by Harold McMillan

Season wrap up

Our most recent issue was also the official publication of this season's Austin Jazz and Arts Festival. Those of you who read us regularly know that we (DiverseArts) are also a producing/presenting organization and that for the past 12 years we have produced the fest. It started out as the Clarksville-West End Jazz and Arts Festival: a celebration of that neighborhood's African American cultural roots, its will to survive in the face of (at the time) yuppie encroachment, and the parallel kinds of issues that the jazz/blues/world music communities in Austin face. The festival started small, was truly neighborhood based, and had that "Austin feel" that the old-timers talk about so much these days.

At times the Clarksville Fest was also the production nightmare from hell-small staff, unfunded, volunteer driven, a few hostile neighbors, and "establishment music industry folks and jazz mafia" who did nothing to support our efforts at bringing the community together. We struggled through, got support from folks who really understood and believed in our mission.

Within four years we started to do what a lot of folks thought would never happen: we got great press, attracted larger crowds, booked really good local players and some national headliners, and-oh yeah-kept coming back each year. It felt good, hard work, but felt good. It wasn't a big beer party. It wasn't us against them. There was programming for the whole multicolored, multi-generational family. It was really an art and culture-based music festival that, I thought, just needed to find its niche of support. We needed a home-base and we needed money to pay folks. Seemed simple enough.

We also made the mistake, perhaps, of counting on continued growth, high-tech corporate sponsorship, cooperation and support form the City's Parks Department, and a blossoming of a support base that would allow us to continue to professionalize our operation.

In short, we, too soon, got too big for our britches. To be most honest, I should say that I got too big for mine. My vision out-ran my Austin, Texas reality. The crowds got better, so I tried to attract big money sponsorship by pumping up the programming.

BOOM!

We expanded to a week of programming. Then we did a run of under-funded seasons that, artistically, culturally, were great. McCoy Tyner, Charles Neville, James Clay, Jimmy Smith, Ellis Marsalis, Cornell Dupree, Bobby Bradford, Roy Hargrove and Crisol (Chucho Valdez, Russell Malone, Sherman Irby, David Sanchez, Frank Lacy!), Jason Marsalis, Oliver Lake, Kenny Garrett (with Kenny Kirkland and Jeff Watts, Dammit!!), Nicholas Payton, Mark Whitfield, Ray Barretto, Stefan Harris.

Now, I gotta tell ya, in my head I'm thinking that is the stuff that is gonna put us over the top. Nobody else in town, nobody, was doing that kinda of serious jazz programming (he said, conceitedly). Let alone the fact that we are a non-profit outfit, not a commercial promoter. It all made sense to me.

So, you might ask, what has happened with those predictions. Did the New Economy-driven new wealth set us up for future success? Did the Parks Department bring us under their wing and actually help us produce in Pease Park? Did the music union come on-board and offer help and sponsorship (we did ask, repeatedly)?

I'll do this part in short order because, really, I'm headed on to other issues. We were driven out of Pease Park, moved to Waterloo (the Parks Department's designated music park these days), changed our name to Austin Jazz Fest, are still waiting for Dell and AMD to return our phone calls and letters. Over the course of three or four years we got serious about our jazz programming and seriously lost our shorts.

And you know, the thing about losing your shorts is that, even if you can't find them, almost everybody else in town gets to see them until you do find them. At this point, I'm embarrassed by the number of folks who were forced to get a glimpse, if you know what I mean.

So, after 12 years we are pretty much back to square one. At the end of the 1999 Waterloo Park festival I announced what I and all of our directors thought was the only logical statement to make: we were beaten, we would not do a Waterloo Park show in 2000. At the time we felt that we would simply do a few club dates for this season, and that would be Jazz Fest 2000. Perhaps the last one.

In the summer of 2000, low and behold, East 11th Street beckoned.

I don't know how many of you, especially those who have attended past Clarksville Festivals, were in the audience this September. But, this year's smaller, gentler Festival, outside next to and inside the Victory Grill, was really a cool event. It had a lot to do with that hard-to-put-your-finger-on feeling and vibe present in the air.

I do not want to upset the guy who wrote the Verities piece on page one, but this year's festival truly did have that "old Austin feeling." The size of the crowd, the personal warmth and friendliness of the fans and vendors, the intimacy of the performances was very much akin to the spirit of the first few festivals we did years ago in Clarksville. And I think that whole "feeling thing" had a lot to do with the fact that we really did try to make the Festival vibe with the neighborhood that hosted us, tried to localize it enough that there was a sense of community built in. It helped that we offered the show for free and collected food for East Side food banks. But more than that, the show had such a good human groove, it once again energized us to look to a future for the festival with East Austin as our home-base.

Perhaps being this close, once again, to square one is not really a bad thing. East 11th Street itself, in fact the entire neighborhood adjacent to the Victory Grill and the lot on which we staged our outdoors show, is once again very close to square one, a new beginning of sorts. And that has a lot to do with why I am so jazzed about the potential for the festival's rebirth.

As East 11th Street's revitalization process moves ahead, as it once again invites new music venues, restaurants, and shops to call the East Side home, we want to do everything we can make sure that a sense of cultural integrity moves forward into the future as well.

As Austin continues to capitalize on the spoils of the New Economy, as downtown Austin continues to be priced out of reach for most small companies, as central city housing prices go through the roof, you can bet that the East Side is the next new extension of the central business district. Tech companies just might be the new investors, new developers and tenants of the New East Side. The challenge for those of us who already live and work in East Austin, and for those folks who might be moving their businesses here, is to learn from the mistakes that are currently playing out downtown.

As we work to revitalize the East Side, let's do so in such a way that it retains its soul. There are lessons to be learned here. Yes, at some level I am talking about finding a support base for our cultural programs, especially the Jazz Festival. But more than that I trying to remind folks that East 11th Street, for instance, was once the thriving cultural/entertainment district that gave birth to Austin's jazz and blues community. Revitalization means just that. Bring on the New Economy, just keep the East Side's soul.