From: mciver@kalkan.cs.colorado.edu (William McIver Jr.)
Subject: Re: Where is Jazz?
Organization: Universtiy of Coloardo, Boulder
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 01:28:06 GMT

In article <17570393@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM> mjs@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Marc Sabatella) writes:
>In rec.music.bluenote, sue@snafu.seada.com (Sue Raul) writes:
>
>> I want to hear live music from people like Geri Allen, David Murray, 
>> Steve Coleman, Don Pullen, Abdullah Ibrahim, Evan Parker, Chico Freeman,
>> Cedar Walton, Anthony Braxton. . . . 
>
>Despite the reports of the imminent demise of jazz in NYC, I feel compelled to
>point out that most of these people still choose to live there.  OK, Braxton
>was in Oakland at least until a couple of years ago, and I suspect Chico is in
>Chicago, but you get the picture.  I can say that none of the aforementioned
>musicians, whom I would also dearly love to hear - well, I probably wouldn't
>sell the farm to hear Evan Parker - have appeared anywhere around here (CO) in
>the last four years (except maybe Cedar).  David Murray, for instance, lost a
>lot of money coming to Denver a few years ago, and does not plan to repeat that
>mistake.  Any place that has had as much as one visit from any of these guys in
>that time has little or no right to complain, IMHO.
>

I have to make a minor plug for Atlanta, especially w.r.t. the musicians
that Marc mentioned above.

Atlanta certainly does NOT have clubs that can sustain a 
schedule of musicians such as Murray, Braxton, or Pullen (not
to mention more "innocuous" musicians like Ibrahim, Kenny Baron, Abbey Lincoln,
M'Boom).
However, I had an opportunity to see almost all of the musicians 
mentioned above and others of a similar progressive vein like Cecil Taylor
when I lived there ('81-89).  

And many of them did not perform in
a festival context that is most often not a very enjoyable way to
get into someone's music.  
Atlanta boasts two or three (at least when
I was there) fairly progressive music series that are, perhaps, a middle
ground in terms of venues between the Classic Jazz series and Loft scene in
NYC.  One of the series was/is sponsored by the city and the Clark College (now
Clark-Atlanta University) radio station WCLK. 

There were also one or two
other independent groups that would sponsor performances by
off-the-mainstream ensembles (in many styles of music).

Also, when I was there the summer Jazz festival was not actually
THAT bad of a scene either.  I saw ensembles like Sun Ra's, McCoy Tyner Trio,
the World Saxophone Quartet, Tony Williams, Brass Fantasy, and Max Roach's M'Boom -
FOR FREE!
As an adjunct series to this festival they would hold other performances
at a moderate size theater and charge $5 with the money going toward
the festival.  In this series I got to see  Ron Carter & Jim Hall,
Max Roach solo (was supposed to be with Cecil Taylor, but he got sick),
Art Ensemble of Chicago, ...
In Addition :), they would hold lectures or films by/about 
the featured artist/theme of the day/weekend on the mornings of the 
festival FOR FREE!

Then there are really special performances that you would only know
about by living there like the performance the Max Roach Double Quartet
(his + Maxine's Uptown String Quartet)
gave at the inauguration of their current president.

Finally, despite not having clubs that pull the "names", IMHO,
atlanta has some of its own excellent musicians. Russell Malone (guitar)
is about to hit it with his new CD _Russell Malone_ (Sony) (he's
also on Branford's latest); Russell is about to hit the road with
a baaaaaad Atlanta pianist named Gary Motley.  There's another cat named
Rod Smith (alto sax) who I'm told by reputable sources (to me :) ) blew away cats
like Jackie McClean at a night long jam session held during the summer Jazz festival.


WJM



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William J. McIver, Jr.          mciver@cs.colorado.edu
Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado @ Boulder	
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