University Daily Kansan, April 26, 1982
Page 9
Jazz
From page 1
who
was
not
until it
sday and Sunday, I ought to close on those nightso, too." Douglas said.
Douglas said the problem of keeping jazz alive in Topeka boiled down to dollars and cents.
"On Friday and Saturday nights, I might do $200 a week." he said.
MEMBERS OF the Hollow pay $15.3 a year for membership, and Douglas said that with only 200 to 300 active members, he's 300 members short of what he needs to keep the club operating.
"It has to do with money and the people who have money," he said.
"I think jazz is America's true art form," he said. "And Americans appreciate it the least."
He said that even though his club was not successful, he still believed Topekans should have the opportunity to hear good jazz music.
"I would suggest that the ones with the money are the ones to blame and that they are the ones to straighten it out."
HE SAID that although metropolitan cities such as New York and Chicago still had jazz clubs, they were not as plentiful as they were 20 years ago.
According to Paul Gray, the problem is a lack of numbers.
"There are a lot of people who like jazz," he said. "But there don't seem to be enough to sustain it."
Gray, whose six-member jazz group, the "Gaslight Gang," touches the country performing at school assemblies, conventions, dances, nightclubs and clinics, said he made a mistake when he entered into a private club in February 1980.
WRIGHT ALSO said Gray's decision to go private was a mistake.
"We had been pretty mixed before we went private." Gray said. "Frats, sororites and dorms used to have parties there.
"All ages and occupations used to come."
"They cut out all the traffic of people coming in there," he said.
But then, his doors closed to those under the age of 21, and he lost many of his customers.
"But, if nothing else, people should know that a jazz audience is not a drinking audience."
Wright may not know how close he was to the truth.
More than 500,000 students, ranging from junior high school to college age, are now studying or playing jazz in the United States.
"The jazz scene is growing because we're reaching students who've never heard jazz before," said Matt Betton, executive director of the National Association of Jazz Educators, located in Manhattan.
The NAJE is a 14-year association of 2,000 teachers and 2,200 students that promotes the understanding and appreciation of jazz and pop music.
"This has given jazz a great shot in the arm," Wright said. "Younger people are getting interested in it.
"There aren't very many schools that aren't teaching some kind of jazz course."
IN FACT, Betton said, 20,000 high schools now have jazz band bands.
"And 350 to 400 colleges and
universities have jazz programs," Betton said.
He said 27 large universities even had degree programs in jazz.
The University of Kansas does not offer a degree in jazz, but Ron McCurdy, assistant instructor of jazz at the University of Texas, involved more than 400 students.
"We have three levels of jazz improvisation, four or five combes, three big bands, a new jazz choir, jazz arranging and jazz history," he said.
In the past 10 years, Wright said, there has been a tremendous movement toward jazz education.
AND ALTHOUGH Gray's club lost much of its student patronage, he said, the present student interest in jazz could help its popularity in the future.
“Oh, I'm sure it will,” he said. “It is getting more popular and it's definitely on the upswing.”
But Douglas was not as optimistic as Wright
"Jazz was number one in the '50s. So, for only 500,000 to be enrolled across the country seems to me to," he said.
Douglas said the United States had regressed musically from the '50s to the '60s.
"It ought to be more successful," he said. "Whether it is or not, it ought to be."
And if more people don't start putting their money where their musical interests lie?
"Then the Paul Grays and the Ernie Douglases will fold," Douglas said.
NOT ONLY private club owners in the area, but also commercial radio stations have found local interest in jazz unprofitable.
"I don't think jazz will ever be mainstream, popular music again," KLWN's Lee said. "I think jazz tends to be a thinking person's music."
"Ultimately, a station like KLWN has to be all things to all people and offer a variety of music.
"There were times in the past when we did special jazz programming, but we're not doing any right now."
Lee said that because jazz appealed to such a small slice of the audience in the area and because KLWN was the only local commercial AM radio station, the station could not afford to program a lot of jazz.
"As long as its not mass-appeal, it's not mass-profitable," he said.
"A radio station is just like a retail store. It's in business to make money and if it doesn't, it's t'ime to shut the door, turn out the lights and go home."
"I don't think it has to do with geographical preference. It only has to do with the density of the population and the radio stations available," Lee said.
LEE SAID jazz's public appeal was not strong enough to support a jazz station.
He said stations in multi-market areas such as Topeka, Kansas City and New York could afford to go after the iazz interests of their audiences.
One person has recently decided to bank on the jazz interests of Lawrence and open a new club with live jazz entertainment.
Hick McNelly, Lawrence, opened the Jazzhaus on April 1 at the former location of Paul Gray's, 926 Massachusetts St. McNeely said he was hoping that the interest in both jazz and the other types of music he will present would be translated into monetary support.
"You can't really judge something
Neeley said of jazz support
in Lawrence
MNEELY SAID he thought that more people had been gradually attaining a "jazz sensibility" within the past few years.
"But if Lawrence won't support it, I guess we're going to find out."
"All the record companies have, in the last five years, resurrected old records in a crusade for jazz," he said.
"Everytime I tell someone that I'm a jazz musician they say, 'Yeah, jazz is coming back.'
He said people born during the baby boom — between 1946 and 1983 — were now in their late 20s and becoming tired of the same old rock 'n' roll.
"A lot of the people who are into jazz grew up with rock 'n' roll."
"I think a lot of people's tastes are changing," he said.
McNEELY SAID that, as of Saturday, the Jazzhaus had 300 members.
"I would say the response has been more than I expected. There hasn't been a place with q' its live environment," he said in a Lawrence for a "while," he said.
"But whether they're willing to pay money to hear live music is another story. We'll just have to wait and see."
McNeyl said he could only hope people would support the club, which features not only jazz, but reggae, blues and rock 'n' roll.
"I hope so," he said. "That's what I'm betting my money on."
Although McNeely said that few KU students had joined the club, Betton said student interest in jazz constituted jazz's future.
"They can be nothing but a plus," he said.
IT'S MILLER NITE
TUES. APR. 27
Dozens of t-shirts and beer signs to be given away during the nite.
MILLER & LITE
BOTTLES-50c
A Serious Drinking Establishment
"It takes detours when a storm comes along, but it always rights itself on the right course," he said.
WRIGHT PARALLELED the future of the jazz scene with the course run by a ship out at sea.
"It itens to have survived and will survive."
For some of the students in the Jazz Ensemble I, the prospects of a career in jazz seem attainable.
"I hope to make a living at it," said Gary Fincin, Shawne Mission graduate student who directed the ensemble Friday afternoon.
Wright attributed jazz's popularity for students to the improvisational nature of the music.
"It the idea that every time you play, it's something different," he said. "That's an element that draws a lot of people into it."
"We don't push jazz that hard. In students who are involved in music should have the opportunity to be exposed to jazz."
AND THE exposure seems to be capturing more and more students in every student, who could very well sustain and stimulate the local jazz
As the end of my score, it says to let it die naturally," Dinch said as he peered at the score of music before him.
"Then don't shoot it," a horn player warned him.
"Let's play something lively, then we'll play this," the director told the 16 musicians in front of him.
immediately, the anxious students began blasting away, each in his own world.
"Hang on," the director warned the all-too eager musicians. They looked up, then began playing in unison.
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