Chicago jazz is about to lose one of the best friends it ever had.
In fact, the recent announcement that Ravinia Festival president Zarin Mehta will become executive director of the New York Philharmonic at summer’s end will affect jazz listeners far more than their classical counterparts.
Essentially, that’s because Ravinia has flourished as a bastion of classical music–and as summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra–for more than half a century. With an endowment in excess of $200 million and a $16 million operating budget that has bled no red ink through most of the ’90s, Ravinia is sitting pretty.
But Mehta wasn’t content to watch the throngs pour in for picnics under the stars. As the rare arts manager who knew how to balance a budget while taking artistic risks, he exponentially raised the stature of jazz at Ravinia. Unwilling to stop there, he pushed his jazz agenda into the city of Chicago, dreaming up innovative, urban outreach jazz programs and signing the checks that made them possible.
No sooner had Mehta arrived at Ravinia than he inaugurated Jazz in June, a sprawling, 10-night festival that presented everyone from Oscar Peterson to Ella Fitzgerald, starting in 1991. Mehta signed no less than saxophonist-bandleader Gerry Mulligan to serve as Jazz in June artistic director, with Mulligan giving Ravinia the world premiere of his haunting “Re-Birth of the Cool” project, among other indelible nights.
Lest anyone think these ventures were easy to stage, it’s worth remembering that North Shore audiences at first did not flock to jazz events. Old habits are hard to break. And the Michael Jordan years with the Chicago Bulls decimated many an audience, since the NBA finals generally unfolded just as Jazz in June was taking wing.
But Mehta refused to concede defeat. Repackaging his jazz soiree as a four-day marathon that included daytime and wee-hours sets, Mehta rechristened the event Jazz at Ravinia and saw audiences swell. The lineup of jazz master classes and late-night shows proved that even Ravinia could learn to swing. (This season’s Jazz at Ravinia begins Thursday.)
Because Mehta understood that jazz will not develop new audiences if youngsters can’t hear the music, he initiated the Ravinia Jazz Mentors, a glorious project that placed top-notch Chicago jazz musicians in the Chicago schools. To see musicians of the stature of trumpeter Orbert Davis and pianist Willie Pickens introducing youngsters to tunes by Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong was to acquire new faith in the future of an art form.
And Mehta never stopped inventing. Two years ago, he created a Rising Stars of Jazz series that brought emerging talent to both the Ravinia Festival and the DuSable Museum of African-American History, on the South Side. Later this month, the newly minted Steans Institute Program for Jazz will bring lectures, master classes, group coaching and individual instruction to 22 students. Though most of the activity will be for participants only, Mehta had considered opening them up to the public next year, should the first edition prove successful.
Ravinia barely has begun searching for Mehta’s replacement, but finding a seasoned arts executive who can manage a prestigious classical festival while nurturing jazz across the metropolitan area will be difficult, if not impossible. Generally, arts managers hold expertise in one area or the other, which is why Symphony Center years earlier began consulting with Mehta on its jazz offerings. Ravinia’s jazz breakthroughs were the direct result of Mehta’s passion for the music. He takes his commitment to jazz, and the personal clout he used on behalf of the music, with him.
Ultimately, Mehta set the standard by which other Chicago jazz presenters could be judged. Compared to Jazz at Ravinia, for instance, the Chicago Jazz Festival in its latter years has proved amateurish. Compared to the creativity of Mehta’s ventures at Ravinia and in the Chicago Public Schools, Symphony Center’s jazz series has seemed one-dimensional. (Mehta, alas, never could coax Symphony Center into matching the risks he was taking at Ravinia).
No doubt Chicago has had many important jazz advocates over the years, chief among them Joe Segal, who has been presenting the music without compromise for 52 years. But Segal never had the Ravinia millions at his disposal.
Other arts administrators in Chicago have not shown a fraction of Mehta’s passion for jazz, nor his ability to build new audiences with daring programs.
So farewell, Zarin, you will be missed–more than you know.
JAZZ AT RAVINIA SCHEDULE
Following is the schedule for Jazz at Ravinia; for information, phone 847-266-5100.
Thursday: James Moody & Friends at the Martin Theatre, 6 p.m.; Rosemary Clooney, Dave Brubeck Quartet and Marian McPartland in the Pavilion, 8 p.m.; Ensemble Stop-Time in the Martin Theatre, following the Pavilion show.
Friday: Guitarist Russell Malone leading a master class in the Martin Theatre, 4 p.m.; pianist Benny Green with Malone and drummer Brandon Owens in the Martin Theatre, 6 p.m.; the Marcus Roberts Trio, with trumpeter Nicholas Payton, on a double-bill with Cassandra Wilson in the Pavilion, 8 p.m.; the DKV Trio, featuring saxophonist Ken Vandermark, in the Martin Theatre following the Pavilion show.
Saturday: Pianist Danilo Perez leading a master class in the Martin Theatre, 4 p.m.; the Ravinia Jazz Mentors in the Martin Theatre, 6 p.m.; pianist Chucho Valdes in a tribute to Tito Puente in the Pavilion, 8 p.m.; singer-guitarist Juan-Carlos Formell in the Martin Theatre following the Pavilion show.
June 18: Drummer Roy Haynes leading a master class in the Martin Theatre, 4 p.m.; the Roy Haynes Trio, with pianist Perez and bassist John Patitucci, in the Martin Theatre, 6 p.m.; the Oscar Peterson Quartet in the Pavilion, 8 p.m.
