Come and Get Your Steaming Pile Of Jazz Fest

Long past due for my yearly diatribe on the local excuse for a festival that is supposed to be about  furthering an appreciation of jazz music through presentation, promotion and outreach.

I won't go whole hog this year because, quite bluntly, all of the same problems are still there and much has gotten worse. I don't think it has been this bad since a failed punk rock bass player ran the thing.

If you wish to read past thoughts.
2011 Jazz Fest
2011 Jazz Fest Post Mortem
2012 Jazz Fest
2012 Jazz Fest Post Mortem

Over all I believe that a publicly funded non profit arts group with a mandate to promote jazz should do just that. It should also live up to it's name International Jazz. Only 7 'over a 100 ' acts are international jazz

Even if all they booked was: jazz, latin, blues and music mistaken for jazz, and as long as the majority was jazz, then we jazz fans would be happy (or at least have no legitimate reason not to be)

but...

1.  it is still less than a third is jazz (31/100) and less than half jazz  appropriate (42/100) so your 58-69 acts are mostly made up of popular types of music. You know the kind that is on the radio, played in clubs all the time. Stuff you can see and hear 365 days of the year.
2.  still have samey bookings that conflict with each other 
3. still blatant favoritism to a handful of locals 
4. still having that same handful of people rearranged to make 'new' groups
5. still run by a bean counter and a DJ
6. still using posters to advertise 
7. still padding the bio's to decive you into beliving you are getting a jazz act
8. still trying to make it seem like a year round full time job with non jazz concerts through the year
9. still having most nights with little or no jazz (2 with 0, 1 with 1, 1 with 2, 2 with 3)
10. still relying on beer sales on the opening weekend with 4 out 22 acts jazz 11 out of 22 jazz fest appropriate. 
11. still zero jazz on the opening Saturday (you know the biggest day and night of the weekend).
12. still too long at 11 days and is one day longer than Montreal's (who has 10 Stages, 150 concerts, 300 free concerts and 3.000 artists)
13. still having acts play for free on one day expecting you to pay on another day
14. still giving the pop acts multiple bookings
15. still having locals opening for major stars forcing us to pay real money to see someone we can see for free year round. (headliner wants to do a short set? charge less)
16. still having locals you can see year round for free playing in clubs for a fee
17. still giving gigs to people or groups who have had as few ZERO gigs in the past year
18. still promoting the 'sure fire' money grubbing non jazz more than the 'supposedly' struggling jazz
19. still losing money
20. still an artistic failure
21. still leaving many local veterans out of the festival

To add to the 'not the sharpest knife in the drawer' organizing dept...4/5 of this years TD jazz labs are freaking blues players!!

I also waited a long time to write this. In year's gone by I started the conversation early (at the time of their 'big' schedule announcement) but with all the encouragement coming in private I thought I'd wait till the day of the fest opening. I also wanted a picture of who was in the area (playing other jazz festivals)

Some Notes

Well if you know your jazz you don't need me to show you but...

GEORGE BENSON. Great guitarist and singer. But before you hope this tour is in support of his Nat "King" Cole tribute album. Check again he is doing his 'sex funk'. But to me this is on the list of things that get mistaken for jazz so you decide if you want to see the former prodigy who was to have the jazz guitarist torch passed to him after Wes Montgomery who, instead, sold  his soul.

BTW this is supposed to be their big jazz name AND commercial money maker so good luck with that.

RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA
Saxophone. If Micro tonal jazz is your thing. The Guitarist plays fretless so kinda interesting. But I can think of more accessible artists with great artistic cred. This seems like a bad booking, particularly main stage and on a Monday

PATRICIA BARBER
Singer Pianist. Real deal

PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND
If trad is your bag (but weren't they just here?)

JANE MONHEIT
Singer. Don't know what your getting with her serious jazz cred but has started to 'genre cross' and we know what  that means...downward pressure to do pop and sell more units

COURTNEY PINE
Saxophone. If you only go to one show this might be the one

Glenn Miller Orchestra...
Just kidding, this is on the 25th of June and not part of the festival but since they have nothing the week before they could have been. Ironic that it has no place in our Jazz Fest but DJnotalent does

Because the international jazz bookings are so thin, even my "I don't care what else they have at the festival as long as I can see some great international jazz" people are complaining for the second year in a row.

Too little and, with the exception on Rudresh and to a much lesser extent Pine, too samey and too safe.
Little variety with 3 singers one who plays guitar, one piano and 2 sax players.

On that note here is my list of touring jazz acts in Canada this June.
How many rock bands, DJs and hip hoppers would you trade to have one or more of these acts?
Heck I'd trade em all for Kurt Rosenwinkle.

