Josh Grossman's blog

A few quick thoughts for today's post...

RIP Paul Motian

It's been a busy couple of weeks, so you may have noticed that I've fallen behind on my blogging. I had fully intended "The Audience Issue" to be a multi-week series of hard-hitting blogs, delving deep into some of the challenges facing today's jazz scene. You know, 60 Minutes style. But given the lack of continuity I think it's a bit closer to 37 Minutes or so. In any case, I'll wrap up the series today with a discussion on venue.

I'm in Montreal for a couple of days checking out L'Off Festival de Jazz so this will be a shorter post.

A couple of weeks ago, I referred in my blog to an interview with Branford Marsalis posted on the Seattle Weekly website (here it is). The ideas covered off in the interview - why some jazz isn't connecting with some audiences - stuck with me, and have been on my mind recently.

So I'm sitting here, working away, listening to an NPR podcast of the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble's performance at this year's Newport Jazz Festival. And I'm thinking: as I prepare myself for another season with my own big band - spending a ton of time lining up personnel, sorting out musician availability and trying to find funding, not to mention choosing music, updating the website, etc. - why, exactly, do I do this year after year?

Last week, I was sent (thanks Denise!) a link to a condensed and edited version of an interview Branford Marsalis did with Chris Kornelis from the Seattle Weekly. (The article is here.) In a nutshell, Branford is suggesting that some jazz artists have some work to do when it comes to connecting their music with their audience. He suggests that:

This arrived today in my inbox from the Toronto Arts Foundation:

So where, exactly, did July and August go?

I hope you've had a great couple of months. My schedule has been a bit erratic over the past eight weeks, so you may have noticed (or am I flattering myself?) that I haven't made a new blog post in about, well, eight weeks. So - here I am, shaking out the cobwebs, slowly getting myself back into a routine. Thus the "re-wiring" of the post's title.

My opening question was a bit rhetorical, actually. I know where my July and August went (or, at least, August). It went here:

Canada lost one of its jazz giants at the beginning of June with the passing of Dave McMurdo. A celebration of Dave's life is taking place tonight (Monday, July 4) at The Rex Hotel. Things kick off around 7 pm with the trio of Reg Schwager, Paul Novotny and Kevin Dempsey. At 9:30, the Dave McMurdo Jazz Orchestra will perform one set of music; the trio will then take the stage once again for an informal jazz session. Ted O'Reilly will emcee the evening's proceedings.

Well, that's a wrap. After ten action-packed days of great music and great company, I woke up this morning with nowhere in particular to go. It will take me a couple of days to readjust to "real life", and then before I know it we'll be talking about 2012...

Here's the rundown on my last day of the 2011 festival: