, about a month before the fest. Given all involved with a need to know, it's tough keeping a secret headliner secret. And with today's abundance of social media, it's no doubt tougher now. But if info can remain clandestine, a press event to announce a big name or two starts promotion with a bang.
Next day, put posters in windows. And that takes a volunteer army. I don't know whether fest organizers have the troops for this mission, but if not, now's the time to recruit. Ask on Facebook. Ask on the web site. Ask from The Blue Room stage every night it’s open. Folks will sign up for festival duty who may not volunteer at the museum.
The Prairie Village Jazz Fest is staged about a month prior, headlined by Eldar Djangirov then The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra, perhaps with Karrin Allyson. That lineup is strong and so is the marketing opportunity. I'd be talking to them now about cross-event affiliations. You want to be passing info to their guests in return for a presence (perhaps to sign next year volunteers?) at your festival.
I'm not privy to what is or is not happening now. I don't have any reason to suspect the fest is coming together any way but perfectly. But I know that this year's festival is an opportunity to reestablish excitement for an event which deserves this city's attention. And I know marketed right, the number of jazz fans in KC doesn't matter a bit.
I also know I can't wait.
(In fact, Kansas City today is much more a blues town. When the jazz and blues festivals merged and moved to Penn Valley Park, after my involvement, the blues stage consistently drew larger crowds. At the least, KC has more blues fans willing to attend a large outdoor festival.)
Selling a festival isn't like the jazz marketing outlined in earlier posts. This isn't about drawing a targeted audience. This is about drawing everybody. This is about drawing tens of thousands of bodies to impress sponsors so they'll return and there will be a festival for those tens of thousands of bodies – including jazz fans – again next year.
So, despite the name Kansas City Jazz Fest, despite starring acts like the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Joe Williams, Bob James and Wynton Marsalis, to name a few, and despite booking every local jazz act the schedule could hold, we did not market the weekend as a jazz festival. We didn't hide it. But we sold the idea that this festival was the biggest thing happening in Kansas City its weekend, and you sure didn't want to miss what everyone would be talking about come Monday morn.
(I'm not pretending we were always successful in pulling that off. But it was always our marketing goal.)
We recruited the most popular radio outlet in town, a rock station, as a sponsor. They talked us up then broadcast live festival remotes where they threw free frisbees to their partying fans.
Our volunteers plastered Westport with posters in the window of every restaurant and bar that would have us. And our volunteers returned weekly to replace posters stolen (hint: the promotional value of posters far exceeds the dollar value of posters sold at the event, so we didn't care if they were stolen).
We covered any agreeable shopping area with posters and flyers then returned regularly to replenish. We even knew the one building on The Plaza which was then not owned by the Nichols Company, where shops would jump at the chance to display a festival poster in their window (maybe as much to tweak Nichols as to promote the event, but we didn't care).
We courted the media, learning who would invite us on their TV or radio shows to promote, and who would not (an appearance on Channel 5's noon news then was best facilitated by contacting the host sympathetic to your cause). And sometimes you just got lucky, like the year Bryan Busby, unscheduled, dropped by and broadcast the weather from the festival grounds (though I'd argue that with sufficient promotion, you create luck).
Stories in The Star were important, especially a Preview cover or Sunday feature, but so were mentions in The Pitch.
We wanted everyone to know that Kansas City had a (jazz) festival approaching, and you'd better be there or be left out of the Monday morning buzz.
That's how you promote a jazz festival in Kansas City.
(Though today a web site with embedded video and mp3s, and a Facebook page and a Twitter feed with regular updates, are mandatory additions to the marketing plan.)
I bring this up now because we've learned that the Rhythm and Ribs Festival will return to 18th and Vine on October 9th.
I've attended every Rhythm and Ribs. Let's say it clearly, from someone who spent years helping to organize jazz festivals: Rhythm and Ribs is a consistently outstanding event, a jazz festival of which Kansas City jazz fans, the American Jazz Museum and Kansas City at large can be supremely proud.
Festivals rely on corporate largess for large chunks of funds. I'm neither surprised nor disappointed that, in this economy of corporations losing largess, it will have taken an extra year-and-a-third to identify the dollars to stage the next event. I'm disappointed but not surprised by the announced reduction of the fest to a single day.
But this festival cannot let disappointment become any part of its promotional discussion. On the contrary, the delay provides prime opportunity to reintroduce the event with the excitement and anticipation selling a (jazz) festival in KC demands.
Back in the '80s, we’d start our promotion with a well-attended press conference announcing the line-up, about a month before the fest. Given all involved with a need to know, it's tough keeping a secret headliner secret. And with today's abundance of social media, it's no doubt tougher now. But if info can remain clandestine, a press event to announce a big name or two starts promotion with a bang.
Next day, put posters in windows. And that takes a volunteer army. I don't know whether fest organizers have the troops for this mission, but if not, now's the time to recruit. Ask on Facebook. Ask on the web site. Ask from The Blue Room stage every night it’s open. Folks will sign up for festival duty who may not volunteer at the museum.
The Prairie Village Jazz Fest is staged about a month prior, headlined by Eldar Djangirov then The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra, perhaps with Karrin Allyson. That lineup is strong and so is the marketing opportunity. I'd be talking to them now about cross-event affiliations. You want to be passing info to their guests in return for a presence (perhaps to sign next year volunteers?) at your festival.
I'm not privy to what is or is not happening now. I don't have any reason to suspect the fest is coming together any way but perfectly. But I know that this year's festival is an opportunity to reestablish excitement for an event which deserves this city's attention. And I know marketed right, the number of jazz fans in KC doesn't matter a bit.
I also know I can't wait.
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