{"id":63,"date":"2008-01-14T11:26:06","date_gmt":"2008-01-14T16:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/2008\/01\/international_jazz_at_iaje\/"},"modified":"2011-04-28T16:35:05","modified_gmt":"2011-04-28T20:35:05","slug":"international_jazz_at_iaje","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2008\/01\/international_jazz_at_iaje.html","title":{"rendered":"International Jazz at IAJE"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Everywhere I’ve been in in the past couple of years – and I’ve been everywhere<\/i> — young people have put aside their indigenous musics and adopted jazz and blues as their Esperanto,” said Quincy Jones<\/a>, most famous of the 2008 NEA Jazz Masters<\/a> at the 35th annual International Association for Jazz Education conference<\/a> in Toronto last week.<\/p>\n


\nCertainly Canadians and Brits seemed as fluent in jazz (if not blues) basics as attending U.S. students, teachers and music industry players during four days of concerts and jam sessions, instrumental clinics, professional panels, public interviews, exhibition hall installations and invaluable informal exchanges in the halls of several conference sites as well as surrounding clubs, bars and restaurants.
\nJones, long-ago trumpeter and bandleader, now revered as producer of Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall<\/i><\/a> and Thriller<\/i><\/a> and “We Are The World”<\/a> was preaching to the choir, of course, and compared to years when IAJE has been held in New York City – still Mecca to jazz devotees worldwide – the choir had thinned. Attendance was down due to new U.S.-imposed travel restrictions and the $s decline, which made Toronto no bargain; major record labels in particular were conspicuous in their absence. There was also a slighter-than-might-be showing of Scandanvians, southern Europeans, Asians, Caribbeans, Central and South Americans. Maybe Toronto in January isn’t a super destinations spot (weather was dry, but cold).
\nStill, the throng of teens and 20-somethings suggested that commercial pop is not the only soundtrack for contemporary socializing. Both at the Metro Toronto Convention Center and at local watering holes such as the Rex Hotel Jazz and Blues Bar<\/a>, young listeners’ attentions proved this music – mostly in its current, eclectic and electric mode as represented at the Rex one night by NYC guitarist Joel Harrison’s Harbor Quintet<\/a> — remains a fashionable element of an urban lifestyle.
\nThe internationality of Q’s claim was further validated by our host country’s attention to its favorite son Oscar Peterson<\/a>, whose demise December 23 resulted in a hastily convened tribute concert featuring performances by Chicago-born pianist Herbie Hancock<\/a>, singer Nancy Wilson<\/a> and Canadian opera star Measha Brueggergosman<\/a> (but not, as vice president of the Jazz Journalists Association James Hale<\/a> noted, native Canadian jazz pianists such as Andy Milne<\/a>, Renee Rosnes<\/a>, D.D. Jackson<\/a> and John Stetch<\/a> who really grew up under Peterson’s influence and have each taken the music their own ways). A concertizing UK contingent curated by saxophonist Courtney Pine<\/a> included veteran guitarist Martin Taylor<\/a> and the well-received band Empirical<\/a>; the official concluding conference performance showcased Vancouver-based clarinetist Francois Houle<\/a>‘s octet, Montreal’s Les Projectionnistes<\/a>, and Toronto drummer Barry Romberg’s Random Access Large Ensemble<\/a>.
\nSorry to say, I missed too much of the conference music, due to moderating, panelizing and Jazz Journalists Association responsibilities. But I picked up these informational tidbits:
\nAccording to Nielsen\/Soundscan figures prepared for Billboard magazine and announced by jazz consultant Ricky Schultz on a panel probing the health of the jazz cd, 2007’s best selling “jazz” album was Call Me Irresponsible<\/i><\/a> by non-improvising vocalist Michael Bubl\u00c3\u00a9 (at some 1.3 million units). Of the 25 top-selling albums only seven were instrumental – two of those were connected to Ken Burns’ PBS documentary The War<\/i><\/a>, and the best-selling instrumentalists were smooth jazz saxists Kenny G<\/a> and Boney James<\/a> (the Jazz Beyond Jazz staff is currently working on a “No Smooth Jazz” button design).
\nAs reported by Borders Books and Music<\/a>‘s jazz buyer Jessica Sendra – the surviving franchise trying to stock jazz in depth (as many as 18,000 titles at its biggest brick and mortar outlets) — Thelonious Monk<\/a> and Miles Davis (represented by The Complete On The Corner<\/i><\/a> boxed set) were best-sellers, along with the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Indian Summer<\/i><\/a>, sax virtuoso Michael Brecker’s final album Pilgrimage<\/i><\/a>, trumpeter Terence Blanchard’s A Tale of God’s Will: A Requiem for Katrina<\/i><\/a>, and RnR<\/i><\/a>by smooth jazz guys Rick Braun (trumpet) and Richard Elliott (tenor sax).
\nConcord Music Group<\/a> hailed Starbucks as a great place to buy jazz compilations.
\nThe jazz blog world could well expand exponentially, according to jazz and beyond bloggers Darcy James Argue<\/a>, Carl Wilson<\/a>, David Ryshpan<\/a> and David Adler<\/a> (where are the women bloggers?), though there does seem to be an age divide involved in a blog’s power to push new artists and new venues. Don’t forget Bagatellen<\/a>! More on this in weeks to come.
