Mondo Jazz

FESTIVAL JAZZ O POP ? RISPONDONO I MUSICISTI

Mentre la discussione sul Festival di Clusone e le sue scelte artistiche prende tutti i commenti di questi giorni, e mi riprometto di ritornarci prossimamente, spulciando tra i blog americani dedicati al jazz ho trovato una domanda stimolante fatta sia a Brad Mehldau che a Rudresh Mahanthappa (e oggi pure a Christian Mc Bride) che riguarda praticamente tutti i festival non di tendenza. Lascio il testo in inglese per non sminuire con una traduzione sintetica il senso delle risposte, equilibrate e condivisibili.

Do you have an opinion on the practice of some jazz festivals to give great prominence to rock and pop acts on their main stages, and if so, can you share it?

It's been that way as long as I can remember it -- I remember my first year going to a very well-known jazz festival in Europe to play in 1992 and seeing Oscar Peterson, one of my idols, advertised there in small print. The headliner for the festival was Lionel Richie, who was already past his heyday. It is simply a financial reality -- the festivals need to get a big act to fill a big room, to get the big corporate sponsorship. To get snobby about it is a bit disingenuous because in a way they are subsidizing the jazz acts -- a bit like Lady Gaga is subsidizing the whole record industry right now! Go figure.

It is always a funny dynamic backstage at these festivals, when the pop act is around, with all their demands and requests -- sometimes everyone has to leave the area because "the artist" is in a 50-metre radius. But what can you do?

Jazz is for the long run -- a mentor put it to me like this: You don't think about having a career in music, you think about having a life in music. I love a lot of good rock and pop music, so I'm not for it or against it -- I've seen some great pop acts at jazz festivals over the years! And some not-so-great ones... (Brad Mehldau)

I guess I have mixed feelings about it. I think the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest is the most extreme example of that. I would be surprised if their jazz programming even makes up 25 per cent of the overall programming. It's rather absurd. It's so funny when people talk to me about going to jazzfest -- I'm thinking, 'Where's the jazz?'”

I guess I'm trying to not be too judgmental in the current economic climate. But yeah, it's definitely a bummer. I remember early on, the first signs of it was B.B. King would be a closer at a lot of jazz festivals. B.B. King is great, but...

The bigger problem maybe is when you have that context, when you have k.d. lang headlining at a jazz festival, are you actually just kind of admitting defeat in a way? Like, yeah, OK, jazz isn't going to sell these seats, so let's do what everyone thinks we should have done a long time ago and push jazz to the side even though we're a jazz festival. It's unfortunate.

I like what (veteran jazz promoter) George Wein is doing with his newly envisioned Newport (Jazz Festival). He started going the other way, booking people like me and Ken Vandermark. And I think with really great success. It would be nice if people might pick up on that model. George knows how to sell seats, George knows how to fill a hall. He's been doing longer than anybody... He's actually trying to find a way to fill seats and reach a younger audience and book music that maybe can redefine what jazz actually means in 2011.

("Which is not Robert Plant," I said.)

But it's also not your grandfather's music. That's still one of the major problems. Jazz has a lot of extracurricular stuff attached to it. Jazz is what's on in the background at a restaurant. Jazz is smoky clubs in basements, you know? It like, well, me and Vijay (Iyer)

(Rudresh Mahanthappa)

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