The SF JAZZ Center: Taking Jazz Music Ahead

The SF JAZZ Center. Photo: Charles Kremenak (flickr)

Jazz maybe a sophisticated and evolved art form but making it commercially viable as a product is a seriously uphill task. Through changing economic conditions in the US through the last five or six decades, the marketing of jazz has been a tough task in comparison to say rock or ‘pop’ music, although it is classical in nature by comparison.  Jazz has often been paired with other offerings, mainly food and drink, has been offered as entertainment in restaurants and bars; it has also worked well as in jazz festivals, but the viability of jazz as a concert hall feature has posed serious challenges. Sure, you can fill a hall if a Miles Davis or Ella Fitzgerald is artist featured. The challenge is in getting regular full houses for lesser names on the marquee. This seems to be changing.

I was amazed to see the SF JAZZ Center in San Francisco. It is a unique organization.

The story of how the SF JAZZ Center came into being is quite inspirational and is the result of one man with a dream of creating a state of the art jazz institution.

The vision and perseverance of one man, Randall Kline and his single minded focus  has been the reason that the SF Jazz Center exists today.

The significance of this jazz center extends beyond the San Francisco and Bay area which it serves. It is recognized all over the US as a landmark jazz organization. It is worth finding out a little more about this superb set up. The center was opened in January 2013 after Kline, with the help of community fund raising had raised several million dollars. In the short time since, the SF JAZZ Center  has now come to be recognized as one of the best performing arts centers in the US and has received awards from acoustic and architecture organizations for the beauty and technical sophistication of it’s construction and layout. Apart from having year round jazz performances, SF JAZZ has an outreach  program benefiting the community in general and the cause of jazz performance in general.

The uniqueness of this jazz center is that it has resident musical directors who have the opportunity to curate and perform new concepts,premiere new works and  participate in the centers outreach efforts.

These resident musical directors are selected on the basis of their careers, commitment and contribution to jazz. Thus musicians such as Terence Blanchard, Esperanza Spalding, Joshua Redman, Eric Harland and Ustad Zakir Hussain among others hold these positions of musical directors and bring their vast experience in music to the jazz community.

Two auditoriums, the Robert N. Miner auditorium and the Joe Henderson Lab are the state of the art performance spheres for SF JAZZ in its spectacular jazz center in San Francisco.

It is to be hoped that other cities and communities worldwide, will be inspired to duplicate this model.

A resurgence in jazz popularity has taken place in the last decade or so. Audiences are attracted to the genre and the emergence of so many young musicians from jazz schools worldwide is ensuring that the renaissance of jazz music is under way. After some confusion since the introduction of electronic instruments in jazz, the music was losing ground to other genres of music; however, the music has absorbed the influences of the past few decades and is now headed, stronger than ever into exciting regions in the stratosphere.

With initiatives such as the exciting SF JAZZ, there is much hope that audiences will enjoy the experience of being inspired by some fine jazz.

Happy 2016 to all. Hope it brings with it some inspiring jazz in all our lives.