When was the last time you went out to see live jazz? Was it at a jazz festival or club? Or maybe you heard it at a special event you attended. There's no question that jazz is available throughout Canada, but is it growing? It's a predicament every jazz community in the country faces. Here are three quick ideas on how communities can grow jazz.
1. Take it to the people.
In 1964, a New York arts patron named Daphne Arnstein and jazz pianist Billy Taylor founded an organization that would take jazz to places where it might not typically happen. They called their organization Jazzmobile, and it allowed the music to be taken to the people, instead of asking the people to come to jazz.
In its early years, jazz elite such as John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie and Sun Ra would jump on the Jazzmobile stage and present free concerts throughout New York City and the surrounding state. In other words, jazz grew in New York partly because it travelled to the people. It's an idea that continues today — York University, for example, has the York Jazzmobile, sending York musicians to visit high schools in the GTA., and Winnipeg has its Jazz On Wheels project.
2. Join forces.
In Calgary, the jazz community has come together to form an organization called JazzYYC, a jazz collaborative. JazzYYC builds Calgary's jazz community with a two-pronged approach: for the music and for the audience. If you want to find all the jazz in Calgary for any given date, you only have to go to one website: JazzYYC.
3. Change the way jazz is viewed in education.
It can be argued that a jazz music education prepares students for a career in music better than any other genre. Classical music prepares musicians with great physical and technical skills, but jazz also provides students with improvisational skills that will allow them to play any genre of music. Parents: if you want your precious child to learn how to play an instrument, think jazz. Your kids will get book smarts and street smarts.
Jazz can also provide young people with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Take the new Jazz Ed program in Ottawa, for example, a project spearheaded by the Ottawa Jazz Festival and Carleton University. Some very young musicians are getting the chance to work with seasoned pros. That's something the students will carry with them into everything they do in life.
If jazz is to grow in your community, it needs room to grow, and it needs imagination to take it to new audiences. As always, I'm happy to hear from you — do you have any fresh jazz projects happening in your community? Let me know in the comments.
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