Barry Harris (actually played with Charlie Parker)

Bill Charlap

Bill Frissel

Bob James

Charles Lloyd

Charlie Hunter

Christine and Ingrid Jensen (yes they have been here recently)

David Sanborn

Elaine Elias

Emily Clare Barlow

Esperanza Spalding

Houston Person

Jacky Terrasson

Jazz at the Lincoln Center (ya I know, they over did it, had them too much, took a bath last time but they are on the list)

John Abercrombie (I don’t think he has ever been here)

John McLaughlin

John Scofield (I don’t mind as it is his Uber-Jam Band)

Joshua Redman

Kurt Rosenwinkle (come on, one of the best ‘new’ guitarists in a long time)

Larry Goldings

Lionel Loueke

Michael Kaeshammer

Peggy Lee

Quincy Jones

Ravi Coltrane

Now in case "they" are actually reading this or the karmic spirits are at work...here is my rough draft of a fest sched using the jazz acts slated for this year. The headliners (with one addition) as pay for events, all locals on the market square stage for free and touring Big City Canadians in the clubs

No pop, rock, folk, country, hip hop or DJ's no need to plum "Austin City Limits" for your outsider indie band.

Pardon the layout as it doesn't seem to work on this blog

_________________________________________________________________________________

Theater Series Mon June 17 Tues June 18 Wed June 19 Thurs June 20 Fri June 21 Sat June 22 Sun June 23 RUDRESH MAHAN-THAPPA'S GAMAK WEST END CULTURAL CENTRE • 8 PM PATRICIA BARBER QUARTET WEST END CULTURAL CENTRE • 8 PM I Can Dream     KURT ROSEN-WINKLE BURTON CUMMINGS THEATRE • 8 PM PRESER- VATION HALL JAZZ BAND BURTON CUMMINGS THEATRE • 8 PM JANE MONHEIT BURTON CUMMINGS THEATRE • 9 PM COURTNEY PINE CENTENNIAL CONCERT  HALL • 9PM GEORGE BENSON BURTON CUMMINGS THEATRE • 9PM Touring  Canadian Acts Club Series JENNIFER HANSON GYPSOPHILIA CURTIS MACDONALD Imaginary Free Out Door Series with all Local  Talent JODIE BORLÉ JOANNA MAJOKO SIMON CHRISTIE QUINTET THE KEITH  PRICE DOUBLE QUARTET PAUL DE GURSE QUARTET TRIO BEMBE MARCO CASTILLO THE KNAPPEN STREET ALL-STAR BAND EPP, PRICE & PRESSLAFF COMBO LATINO PAPA MAMBO  Walle Larson ERIN PROPP CURTIS NOWOSAD QUINTET REGGIE SAN MIGUEL AARON SHORR AL SIMMONS DANIEL KOULACK, GREG LOWE RON PALEY THE LUCAS SADER PROJECT ROSEMARIE TODASCHUK JANICE FINLAY BIG JAY HARRISON QUINCY  DAVIS & U OF M'S PROMISE DEVON GILLINGHAM KARL KOHUT MARTHA BROOKS QUARTET MIRA ?

• Everyone keeps their jazz gig
• jazz every night
• Latin jazz on some nights (with room for more)
• 7 days long (In a perfect world I would start it on a Friday (not Thursday Night?) and end on the following Saturday...making it 8 days)
• no fake opening weekend with lots of beer tent and little jazz content. Though an Opening weekend with jazz, tent or not, would be nice

It is just spit balling, I know there are flaws in the plan. I didn't go to the trouble of properly matching groups, or editing out multiple groups with virtually the same members, or people who have 0-2 gigs under their belt and I didn't add in any of the glaring omissions in respect to local players (which Jazz for lunch spots and/or the empty Sunday could be filled with).

I left out blues acts. I believe blues has a place at jazz festivals but they now have their own festival.

You could even time it so the free shows didn't conflict with the pay shows.
As a bonus, the pay concerts biggest customers could and should be the local jazz musicians.

Have the free shows weekday nights 5-7:30 with time to walk to the 8 pm concert

On Friday they could stop at 8:30 in time to walk to the 9pm concerts and on weekends the shows could run all afternoon and stop at 8:30.

Less acts cost less money so maybe it can stop losing money (or at least be an artistic success while in the red)

Jazz fans get their fill and the complaining stops. You could still put in the odd, blues soul, "real" R&B funk with horns act without screwing up the festival.

So there ya have it. Feel free to pass it along and send your complaints to the right people. Telling me or talking among your selves does little good.

Now either to calm you down or bloat my YouTube views, I give you something you will probably never see at our jazz fest and can see for free all year  here is me playing 'Darn That Dream' solo 7 string guitar.

My Winnipeg Part One: The Weather and Skeeters

I now this is not music related and maybe later installments will. 

Nonetheless here is the first of "My Winnipeg"

A few years ago Guy Ritchie made a movie by that title. The horse heads and oblique imagery won some awards but I didn’t see “MY” Winnipeg there. I have lived here since 2000 and not that I would be considered a ‘pegger’ by local standards (I think you have to be born, raised and stay here or be famous and spent a short amount of time here to get that designation) I do think I can offer a perspective  of  Winnipeg, as a resident for over a decade and a perennial outsider.

The 2 things people think of when they hear the word Winnipeg.

