by Harold McMillan

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

It's good to be missed.

It's better to be back at home, doing what you set out to do.

At the front of this issue of Austin Downtown Arts there is a new column, written by our newest editor, reintroducing you to our little magazine. Reintroducing because she, Meg McMillan (no relation), is not just letting you know that she is the new kid on the block. She's yelling, as best she can in printed text, that Austin Downtown Arts is back to stay and DiverseArts ain't dead yet!

As many of you have noticed and noted -- thank you, very much -- we've not been on the streets of Austin this spring at all. Our most recent number was the end of the year/new year literature issue (December 1999/January 2000). Our extended vacation was not exactly part of our original strategic plan. Good things, however, happened while we took our spring break. But I tell you honestly, I've missed this monthly opportunity to share our words and thoughts with you.

Deep, very deep inside, I hope you actually did notice that your monthly dose of our take on the Austin arts' scene was missing. We indeed have missed being in the rack waiting for your stroll through the Austin Museum of Arts, your second cup of coffee at Little City, your intermission at the Paramount.

I won't take this opportunity to tell you all about the challenges we face in keeping this free publication in production. The major challenges are apparent. We are back because we believe there is a need here for us. If we can get better at what we do -- and we are committed to do that -- the potential for long term survival is promising for our opinionated, focused-yet-schizoid-kinda-literary little arts and culture publication. We provide opportunities for writers young and old, our view of the scene is more about artistic substance than advertising budgets. What we do here is something that no other Austin commercial or arts organization publication does.

Each month, each issue of Austin Downtown Arts is devoted exclusively to spotlighting the Austin arts community and promoting the idea that our diverse arts and culture scene is among the most important aspects of all that makes Austin a great place to live, work and play.

In short, we are committed (especially in this time of blitzkrieg downtown SmartGrowth boosterism) to the notion that artists, audiences, and supporters need a vehicle for communication, a media outlet that does nothing else but work for our mutual success. That said, please know that those of you who have supported our efforts here are true heroes and heroines.

Those of you who support our mission, have resources to help us stay afloat, and want to support our efforts to get better at what we do? We need and welcome your support in all that we do to bring artists together, inform the public, and encourage that tenuous (but very workable!) marriage between culture and commerce.

By the way, have you asked about our advertising rates lately?

The State of the Jazz Nation

Earlier this year I was in New Orleans for several days of meetings, networking, listening to and lots of talking about jazz: jazz music, jazz business, jazz education, jazz politics, jazz media. The biggest jazz conference in the world these days is the International Association of Jazz Educators Conference (IAJE). It's held annually each January. For five days, multiple performances at multiple "official" venues from 10:00 a.m. 'til midnight: then the local club scene stays awake until dawn. Everybody (of course not literally, but it seems so) in the jazz world is either there or wants to be or is tired of going. Five days of more jazz stuff than is healthy to be exposed to. Generally three huge downtown hotels full of folks like Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Marsalis Family Members, Horace Silver, Cassandra Wilson, Sonny Rollins, the North Texas Lab Band, Jeff Helmer and James Polk, the publishers/editors/writers of Downbeat, Jazz Times, Billboard, Jazziz, Austin Chronicle (?) and lots of other festival producers, record label folks, teachers, clinicians, gigging pros and students alike.

It's the most concentrated gathering of jazzological activity that happens at any point during the year, any place in the world.

If you're there and you pay attention, you don't have too be a doctor to feel the pulse of the international jazz community. I am not saying this is the perfect conference. After all, you got a bunch of polyester leisure suit-wearing music-teaching jazz musicians running things. The good thing is, there is this huge effort to come to grips with what place the jazz tradition does/should play in the cultural life, educational system, and commercial reality of this and other societies. Pretty much everyone there agrees that jazz is or should be more of a cultural/artistic/commercial big deal in communities across America and around the world. And for the most part, the folks who come to this conference are doing something back home to work for the overall health of jazz -- as music, education, business, quality of life attribute.

Oh, and the booking agents are there too.

Now, to go to IAJE for no other reason but to listen to the music and hang out is worth the trip. The conference/festival only costs about $150 for the week. It was in New Orleans this year, back to the New "Live JAZZ Capital of the World" York in 2001. Know what I mean?. For instance, at the New Orleans conference in January, you could listen to Russel Malone and/or Ellis Marsalis play in the hotel at the conference, then rush over to House of Blues and hang out with Herbie Hancock in the audience while you listened to the Roy Hargrove Quintet on stage, and caught the last set as Jashua Redmon jammed with the band. Later or the next night you could have skipped the official shows and caught a Michael Ray and the Cosmic Crew club gig and then gone after-hours to the FunkyButt for Steve Torre, Jason Marsalis and Henry Butler hosting a jam session 'til the sun comes up.

