| For five years now, C-Jazz (The Calgary Jazz Association) has been fuelled by blood, sweat and volunteer time. But now the organization has received a much-needed financial injection.
With a mandate to foster participation in civic life, a wing of the Canadian federal government known as Canadian Heritage has committed $45,000 to C-Jazz in an effort to support year-round jazz gigs. Although they won’t receive the cheque until April, president Pat Maiani received notification of the grant money on January 21. For him it means the realization of something that he has been working for since the organization formed. "It means we can do more of what we want to do," he says.
C-Jazz has been trying to balance paying local jazz artists while still putting on reasonably priced shows. Their annual festival is a highlight of Calgary’s jazz year. "What we wanted to do was provide a venue for local jazz artists to play what they wanted to play rather than have to depend so much on corporate gigs," says Maiani. "Up until five years ago, local jazz artists didn’t have the support they needed to play their own compositions."
Socially, jazz has been the black sheep of the musical family. At times indefinable and often wide-reaching, Canadian Heritage has championed those aspects of the genre by supplying the resources C-Jazz needed to lift jazz to new heights.
"Jazz hasn’t had the profile it deserves," says Gerry Kretzel, program consultant at Canadian Heritage. "It’s jazz, more specifically C-Jazz, that can offer that springboard to bolster jazz and its reputation. Also, we wanted to introduce a new group of people to what jazz can offer."
According to Kretzel, the Jazz City organization in Edmonton operates annual international jazz festivals in Edmonton and Calgary, but they don’t have consistent year-round jazz programming. "Jazz has continually taken a back seat and right now is a great opportunity for Canadian Heritage to get involved," he says.
The funding comes at a point in the history of C-Jazz where the organization has built enough of an audience to make the funding worthwhile. Maiani says the association has evolved in other ways and now the C-Jazz board is the perfect composition of musicians, jazz fans and producers needed to put the money to good use.
"The economics of presenting jazz are difficult sometimes," says Maiani. When you consider that Beatniq Jazz and Social Club reaches capacity with about 80 people, if ticket prices are kept low the money left for the touring artists is often not enough to make it worthwhile to come to Calgary – especially when that money has to be split between five musicians. Vancouver and Edmonton have clubs with a capacity of 200 patrons or more and these numbers make a big difference to touring jazz musicians. With Canadian Heritage backing, C-Jazz now has the means to subsidize the cost of those performances, ensuring that quality jazz acts will make a stop in our city.
Maiani says that the money will also help local jazz students take advantage of the artists while they are in Calgary. In conjunction with Jim Brennan, the head of the jazz program at Mount Royal College, C-Jazz plans to set up clinics with professional touring musicians.
Ultimately, however, the funding is going to strengthen the jazz community in Calgary. "There are lots of locals with ideas who don’t have the resources to bring them to fruition," says Maiani. "This funding will give us a bit more stability to do these kinds of things. C-Jazz will go from an organization that focuses on the festival to one that focuses on jazz throughout the year."
On January 28 C-Jazz kicks off "The Best in Canadian Jazz Series" with bassist Chris Tarry (see story). Bobby Cairns, Michel Donato, James Gelfand, Bernard Primeau, Dr. Lonnie Smith and Calgary jazz artist Chris Jennings are also slated for visits. |
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