North Beach will be without a jazz fest this year, according to financially
strapped organizers. Image by Khaosaming via Wikimedia Commons.
According to the folks who put on the annual North Beach Jazz Fest, which features a weekend of free outdoor music in the San Francisco 'hood, the event won't take place this summer. Here's part of this week's announcement:
This annual tradition, which has been enjoyed by thousands of music fans from around the world for 14 years, will be taking a one-year hiatus for financial reasons.
The one-year pause will give festival organizers Sunset Promotions the necessary time to reorganize and re-launch the event on a more sustainable model.
The festival has become increasingly more costly since 2005, when the producers changed the configuration in Washington Square Park to appease a minority who opposed alcohol sales.
The new configuration cost an average of 40 percent more to produce, while revenues have not kept pace. In addition, the Recreation and Park Commission has recently increased their fee requirements to meet massive budget deficits.
"It's really heartbreaking that we couldn't find a way to make it happen, especially because this event means so much to so many," said co-director Robert Kowal. "But it's one thing to work for six months to break even, and another to know you are going to get hurt. Last year the balance tipped too far to the negative."
Organizers plan to relaunch the event next summer. In the meantime, they will host fundraiser concerts with festival mainstay the Rebirth Brass Band on July 24 and 25 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, to offset losses last year. Tickets are here.
This all is a shame, of course, and follows the failure of national magazine JazzTimes in today's economic climate, which I wrote about recently.
A few years back, I interviewed the man behind the North Beach festival, his love of New Orleans brass band music, and the financial challenges facing the fest:
"New Orleans is a perfect storm of culture," said Robbie Kowal, 33, of Sunset Promotions, which puts on the annual celebration of North Beach's Beat-era jazz legacy. "You have this absolutely unique and vibrant jazz-funk scene. Before Katrina, there were 50 brass bands."
Kowal lived in New Orleans for six years, studying at Tulane University and soaking up local culture. He'd catch up to four or five brass band shows a week and eventually helped produce the city's Jazz and Heritage Festival.
"You're talking about bands that were playing in little clubs, little bars on a Sunday afternoon -- neighborhood bands," he said. "It was a very precious and fragile culture. Now that those neighborhoods are destroyed, it's even more precious."
Although they don't compare in scale, problems that North Beach festival organizers dealt with this year threatened the local institution as well.
Facing a budget crunch, San Francisco ratcheted up fees for outdoor events, Kowal said, including a $20,000 jump for police services. The city's Recreation and Park Department also threatened to cut off the sale of alcohol at the free-admission shows, which Kowal said would have ended them.
But an outpouring of support helped sway officials to work with Sunset to make the fest happen. No outside booze is allowed this year, and no hard liquor will be sold -- but the show goes on.
Baton Rouge's downtown skyline clings to the Mississippi mud.
With the Golden State's economy in turmoil, this writer will depart
for Louisiana's capital city for crawfish, zydeco and employment.
Well, that was then. Hard times got harder, and good times now seem fewer and farther between. The so-called Golden State's unstoppable deflating economy has driven this writer, coincidentally, to the fertile earth that spawned jazz in the first place, Louisiana.
Having been laid off by the Oakland Tribune company a full year ago (they're ready to fire even more reporters, by the way) and relying on sporadic freelance gigs since, I'll be working for the Greater Baton Rouge Business Report to chronicle far better fiscal circumstances, such as a mere $1 billion budget deficit compared with California's $24 billion black hole, and actual job growth. Per the daily paper in Baton Rouge:
In May, Louisiana lost 3,700 jobs -- the third time in five months the state has seen employment losses this year -- and the state now rests 15,700 jobs below a year ago, a further sign that the national recession is affecting the state.
Baton Rouge bucked the downward trend, gaining 300 jobs from April to May, with total employment up 1,300 jobs from a year ago to 376,000. That makes it the only metropolitan area in Louisiana to post both monthly and annual jobs gains.
Or, as my new employer set the scene in a recent column:
While much of the rest of the nation continues to struggle with a tough economy and job losses, Louisiana and its capital city seem blessed. We are bucking the trend seen across the country.
Gov. Bobby Jindal and Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret have laid the foundation, reduced taxes, assembled a team, put training programs in place, used the megafund wisely, negotiated with integrity and worked relentlessly to get the job done. And Louisiana and its people are the winners.
That kind of news should make Jindal's likely bid to oust Obama from the White House a sweet story to be in town for. I bet the Republican's recent speaking hiccup will be all but forgot by then.
By the way, if you want to come and visit, there should be plenty to do besides read about business in the land of Louis, including eating delectable crawfish dishes and swinging out to Cajun and zydeco music.
If you don't want to make the trek, though, there's plenty of that to be found in the Bay Area. A calendar of local Cajun-zydeco dances is here, and you can't go wrong with my favorite Louisiana-themed local eateries, Angeline's in Berkeley and CreoLa in San Carlos. Bon temps, y'all.
Further cementing the Louisiana-Bay Area connection is a nonprofit called For the Bayou, which raises awareness of coastal destruction along the Gulf. The group partnered with Sunset Promotions for an event July 19 in North Beach, featuring Swedish expat and New Orleans musician Anders Osborne. Get the lowdown here.
My other blog on Examiner.com has stuff to read as well. Some of it is even different from this blog's goodies.
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