I am writing this to you after a long discussion with my father and brother. We are all jazz fans, and I am a professional musician and music teacher.
We all take great offense at Howard Reich’s slamming of the upcoming Chicago Jazz Festival (Arts & Entertainment, Aug. 24).
The festival, no matter who plays from one year to the next, is nevertheless one of Chicago’s great summertime events, and in no conceivable way does it deserve to be prematurely condemned.
To refute Reich point by point:
1. It is unfair to compare the Chicago Jazz Festival with the Ravinia jazz programming or the South Shore Jazzfest. Ravinia charges a healthy admission for all kinds of popular and classical music programming, including some of the nation’s finest jazz musicians. It does not offer, and probably never will, a generous sampling of local, national and international jazz acts, one after the next, over several successive nights–for free.
The South Shore Jazzfest, a welcome addition to the musical landscape, is a much smaller event. Moreover, everyone in the musical community knows that it represents a valiant effort on the part of Geraldine De Haas and others to bring back quality live jazz to the South Side, which is so rich in jazz history and, at present, is so relatively bereft of jazz.
2. The commissioning of special compositions, creation of dream bands, and reunions of historic ensembles (Reich’s terms), which have characterized past festivals, are notably absent from this year’s festival. No doubt, as Reich says, this is in part on account of the festival’s tiny budget. But they’re also risky and frequently fall flat. I know! I’ve been there! I’ve sat through grandly conceived orchestral suites that were under-rehearsed, badly played and ill-conceived to begin with.
3. Reich complains about this year’s lineup as if it hardly includes people worth listening to. (Now, I realize that here I am getting into questions of taste, and it goes without saying that Reich’s tastes, and ours, are poles apart.) Still, with its minuscule budget, the Jazz Institute has come up with a formidable lineup, the best in years from the mainstream listener’s perspective.
I am not arguing in favor of a festival that panders to the lowest common denominator, which, we all agree, is probably what would happen if the Mayor’s Office of Special Events were to take control (as Reich suggests).
But neither should the avant-garde experimentalists he proposes be allowed a disproportionate influence on festival programming. The whole idea of the festival is to present a quality lineup of musicians from all styles of jazz. And that it has managed on the whole to do, year after year, with no thanks to extremists like Howard Reich.
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