And there were five days/nights like this. Imagine what it's like when the conference is in New York. Truly a jazzhead's wet dream.

In addition to the listening and seeing frenzy, there too is a lot of business that goes on. Since so many of the folks there are associated with schools and colleges, instrument makers, sheet music publishers, and the like, job interviews take place, endorsement deals are sealed, and a lot of products are sold. But behind almost every conversation and transaction, there is the underlying question of "what can we do to help jazz survive into the next century and beyond?"

In recent years the IAJE has begun an effort to bring the issue into the official flow of the conference. There is now a mix of workshops, panels and discussion groups that deal with jazz the business, the profession. The two issues at the most recent conference that caused the most argument, buzz,and conversation both dealt with the industry side of things: 1) the need for a national/international jazz trade organization; and 2) the need for a high profile national/international awards program to recognize and promote excellence in all aspects of jazz arts, culture, education, and business. Hot topics, to be sure. Lots of room for argument and agreement.

As I sat in on the panels, attended marketing workshops, and shared ideas over a whiskey, the big message that rang true was that jazz in America is in need of various levels of safety nets all around. Yeah, the problems we have here in Austin with audience development, sponsorship and media support are big problems. But they are not different problems than those faced in other cities around the US. They are common problems. But out here in the Hills, the effect is felt sooner, deeper, for longer than many other music cities.

For the last few years I have been one of the folks in town throwing around the idea of organizing the jazz community. It's not a new idea, or set of ideas for Austin. There is a functioning Traditional Jazz Society here already. There have been other jazz societies here in the past. I guess the thing that hit home with me at the IAJE is that this kind of organizing, these kinds of plans to bring various elements of the jazz community together are now being vigorously pursued at national and international levels.

It is now clear to all levels of folks in the jazz community, nation-wide, that we must start/continue to make headway in organizing our forces, voices, dollar votes in ways that will help sustain the jazz tradition (and the business of jazz) over time. This is a need all across America. This is essential in Austin.

I had conversations with folks from really small and more medium-sized markets, like Sante Fe and jacksonville, and they are way ahead of the curve on this stuff. Of course the major markets -- New York, chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans -- provide unduplicatable models because, well, that's just the way if is: no cities will be able to compare with the jazz scenes, jazz audiences, sponsorship and media support found in places like New York or New Orleans.

The scary thing for me, and lots of other folks in the jazz business, is that scenes such as Omaha, Seattle, and Vancouver seem to be on the right track. Much more so than here in the live music capital of the world. Compared to many, very many communities around the country, Austin is beginning to look like there really is no cohesive jazz scene/community here. And that is really a drag.

I have been producing jazz programs here in Austin for the past 12-15 years, and this I've learned: for many folks here in Central Texas the value of the jazz tradition is not really something they think about. Jazz gets mistaken by some as just "light pop" music, by others as "elevator" music, to others it's not serious enough, to some it's too serious. Regardless of what jazz is, it is not a real cultural force that has a strong power base here.

Jazz doesn't sell enough whiskey for the commercial music venue folks, it's not high brow enough for the blue bloods, it usually ain't got enough steel guitar in it for the KGSR folks. There is a strong core of support here, but most of the folks in Austin fit the above descriptions.

So, what are we folks, who want to work for the local survival of jazz to do?

From the vibe I get a IAJE, the next step is to do the same kinds of things that folks who live in those supportive, organized markets do. And we need to try to encourage the same kind of discourse going on on the national level as well.

The jazz community in Austin should give some thought to -- just as the Music Commission recently did -- having a town meeting and putting our issues on the table; with each other and with those in positions to be helpful. On the national level, IAJE has endorsed efforts to move forward with the formation of a professional trade organization for all levels of folks in the jazz arts business. Those of us who do jazz as a business, for profit or not, should consider similar local action. IAJE encourages the formation of jazz societies. Regionally, there is a move to work with folks in other markets to cooperate rather than compete for touring acts and favorable routing.

But of course the problem with Austin is that there are so few folks actually willing to do this stuff, those who do are already over-worked and under-paid to the extent that they are waiting for someone else to take on some community responsibility.

Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.