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Even though the jazz festival crashed this year, one of Calgary's longstanding jazz events is still floating. Jazz on the Lake, the annual cruise along the scenic Glenmore Reservoir, is now in its 11th year. Set aboard the SS Moyie, the event consistently draws a solid attendance, stays financially solvent and delivers top talent. How, you may ask? The answers are in its beginnings: Organizers have skilfully managed change while finding a delicate milieu between balancing books and maintaining musical credibility.
With its roots in Dixieland jazz, the cruise was established in the early ’90s as part of the Calgary Jazz Festival. But when the cruise was cancelled in 1996, the jazz-on-a-boat idea languished for several years before the Jazz Is Society stepped into the picture.
"The idea was, as we've said in some of our literature, to revive a jazz festival tradition," says John Reid, artistic director for the society.
And revive it they did, although they’ve made a few changes along the way. The first significant shift was switching the event’s date from June to July.
"Funny thing," says Reid, recalling the early Jazz on the Lake gigs. “I remember one of the captains [of the Moyie] saying, as we were looking at the clouds coming in, ‘You know, it always rains in June.’”
"And then one year it rained so much — the flood year, in ’05 — and they drained the lake. So we had jazz near the lake,” Reid laughs. “We went into the barn [at Heritage Park]. At that point, we got the memo from the captain officially. So we moved it to July."
And that wasn’t the only change. Next, organizers shifted the programming of the event, electing for hardcore bop instead of traditional Dixieland fare, an approach more consistent with the society’s regular bookings.
“We’d be doing these incredible concerts [throughout the year] with visiting artists like Hugh Fraser, Bernie Senensky from Toronto, Jeff Johnson from Montreal, Masako Kano from New York and Ian McDougall from Victoria. They were these incredible post-hard-bop-style concerts,” says Reid. “Then in the summer we'd do Dixieland. It just didn't seem to be consistent with the musicality of the society, so we made a conscious change.”
Despite the event’s evolution, a few crucial elements have remained consistent — and those proved key to the event's success.
"The first principle of showbiz is you've gotta have all the money in the bank to pay all the bills in case nobody shows up,” says Reid, recalling the advice of an old colleague.
According to government rules, as with any regular music festival or gig, Jazz Is had to operate for two years before obtaining grants (the thinking behind that rule is to allow events such as Jazz on the Lake to become independently sustainable).
“What we've done for Jazz on the Lake, it’s very small, but we've had a surplus in several consecutive years which gives a little bit of a nest egg to pay the deposits that are necessary,” he says, citing costs such as boat rental fees. “That's the thing to always keep sight of — how the finances are going to work. I think we've done that well."
And while the financial side of the event is critical, it’s all part of the balancing act. As Reid explains, it’s not the sole consideration going into the event.
"I guess the two aspects are artistic credibility and financial viability and keeping those two balanced,” he says. “Those are the two factors that have kept it going.”
And as an event that’s still thriving after more than a decade in operation, Jazz on the Lake isn’t just, in Reid’s words, keeping going. It’s been a success story for Calgary’s jazz communit
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