Report from Rochester

This is my first visit to Rochester, New York, in more than twenty years. I thought in the 1980s that it was an agreeable place, slightly down at the heels in some districts but riding in comfort on the economic updraft of its biggest corporate anchors, Eastman Kodak, Xerox and Bausch & Lomb. Kodak and Xerox have cut local employment sharply in the past few years. At $28,000, the median annual income in this city of 215,000 is about $14,000 below the national average. In compensation, real estate prices are dramatically lower those of other urban areas on both coasts. As we drove near downtown through pristine neighborhoods built at or before the turn of the twentieth century, my guide from the Greater Rochester Visitors Association pointed out splendid-looking houses that she said would sell for half or less the price of comparable houses in Seattle, Miami or San Francisco. The streets, sidewalks and vacant lots of even the most economically fatigued parts of Rochester seemed to me remarkably free of litter and debris, compared with those of other big cities. "Yes," Patti Donaghue told me, "just about everyone who comes here says that."

Following a period of sustained civic unease generated by a long-term partisan standoff between former mayor William Johnson and Monroe County Executive Jack Doyle, the city is benefiting from unaccustomed cooperation between city and county. The new mayor, Robert Duffy, is a former police chief and a Democrat. The new county executive, Maggie Brooks, is a former television anchor and reporter and a Republican. Unlike their predecessors, they speak to one another and are working together toward solutions for the Rochester area's problems, which include a $102-million-dollar county budget deficit over the next two years. Despite early indications that the two will continue to collaborate, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle found it necessary to publish a recent editorial warning that differences over a tax-increase solution to the budget deficit could "develop into a recurrence of a dysfunction that was stifling for too long." Still, Rochesterians with whom I've talked this week are optimistic that the new city-county government atmosphere has begun to melt the glacier of disillusion and apathy that blocked progress and enthusiasm. Among the beneficiaries of the thaw are the arts.

Encouraging as it may be that in 2006 there is at least one island of cooperative leadership in the American poliical landscape, I am not in Rochester to report on politics, but on the ninth edition of a phenomenon called Swing 'n Jazz. It is a piece of a cultural mosaic that, for its variety and vitality, would be remarkable in many larger cities. Swing 'n Jazz is three days of musical activities sponsored and organized by The Commission Project. TCP's mission description reads that it shall foster "creativity through music education by bringing students together with professional composers and performers in schools and communities nationwide." Swing (as in golf) 'n Jazz is built around a tournament attracting well-heeled contributors who provide the money that keeps the nonprofit TCP running. Some of the musicians involved swing on both fronts. But, mostly, they work with students and those who educate students, to improve understanding of how to make jazz.

There are those--Paul Desmond claimed to be one--who believe that jazz can be learned but not taught. There are others--like trumpeter Marvin Stamm, this year's music director of Swing 'n Jazz--who volunteer to come here and prove that it can be learned and taught. This morning, I witnessed Stamm and a colleague in a workshop setting, helping the musicians of an already-accomplished big band with nuances and subleties that more or less instantly improved their interpretation of arrangements. Each member of that band is a public school teacher who shapes the talents of student muscians. More in the next posting on that and other aspects of this heartening event. Right now, I'm moving on to the next installment of Swing 'n Jazz, which is described as a "Gala Jam Session," with Stamm in charge of herding the cats.