\nThe 2008 NEA Jazz Masters – beside Q, swinging trumpeter Joe Wilder<\/a>, modernist composer-arranger Tom McIntosh<\/a>, Pulitzer Prize-winning “third stream” conceptualist-composer-arranger-educator and jazz historian-Gunther Schuller<\/a> and conguero Candido Camero<\/a> – were interviewed onstage at IAJE by former NEA deputy chair A.B. Spellman (expansionist arts advocate, poet, wiseman and author of the enduring Four Lives in the Bebop Business<\/i><\/a>, who I’m proud to say also blurbed my book Miles Ornette Cecil – Jazz Beyond Jazz<\/i><\/a>); Joanne Robinson Hill, widow of the unforgotten Andrew Hill<\/a>, was there, too, and such earlier-named Jazz Masters as Paquito D’Rivera<\/a>. All were introduced by jazz-enthusiast NEA Chairman (and poet) Dana Gioia<\/a> (whose likely departure following this year’s presidential elections provokes speculation: Who will next head the NEA? Q himself? IAJE exec director Bill McFarlin? Thelonious Monk Institute<\/a> executive director Tom Carter? One or more of the Marsalis brothers? Someone far removed from jazz and blues? Oprah?)
\nHowever, U.S. support for our own indigenous art form was somewhat overshadowed by the Canada Council for the Arts’<\/a> announcement of $1 million in jazz scholarships, established to honor Oscar Peterson and following its 4.4 million looney international research project regarding “Improvisation, Community and Social Practice<\/a>.” The NEA was rumored to be meeting at IAJE with the Canadian Council. Maybe all together we can work something out.
\nhowardmandel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Everywhere I’ve been in in the past couple of years – and I’ve been everywhere — young people have put aside their indigenous musics and adopted jazz and blues as their Esperanto,” said Quincy Jones, most famous of the 2008 NEA Jazz Masters at the 35th annual International Association for Jazz Education conference in Toronto […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-63","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1i3CL-11","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":993,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2012\/08\/jazz-festivals-in-newport-and-everywhere.html","url_meta":{"origin":63,"position":0},"title":"Jazz Festivals in Newport, and everywhere","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"August 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The 58th anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festival starts tonight (Friday, 8\/3) in Rhode Island, and thanks to producer George Wein, there's a press bus going that I'll be on. But you don't have to go to Newport for the jazz fest experience -- small towns as well as large\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2007\/07\/howard_mandel.html","url_meta":{"origin":63,"position":1},"title":"Howard Mandel","author":"djm","date":"July 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm a Chicago-born (and after 30 years in NYC, repatriated in 2014) writer, editor, author, arts reporter for National Public Radio, non-profit organization consultant and videographer -- a veteran freelance journalist working on newspapers, magazines and websites, appearing on tv and radio, teaching at New York University and elsewhere, specializing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "about"","block_context":{"text":"about","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/about"},"img":{"alt_text":"HM2.for%20web.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/HM2.for%20web.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":65,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2008\/01\/jazz_edbeyondjazz_in_toronto.html","url_meta":{"origin":63,"position":2},"title":"Jazz Ed-Beyond-Jazz? in Toronto","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"January 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Education is one aspect of the jazz world in evident ascent; Down Beat last spring listed some 180 North American schools offering degrees in the music born a century ago in taverns and brothels. The 35th annual International Association for Jazz Education conference, in Toronto this weekend, suggests how far\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2459,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2018\/08\/labor-day-jazz-fests-starting-with-chicagos.html","url_meta":{"origin":63,"position":3},"title":"Labor Day jazz fests, starting with Chicago’s","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"August 30, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The\u00c2\u00a040th annual Chicago Jazz Festival, four days free to all of unfettered, usually joyous music held in beautiful downtown Millennium Park,\u00c2\u00a0 started last night with stars of of the local scene celebrating\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\"Legends and Lions\".\u00c2\u00a0Add \"Ancient to the Future\"\u00c2\u00a0to set the tone for a weekend of exciting, civically-supported music here --\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/chi-listens-300x216.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2552,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2019\/01\/2018-jazz-blues-and-beyond-deaths-w-links.html","url_meta":{"origin":63,"position":4},"title":"2018 jazz, blues and beyond deaths w\/ links","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"January 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Cecil Taylor, March 15, 1929 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c April 5, 2018, photo by S\u00c3\u00a1nta Istv\u00c3\u00a1n Csaba Not a happy post, but a useful one: here are the hundreds of musicians and music industry activists who died in 2018, as compiled by photographer-writer Ken Franckling for the Jazz Journalists Association. Ken scoured local\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/CecilTaylor-nea-jazz-master-2014-santa.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1102,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2012\/11\/critics-scholars-musicians-enjoy-jazz-fest-lost-in-diversity-conference.html","url_meta":{"origin":63,"position":5},"title":"Critics, scholars, musicians @ Enjoy Jazz Fest, Lost in Diversity conference","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"November 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"International jazz journalists, academic scholars, presenters and musicians rarely meet together, but that's the plan for the\u00c2\u00a0\"Lost in Diversity\" conference\u00c2\u00a0 during the\u00c2\u00a014th\u00c2\u00a0Enjoy Jazz Fest,\u00c2\u00a0which\u00c2\u00a0I'm attending tomorrow (Nov 7) through Sunday in Heidelberg, Germany. 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