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EDMONTON STILL HAS JAZZ By ROSS MOROZ (Vue Weekly)

Twin jazz festivals featuring local artists take the place of defunct Jazz City For the last 25 years, Edmonton jazz fans have looked forward to Jazz City, the yearly festival featuring Canadian and international jazz acts performing in a variety of large and small venues around Edmonton. The event had become arguably the premier jazz festival in western Canada, and Edmontonians had become accustomed to taking in world-class jazz every June. So when Jazz City fell on hard times this spring and the festival’s board was forced to cancel the 2005 edition of Jazz City, several local musicians, club owners and promoters sprung into action to pull together a replacement event. The result is two complementary events—the Yardbird Jazz Festival and the Downtown Jazz Series—that, while less ambitious in scope than Jazz City has been in the past, bring the focus back onto local musicians playing in small, intimate venues, something the events’ organizers feel will help distinguish their festivals from Jazz City. “I always thought the club scene was never properly represented by Jazz City,” explains Henry Song, one of the organizers of the Downtown Jazz Series and the owner of Four Rooms restaurant, a popular downtown jazz venue. “It’s great to have big concerts in big rooms, but what really sustains a scene is the clubs. I wanted to get it to be more like a real festival—you know, let’s get four or five other clubs, let’s keep it in a central area and let’s give it a real downtown vibe.”

While he admits that patrons expecting to see the big-name international performers Jazz City was known for may be disappointed, Song believes that the lack of world-renowned superstars will make festival-goers take more notice of the high calibre of local jazz talent. “We have very talented local musicians in Edmonton,” he says, “and since I showcase them here all the time, I thought it would be great to try to get them all playing within a four- or five-day festival and feature them all properly—as opposed to the Jazz City format where they’re playing all across town at all these various venues.” “Definitely one of the things we were going for was to feature Canadian and Edmontonian musicians specifically,” agrees local musician Don Berner, who is both organizing and performing in both festivals. “People play as well here as they do anywhere, and we need to give them the exposure they deserve.”

According to Berner and Song, the demise of Jazz City had nothing to do with poor attendance or lack of interest from the general public; in fact, both men are staunch in their belief that Edmonton is one of Canada’s premier jazz cities, despite its relatively small size and off-the-beaten-path latitude. “It’s probably the strongest scene in western Canada, and I don’t know what to chalk it up to,” says Berner. “For years I was convinced it was the presence of Tommy Banks and P.J. Perry, but looking back even further than that, this city has always had a very strong scene.”

Local jazz musicians seem to echo this sentiment, including versatile local artist Rubim de Toledo, who will be giving a solo performance sans his regular band ¡Bomba! as part of the Downtown Jazz Series. “Edmonton was one of the first cities out here to have a jazz festival,” he says. “It’s kind of a legacy we’ve had, and it was such a disappointment when we heard that there wasn’t going to be a festival this year. It’s great that a few local musicians and club owners decided to get behind their own independent festival, which I think might turn out to be even better and stronger than what we had before.” De Toledo has enjoyed Jazz City in the past, but recently he felt the festival had lost its focus. “I just think that the festival was getting too large,” he admits. “This is a much more feasible concept.” For Song, though, Jazz City’s downfall is rooted simply in poor management. “As far as reputation goes, Jazz City was probably the biggest festival in western Canada—it was just poorly run,” he explains. “From what I hear, without really knowing a lot of the details, Jazz City basically burnt their bridges.”

Everyone agrees that the main reason Jazz City’s board was forced to cancel this year’s event was because of their inability to secure an Edmonton Arts Council grant, but in Song’s mind, the government made the right decision by not supporting Jazz City this year. “Jazz City got grant money,” he says, “but the musicians never saw that money. The clubs paid the musicians and the clubs also paid a fee to Jazz City, and got basically nothing in return for it. When you hear rumours of people not getting paid on time and that the festival is in debt, how can you fault the government for not wanting to fund this organization?”

Regardless of how this year’s situation arose, everyone involved is looking forward to putting on shows that bring the focus back onto Edmonton and Alberta-based musicians, hopefully whetting the public’s appetite for great local jazz. “You can’t say you have a jazz scene without having great local musicians,” enthuses Song. “You need to have that stable base in place, and then you can build upon that and show people that there is great jazz available at a local jazz club.” “There’s so much great talent here, and most of the time they get overlooked by the general public, so this is a good opportunity for them to get recognized,” agrees de Toledo. “People come out for the festival and see these names and these faces and realize, ‘Wow, these people live here, and I can come out and see them whenever I want.’”

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