Now in 25th year, the Beaches International Jazz Festival succeeds by appealing to a broad (though local) audience.
A-one and a-two.
Bill King likes doing jazz math. Like, how many jazz heroes selling how many tickets equals jazz festival success?
It’s a sticky problem for others, but not for King. As artistic director of the Beaches International Jazz Festival, “we don’t have ticketed events,” he says. “Yet we draw numbers that far exceed our budget, which is really minimal at $500,000 spread out over 10 days. And about 95 per cent of that audience is from our immediate community.”
The 10-day festival in its 25th year may in fact point the way for jazz festivals of the future. Still advertising itself as “North America’s largest free festival,” Beaches International expects some 1 million fans from July 19 to 28.
Elsewhere, however, the old musical equation of big names equaling big ticket sales doesn’t add up the way it once did. “It’s because there are not many heroes left,” King says. Name-driven big-ticket festivals such as the recent TD Toronto Jazz Festival “have to make compensations for that.”
The 60-something King — equally adept as a jazz pianist, photographer, publisher and radio host — was warned about the dwindling jazz star-system years back by the late Gene Lees, the rascally but imminent Canadian jazz writer, lyricist and biographer of Oscar Peterson, among other musicians.
“Out of about 500 really famous jazz names in jazz history, there are about 50 left,” Lees told King (echoing what Lees told others, this writer included). “So what happens when these 50 names are gone?”
Well, the remaining names Lees was talking about are mostly gone. And their younger peers have yet to appear. “That’s why a lot of festivals have shut down,” says King. “That’s why a lot of jazz stations are dropping the jazz format. There are not many singers around who have a story as exciting as Billie Holiday’s. There are no gangsters in jazz any more. So many festivals are in the same boat.”
It’s the very boat Beaches International is rocking with funky innovations like its first “Taste of Jazz/Gourmet Food Truck Extravaganza” in Woodbine Park July 23-24, or with Latin jazz in the designated Latin Square at the foot of Lee Ave. or with its multitude of local bands along Queen St. E. with names such as Who Stole the Cookies,God Made Me Funky and Phusion. Well, phar out.
Jazz festivals worldwide face the danger of becoming the modern museums of jazz, where order reigns and reputations are embalmed. But the Beaches festival functions more along the lines of a large-scale yearly backyard family outing. Started by producer Lido Chilelli in 1989 as a small-scale two-day local event, the festival has progressed to the point where Toronto jazz elders watch the kids coming of age each year. Indeed, at the Kew Gardens Youth Stage on July 28, veteran local stars Alex Dean, Lorne Lofsky and Brian Dickinson will be mingling musically with younger players.
At age 16, JP Saxe appeared on the Beaches youth stage. “At 18 and 19 I graduated to the new generation stage,” says the multi-instrumental composer. “And this year I’m on the Kew Gardens main stage,”
on July 27 with the great Roberto Linares Brown Orchestra and others. “Suffice to say I have grown up with the Beaches jazz fest. And yes, I have developed an audience that has stayed with me long past summertime.”
“Jazz is now in a survival mode,” says Bill King. “We look around to see who’s been busy this year. If they’re really good at being busy, there’s a spot for them in the festival.”
Bill King’s own Rhythm Express helps close out the Beaches festival at the Kew Gardens main stage on July 28. For more information go to www.beachesjazz.com