Is this a JAZZ FESTIVAL?

Ok, I have to express an extreme sadness at once again when I puruse jazz festival website programs only to find the listings populated with blues bands, pop bands, country bands, alt country bands, folk world bands,.....did I mention blues bands! Aren't there enough blues festivals for the blues musicians to play?

I love all incarnations of jazz...nu, nu-nu, new-old, old, electo-nu, nu-other, trad-other, free improv, etc etc but tell me please, why does a country artist have a gig at a jazz festival? Why does a blues band have a gig at a jazz festival? What does that have to do with jazz? What? Blues festivals hire *only* blues bands. I was at a world music site the other day..it said clearly on the contact page "we only book world music acts". What's wrong with jazz festivals?

You will never find a jazz band at a blues festival or a folk festival or a world music festival or a rock festival or any other genre of festival but you find all of these genres proudly represented at all the jazz festivals. I'm not slagging any genre of music, I love it all, but this "syndrome" is like a bad disease. Especially when there are so many under-employed jazz musicians walking the streets. Come on!

What's going on?
Aren't there any jazz musicians who need the work? The truth is, the jazz musicians *are* out there but they're not getting the gigs. Are we not deserving? Don't we pump the culture full of our brands of jazz every time we go to work? Aren't we doing enough? Aren't we working for free enough? Aren't we playing enough blues?

If you say that these "other genre" artists are paying the bills, I would like to know how these artists they are paying the bills, how exactly? I ask you, how does a blues band or a country band playing on a free jazz festival stage or in a club help bring in dollars to the festival? How exactly? Hard evidence please. I think this is a misguided ruse and a culture killer. Does the corporate sponsor say "we have to have bluegrass and country bands and blues bands"? My guess is NO.

Mitch Podolak, long time festival AD in Winnipeg and beyond, commissioned a study to find out who exactly attends a festival. It turns out that 97% of the people are "eventers" and not there because of the genre of music. They are there for the event itself. The folk festivals stuck with there guns and made the public fans of the genre, as community development (the CF factor as he calls it), by giving them folk music in all its permutations and now the folkie's names *are* the household names because they actually see their names in print again and again. Result- the folk community is greatly enriched, and the community at large is greatly enriched. The point here is that festival should make the people come out regardless of "who's on the bill" or how many "names" they know. So jazz festival ADs have no excuse for not hiring only jazz musicians. By not doing so they are giving the message to the public that jazz isn't good enough.

So we get the headliners (John Scofield, Roy Hargrove et al), the "darling bands" (you know them), the out-of-genre artists (you know them too), and a few token others.
Every spot at a jazz festival should be filled with a jazz musician or jazz band.

Someone came up to me at an (unnamed) local jazz festival gig (within the last 2 years) and said to me "you're the only jazz band I've seen here today". Honestly, that happened.

I think to say "that's just the way it is" is a sad commentary. Everybody is just "doing their job", everybody's "hand's are tied". Business is business, just accept it. In almost every aspect of our life we are puppets of the corporations and the "experts" and powers-that-be that dictate to us from on high about the "way it is". But it doesn't have to be "the way it is" in the case of jazz festivals. Festival ADs could do the right thing, the same as Mitch Podolak and his cronies in the folk world. Hire only jazz musicians!!! The sponsors wouldn't even know the difference and jazz musicians *at every level* would have a fighting chance.

Jazz festival ADs, make your jazz festival an annual event people will come to "for its own sake", and hire only jazz musicians. Is it too late to turn back? The least you can do is give it a shot!