by Harold McMillan

Still up all night...

Four years ago when I conjured the idea for this publication, I thought it would be cool to have a monthly column where I could, basically, rant about whatever I wanted, whatever was on my mind at the time. Considering the state of DiverseArts, my life and lifestyle at the time, calling the column "Up all Night" seemed clever and accurate. Truth of the matter is, at that time, each issue always included a few nights without sleep for me, a couple of nights without sleep for Cari or Susanne or whoever was helping with/doing layout. Thank God, new technology, new staff and practice, we don't do that anymore -- well, at least not for production. When Marlo Bennett came on board all of that silliness stopped.

You will notice, however, the name of the column remains the same. Much has changed within DiverseArts, and with my life and lifestyle since those first few issues. Funny thing is, even with the changes, I seem to have come full circle on the up-all-night front. I went and got married, had a beautiful baby boy (not necessarily in that order), and have since learned the true meaning of being "up all night."

My son, Hayes Michael McMillan, is now close to six months old, so sleep has returned to my life. But given all of the excitement -- joy, love, worry, work, care, coo-cooing -- he manages to inject into my other waking hours, I'm back here once again staying up all night, while he sleeps, in order to fill this space and get the mag to the printer on time.

For the many of you who have sent us prayers and well-wishes, and inquired about our new son, I just want you to know that he is fit as a fiddle and growing like a weed. The family life, believe it or not, fits me quite nicely. Grace and I are into the marital bliss thing and are having a great time learning to be parents.

I've had to make myself not write about Hayes in every column since his birth (by the way, he was born on April 19, the same day we produced the Nicholas Payton concert). Up until now I've managed to keep Hayes out of my column, so I hope this little bit is not going too far into "new daddy brags about beautiful baby boy" territory.

I can't help it. Please don't hate him because he's just great, and beautiful, and full of joy, and is the love of my (and Grace's) life. Please.

Touring jazz concerts, local jazz in the clubs, smooth jazz radio, and the Barton Springs salamander...

Let us thank our various personal deities for KUT, KVRX, KOOP, KAZI radio and the Elephant Club. Around these parts these days, they seem to be about the only places left to consistently (at least part of the time) hear real straight-ahead jazz.

What's the deal? Is Austin's jazz scene about to go the way of the Barton Springs salamander?

No. Unlike the jazz scene, the salamander at least has a bunch of folks out there working to protect it, keep it alive, make sure there is a place for it in Austin's future. It's beginning to look as if the jazz scene might not be so lucky.

I hope I'm over-dramatizing this. But have you looked around lately? Have you checked the listings in the Chronicle or Statesman? Have you looked at the ads for the live music venues that still advertise themselves as "jazz clubs"? For the diehard jazz purists, the real bopheads, the Austin jazz scene has been pretty thin for a long time. But I tell you, even the moderate Austin jazz fan has a hard time being optimistic about what's happening in the scene here lately.

Those of us who have been here a few years (and longer than a few) have witnessed all kinds of fluctuations in the quality and quantity of Austin jazz and jazz clubs. We oldtimers can, at the drop of a hat, name a whole handful of "jazz clubs" that were here in the last few years that simply don't exist anymore. Most had lives that only spanned a few months rather than years. The market for jazz in Austin clubs has traditionally been propelled by short-lived concept marketing schemes. That's the thing that somehow pushes the jazz scene along, gives us hope that things are getting better, pisses us off when they pull the plug a few months later. New clubs enter the market with a new gimmick for selling their concept, ambience, food or whisky. The jazz is there as a marketing tool for the product.

The word "jazz" does have a nice ring to it. But when the consumer climate changes and the trendiness wears off, it's the jazz that gets thrown out the door first. After all, it's the marketing scheme that is really the core of the business, not any dedication to jazz. And, as I am sure you have noticed, sometimes the whole "jazz marketing motif" sounds and feels so good that the business keeps the marketing scheme, but then gets rid of the jazz music. There are those businesses -- insert Dan McKlusky's here -- out there that continue to use the jazz label, while discontinuing jazz programming content. And their business booms. Their clientele doesn't even seem to notice that they stopped booking jazz a long time ago. The ads still read something like "hot jazz, cigars and cool martini's, blah, blah, blah." Therein lies the problem. Some of the marketing people, and their target audiences, don't know or care about the actual difference in the music; as long as the slogan sounds good, everything is cool.

The Elephant Club hangs in there, though. Sometimes their booking gets stale. Sometimes they too have to give in to market forces and book more commercial acts. And sometimes you know there are some other folks out there who really rate some stage time at the Elephant and you never see them get booked there. But in spite of all of the negatives (real or perceived), The Elephant is Austin's closest thing to a legitimate jazz club.

The irony is that there is at least an impression that there is this little downtown jazz district happening. Within a couple of blocks of the Elephant, there is Ringside at Sullivan's and Cedar Street Courtyard. They too claim to be jazz rooms. Both broke into the scene with excitement. But both of them, for whatever reasons, sacrifice programming content and "jazz friendly ambience" in order to serve some god of high concept. By and large, the clientele of both don't give a rat's ass about listening to jazz. Not that they have to or should. I express this judgment more to point out the potential for this area. And, if jazz really had the market share in Austin, the warehouse district would be an ideal locale in which to jazz bar-hop. The reality of the situation, however, is that the Elephant Club is the only one that serves as Austin's 24-7 jazz club; not to be confused with an upscale waiting room for a high dollar steak house or a cool gin-joint that has backed away from its commitment to straight ahead jazz. It's unfortunate that these clubs really don't do more to actually promote the range and variety of jazz styles and players in Austin.

