New Home for Jazz Gets Mixed Reviews

[skeith]

Someone please post this article. It is an interesting discussion of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

[couw]

I can read it at this link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/arts/music/24jazz.html

can't you?

[7/4]

January 24, 2006

New Home for Jazz Gets Mixed Reviews

By ROBIN POGREBIN

A year or so after Jazz at Lincoln Center opened on the fifth floor of the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, the place is visibly hopping. After a performance in the 1,200-seat Rose Theater or in the smaller Allen Room, with its floor-to-ceiling views, audiences often wander into Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola to catch a set over cocktails. Fans of the three new stages applaud the acoustics and aesthetics and say the new building - with its can't-miss-it marquee and snazzy marketing - has raised the profile of jazz as an art form nationwide.

But the very qualities that make some people consider the new Jazz at Lincoln Center a raging success are those that others say amount to a disappointment. Critics have long charged the institution with hewing to a classical jazz canon they deem middle-of-the-road. Now, they say, its high-profile new home has become emblematic of that establishment sensibility. Rather than use its influence and visibility to expose audiences to alternative musical styles and artists, the argument goes, Jazz at Lincoln Center has largely served up conservative fare, catering to an upscale clientele that favors the familiar and can afford ticket prices as high as $130.

Jazz at Lincoln Center officials say they are proud of what they have accomplished in moving from rented spaces at Lincoln Center to their own $131 million home a few blocks away, nearly tripling the operating budget to $35 million from $12 million and presenting shows that average 70 percent capacity. In addition to 10 shows a week by headline groups, Jazz at Lincoln Center presents two to three performances a night in Dizzy's Club 365 days a year, runs the Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame and offers extensive educational programming, including WeBop! classes for preschoolers and Jazz for Young People concerts.

"It's our house," said Wynton Marsalis, the organization's artistic director. "It's allowed us to integrate everything we're trying to do. And it's allowed us to present a face to the world."

Performances over the last year have ranged from a Women in Jazz Festival in Dizzy's Club to Bobby Watson's Boogie-Woogie Jump Band and the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra to a holiday concert in Rose Theater. In addition to the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, led by Mr. Marsalis, the organization in 2002 established the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, led by Arturo O'Farrill, which is nominated for a Grammy Award this year.

"I'm impressed that they're drawing consistent audiences and not necessarily hard-core jazz fans," said Lewis Porter, the director of the jazz history master's program at Rutgers University in Newark, who has taught in Jazz at Lincoln Center's adult education program. "People will say, 'Let's just go to Dizzy's Club and see what's playing,' " he said, adding, "That's different from other jazz venues," where people go to hear someone in particular.

The new building has focused the continuing debate about what Jazz at Lincoln Center presents, and how often. Critics say it should be presenting a greater range of artists, more performances and more diverse programming - avant-garde jazz, electric and world-music hybrids - although avant-gardists like Dewey Redman and Sam Rivers have performed there recently. Jazz at Lincoln Center rents out its spaces 40 percent of the time.

"They have the opportunity to make a very significant impact, and they're failing," said Scott Southard, president of the International Music Network booking agency, which specializes in jazz and world music. "In the selection of repertory and in the marketing of their events, they continue to reinforce their defined canon of what constitutes jazz repertory - Ellington, Monk, Armstrong. There aren't any cutting-edge performances at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

"The cost structure of producing events in their facilities is such that they have to stay fairly mainstream in their programming and to keep a fairly stiff ticket price," Mr. Southard added. "The greatest long-term difficulty is in the business model itself."

Steve Bensusan, an owner of the 200-seat Blue Note jazz club on West Third Street, said: "They don't really have regular programming. They don't really explore the smooth jazz world, the avant-garde, and I don't expect them to, given their location and their audience."

Ticket prices run from $30 to $130. The nightclub has a $30 cover and a minimum of $10 at tables, $5 at the bar. "It's expensive to go to Jazz at Lincoln Center," said Fran Kaufman, a photographer and longtime New York jazz fan. For next month's Allen Room concert "Music of the Masters: Stanley Turrentine," for example, she paid $110.50.

Mr. Southard, a former booking agent for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, said: "What it's doing is speaking to the upper demo that are comprised of bankers and insurance companies that underwrite their program. The $100 ticket price is hardly an inclusive mechanism for building audiences."

Lisa Schiff, Jazz at Lincoln Center's chairwoman, said the organization was reconsidering its pricing.

Some musicians say the cost of renting Jazz at Lincoln Center's spaces makes it hard for many acts to play there. Rates for the Rose Theater or the Allen Room are $4,800 to $12,000 a day, depending on the type of event and whether the organization is nonprofit. Production, labor and catering charges are additional. Dizzy's Club is available for rental only during the day, for $2,000 to $5,000, except in rare circumstances.