Winterpeg. 

Yes it is cold, yes winter can start before (Canadian) Thanksgiving, yes it can last till May and yes every flake of snow that lands in October is still there in March.  Hearing about it and living it are 2 very different things. At first it seems unbearable, “what have I got myself into here” kind of unbearable. But you look around and see that people aren't dropping like frozen fruit flies and you figure out quickly that survival can be done. 

When I got here I bought what I’ll call a super coat. Eddie Bauer, $600 down filled kind of ‘super’. I remember walking my dog in December and it was -17.  I had on the super coat and was still cold…now I only wear that coat when it is ‘really’ cold. I got used to it (the cold that is). At some point in winter -17 is considered a break in the weather for Winnipeg. Snow is welcome (in the actual winter) as it means it has become warm enough for snow to fall.

When I first moved here I did find welcome relief from the weather wimps I left behind in southern Ontario.  Here, in Winnipeg, the cold weather was reported in actual temperature and not any bogus “feels” like. Back in 2000 any reference to wind chill was in watts and time it takes for exposed skin to freeze.

In Winnipeg, this was important information for your survival.

Unfortunately that has changed. Now we have the temperature reported with that ‘feels like’ nonsense.

For the record wind chill is calculated based on how your body would react walking in an open field, into the wind and buck naked. Now it may seem there isn't that much to do in Winnipeg but I do not see this taking off as a hobby.

Nonetheless we now have a city where many people will say it is -40 when the wind chill overnight was severe. Of course all of these folks could be naked sleep walkers. Wind chill doesn't make your -40 antifreeze become blue ice cubes and, unless your house is drafty, wind chill doesn't increase your heating. It just affects exposed skin.

But boy it is still very different place in the way the majority of peggers deal with winter. More walk, cycle, skate, para-ski, après ski, downhill ski (and folks these are just hills), ice fish, skate, toboggan, pole walk, snowshoe and just plain do more outdoors, for more of the winter, than most Canadian cites outside of prairies. And if we get a break in the weather those that have stayed inside for the real cold will come out and join in as well.

I really think the provincial motto should be “you have to dress for it”

You will also see peggers doing outdoor stuff till the last day of the ‘good’ weather unlike Torontonians who tired of good weather back in May. Winnipegers know it is going to be bad soon and for a long time.

Now you’d think a place so well known for winter would have their collective act together when it came to snow removal. Well they don’t. Part of the problem is that we just don’t get that much snow. So after most snowfalls there isn't enough worth sending the plows out for. SO, unlike many places, we can't just pile it to the side and wait for it to melt. Sure by February it looks like a lot but that is because none of it melts. So every flake from dusting to blizzard is on the ground.  The average snow storm is quite small compared to anything in the ‘lake/ocean effect’ parts of the world. This winter Canada got a round of storms We got 10 cm and it was called a blizzard…Newfoundland got 70cm and lost power for a day.

Here the plows don’t scrape the pavement, they don’t use salt for melting or traction and residents are not required to clear the snow from the sidewalk in front of their homes. As well they clear the front of EVERY driveway.

Here is how a typical snow storm goes…
·         Snow falls. If there is enough there is plowing
·         Plowing is based on needs (main streets, schools, fire routes, etc.)
·         You shovel your front and back with the sidewalk optional
·         City plows your sidewalk
·         You shovel the piles created
·         City plows your back lane
·         You shovel the piles created
·         City plows the street where you live
·         You shovel that out

Now some of that may not seem particularly unique but what is unique is that a little snow here can cause a lot of trouble long after a snow storm in the form of blowing drifts. Unless someone complains those drifts are there to block the way (or barrel through).

Also unique is the absence of any roadway melt. So what happens is they don’t plow to the pavement, everyone packs it down driving on it, at any intersection it becomes as slick as ice due to everyone spinning out when they accelerate or skid when braking. Once in a while (and before some storms) they will throw some sand at the intersections (nowhere else) but after the first 5 cars the sand is dispersed. I have learned to drive on the snow pack outside the ruts as in the ‘real cold (-25ish) because the snow has better traction than the pavement.

I guess you have to ‘drive for it.’

On the upside they do reuse the sand (collecting it when they clean the streets in the spring)

AS I finish this section it is mid April and there is still a lot of snow on the ground and minus temps during the day.

Mosquitoes. 

There in no way around this, no way to couch it in lovable terms, they are here and they are unpleasant. Some years are worse than others. Peggers try to put a spin on it by saying ‘we have skeeters because we have no pollution.’ While it is true we have little air pollution (what little we have is blown east) we have mosquitoes because we have no hills. Lots of standing water = lots of mosquitoes. As an avid outdoors man I can deal with bugs (though I am Quasimodo allergic to black fly bites) and I can either put on bug dope or grin and bear it (at least when catching fish) but getting wailed on whilst walking the dog or even just taking out the trash…there is no way to spin that other than say it sucks. “Cottage country bugs in the heart of the city” is not a winning slogan.