Regardless of the Elephant's " reputation for jazz scene politics," they have managed to do something that no other jazz club has been able to do in Austin in years -- they are still in business AND they have not lost their mission of consistently, without apology, booking jazz.

With all of that said, I do need to make clear that I understand that most folks go into the club business to make money on whatever sells. I'd bet that Mr. Ringside Sullivan's goal is to sell a lot of $25 steaks. He's probably not particularly concerned with making sure that the Austin jazz scene benefits from him being in business here. The Cedar Street folks (the new ones) are in the bar business. It would even be fair to say that they are in the music-bar business. But to say that they are on a mission to champion the Austin jazz scene would not be accurate. The bottom line is the bottom line. Commerce works, by definition, when products and services are commercially viable: consumers want to and do buy them in the marketplace.

Austin just lost its only commercial smooth jazz radio station. Although many of us think Central Texas has enough country music stations, LBJ-S Broadcasting ditched their K-JAZZ smooth jazz format and reverted back to big-time country without warning or apology. Why? Because it's just business to them. Market forces. Why do you think they call it commercial radio?

Just like we can't make the LBJ-S folks support jazz, we can't push Mr. Sullivan or Mr. Cedar to book straight-ahead jazz. And, although we know that the Elephant will continue to support Austin jazz, we can't dictate what locals play there, nor can we force them to bring New York jazz stars to Austin for cheap concerts. They gotta sell some whisky. These are businesses that are ultimately not governed by the cultural needs of the city. In short, we can't and should not depend on profit-driven commercial enterprises to address our cultural needs -- unless these needs also can make them lots of money.

Support for growth and preservation of our local jazz music community, enhancement of the local scene with residencies and performances by touring artists, are cultural needs of the City of Austin. When will we learn that we, Austin's jazz heads, are the ones who are really responsible for making sure that those needs get met? We can't depend on commercial enterprises to address our decidedly non-commercial cultural needs.

We will continue to be able to find a limited amount of adventurous bookings for those less-than-commercial jazz acts at various times and places around town (Victory Grill, the Mercury, Apostrophe Arts, CO2, DiverseArts, the UT-PAC, 33 Degrees, Women in Jazz, etcetera). And, thank Legba, we will continue to be able to listen to jazz on non-commercial radio. After all, there is actually something that is marginally commercial about doing programming that is hip enough to not be commercial. To a certain extent but not enough, hipness factor in cultural programming is actually bankable.

What needs to happen in Austin is up to that elusive critical mass of folks who will consistently show up for, communicate about, and support the work of those folks who literally do risk their limited dollars in order to produce the kind of jazz programs that push the envelope and expose us to the range of what's happening in the World of Jazz.

How do we do that?

Well, those of us who are producers of the stuff need to find and communicate with our potential audiences. Those of you who are part of that audience really need to let us know who you are. Stand up and be counted. Come to our shows. Spread the word. And write some checks to the non-commercial, non-profit folks who are working so hard to keep this stuff alive in Austin.

Just search your memories. The best jazz stuff to come through Austin in the last few years has been brought to you mostly by small and/or non-profit cultural organizations. Just like KUT needs your dollars to keep Paul Ray and Jay Trachtenburg spinning records on the air, DiverseArts needs your bucks to keep bringing folks like Nicholas Payton, Kenny Garrett, and McCoy Tyner to Austin. Without your help, it can't happen.

There are good models out there for Austin's jazz community to emulate and learn from. Right now, as I write this, the "major arts organizations" and the non-profit radio stations are doing their fall capital campaigns. There are a lot of you who will read this who have already written checks to KUT (and that's a good thing) pledging to keep jazz on the radio. Others of you have written checks to the Museum of Art, the Opera, the Symphony, Links, United Way and other worthy organizations. I don't want to discourage you from doing that.

What I want to encourage you to do is make the effort to take cultural programming that supports genres like JAZZ out of the charitable-giving ghetto. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with folks who feel really good about giving money to support European art music, but somehow feel that jazz, America's native art music, is somehow less worthy of support. We gotta do something about that cultural ghetto thing.

In terms of the cultural health of Austin, the work of Tina Marsh and CO2, for instance, is just as deserving of your support (or more so) as the Opera or the Symphony. If you've got the money to give to such organizations, and you are also a fan of jazz programming, shouldn't you make a point to help bring live jazz out of that ghetto. Shouldn't you write a check each year to support folks like Harold McMillan and DiverseArts (that's us) who have established an 11-year tradition of Austin Jazz and Arts Festivals? Shouldn't you reward new producers like Epistrophy Arts for taking the risk and bringing folks like William Parker to Austin? Can't you see the value of Cosmic Intuition's work to consistently bring multicultural music programming to Austin venues? If you do get what I'm saying, there is no better time than now to come out of the woodwork and help define this community of support.

I'm sure you're out there... We just need to know who you are, how to find you, and receive some hint of your support. We are eager to continue our work, but we gotta have some evidence that you will support our efforts. And, if you need to know how to get in touch with the folks I've mentioned here, just give me a call. I'll hook you up. Just remember, if you don't help us, we'll have to stop doing what we do. And, really, we all lose if that happens.