Jazz at Lincoln Center charges itself the nonprofit rate, plus expenses. That has the effect sometimes of making it more profitable for the organization to rent out its spaces than to present concerts there itself. "We were working more often before the hall opened," said Ted Nash, a tenor saxophonist with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

The clubs that offer more experimental fare say that Jazz at Lincoln Center has not made a dent in their business. Given the center's expenses, "it would be difficult to take chances," Queva Lutz, owner of the 50-seat 55 Bar in Greenwich Village, said, adding, "That's probably why they have had very little impact on us." At 55 Bar, early shows are free and late shows range from $5 to $10. For two of its regular performers, the guitarists Wayne Krantz and Mike Stern, the club charges $15, which includes the price of two drinks.

Ms. Kaufman said she did not expect to get all the jazz she wants to hear from Jazz at Lincoln Center because Manhattan offers so many other choices. "This is New York City," she said. "They are entitled to have their point of view, because I have the opportunity to go to other institutions that have more cutting-edge jazz."

"The programming is first rate," she added of Jazz at Lincoln Center. "They've managed to get really wonderful people - both people who have really big reputations and youngsters who are just starting out."

Mr. Marsalis makes no apologies for his programming, arguing that Jazz at Lincoln Center has presented a variety of styles and that so-called bread-and-butter fare is just as valid as more experimental music. "You don't like bread and butter, you don't like to eat," he said. "My philosophy is, all of it is valuable."

The challenge facing Jazz at Lincoln Center - taking chances while paying the bills - is the common conundrum facing arts organizations as they expand. Indeed, with their new overhead, its trustees must work harder than ever to keep donations coming. Having only just completed a huge fund-raising effort for the new building, they plan to start a new capital campaign within the year, its goal still undetermined. And Ms. Schiff said she never stopped shaking the trees for things like the building's remaining naming opportunities, including the lobby atrium, a rehearsal studio and a patron lounge. "That's all I do," she said. "People see me and they run."

"Our needs have changed," Ms. Schiff added. "We're a different organization than we were in the garage." Over all, Jazz at Lincoln Center is adjusting to its new life as a round-the-clock operation. In the past, as renters, "if there was a night of inactivity, we weren't spending any money," said Derek E. Gordon, the organization's president and chief executive.

To create more of a financial cushion, Jazz at Lincoln Center has turned its attention to expanding its board and building its $10 million endowment. "You have an enormous amount of space that needs to be maintained," said Diane M. Coffey, a trustee. "You can't just take that money out of your operating budget. You have to do additional fund-raising."

The organization has been making a few physical adjustments - removing some padding from the Allen Room to make it more resonant, replacing the concrete floor in Dizzy's Club with wood to make it warmer - and hopes to enliven the theater lobby with artwork. "It's still a work in progress," said Gordon J. Davis, the founding chairman. "And it's getting better every day."

The acoustics get rave reviews. "The sound is great," said the jazz impresario George Wein, who sits on the organization's board. "If you live in it a while, it gains an intimate feeling."

Lincoln Center is proud of how much its youngest constituent, which turns 10 next year, has accomplished as the first to expand the campus. "This is the little engine that could," said Reynold Levy, Lincoln Center's president. "If you trace where they started to where they are now, it's a Harvard Business case study in managed growth - nothing short of miraculous."

Sustaining that growth would seem to put particular pressure on Mr. Marsalis as the face of the organization. But the world-famous trumpet player says he does not feel it. "I'm the son of a jazz musician," he said. "So I never get nervous about paying bills."

[Jim Alfredson]

For next month's Allen Room concert "Music of the Masters: Stanley Turrentine," for example, she paid $110.50.

Damn. For that price, I'd expect Stanley himself to be there.

[AllenLowe]

and Tommy - but we'll need a couple of shovels -

[lkaven]

and Tommy - but we'll need a couple of shovels -

In lieu of Tommy, we can send a couple of our own cats to shout epithets from the back row.

[Christiern]

As I said on another BBS that carried this article, it provides a refreshing balance to the ass-licking crap Ben Ratliff invariably comes up with when writing about Wynton's corporate-sponsored encapsulated jazz emulations.

[Big Al]

"It's our house," said Wynton Marsalis, the organization's artistic director. "It's allowed us to integrate everything we're trying to do. And it's allowed us to present a face to the world."

[break]

Jazz at Lincoln Center charges itself the nonprofit rate, plus expenses.

[break]

Sustaining that growth would seem to put particular pressure on Mr. Marsalis as the face of the organization. But the world-famous trumpet player says he does not feel it. "I'm the son of a jazz musician," he said. "So I never get nervous about paying bills."

So that's it: J@LC is a church, and Wynton is the savior of jazz.