You heard the ads: “Detroit International Jazz Festival, Baby – It’s All Here!” Well, it really WAS. With a great lineup and hundreds of thousands of the best fans you’ll find anywhere, we celebrated the music that defines Detroit, and the 30th anniversary of this signature event.
In the months leading up to the festival, music fans participated in our Another Great Day in Detroit series that included noontime concerts at the Guardian Building; jazz/poetry sessions at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History; in-school sessions with John Clayton, Gerald Clayton, Eddie Daniels and Sean Dobbins; jazz films at “Midsummer Nights in Midtown”; and concerts at Cliff Bell’s, Baker’s Keyboard Lounge, the Detroit Institute of Art and the Detroit Public Library.
In putting together this year’s lineup, I set out to please the Detroit jazz audience. And even though the lineup included Booker T, Irma Thomas, The Contours and The Clark Sisters, jazz was very much front and center. With the theme of “Keepin’ Up with the Joneses,” it was historically significant that we opened with the great Hank Jones and closed with a commissioned work by John Clayton honoring Hank and his legendary siblings, Thad and Elvin.
I’m happy to say that 150 national artists, 160 local artists and 240 student musicians performed over Labor Day Weekend. The lineup included the fusion of Brian Auger and Larry Coryell; the adventurous music of Bennie Maupin and Wayne Shorter; the Latin fire of Pete Escovedo, Chuchito Valdez and Alfredo Rodriquez; the disparate vocal stylings of Janis Siegel, Sheila Jordan, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Gretchen Parlato, José James and Sachal Vasandani; big bands; a tribute to Benny Goodman; a re-creation of Donald Byrd’s jazz-gospel classic, A New Perspective; tap dancers; and every conceivable aggregation of bop.
The “Keepin’ Up with the Joneses” theme lent itself to celebrating other great family dynasties, such as the Brubecks, the Claytons, the Pizzarellis, the Heaths, the Augers, the Coryells and the Escovedos. It not only made for rich publicity, it was great fun for the fans to witness these family reunions on stage.
DJF also celebrated Detroit’s jazz lineage with performances by Charles McPherson, Louis Hayes, Sheila Jordan, Gerald Wilson, Karriem Riggins, Geri Allen, Gayelynne McKinney, Marcus Belgrave and Rodney Whitaker. NEA Jazz Master Gerald Wilson conducted a loving big band tribute to our great city through a six-movement work entitled “Detroit,” which called out Gerald’s favorite Detroit haunts and people, including our very own Gretchen Valade.
The festival also witnessed the debut of the Detroit Jazz Festival Orchestra led by Dennis Wilson, which promises to be a significant showcase for Detroit-based musicians for years to come.
Making sure that young players continue to come through the ranks, the festival presented twenty-two scholastic ensembles on the Meijer Education Stage and presented workshops by the Juilliard Jazz Quintet and the Brubeck Institute. If the line of eager players at the nightly jam sessions at the Marriott was any indication, the future of the art form is very bright. Stand-out student performances included the North Carolina Central University Big Band, the Michigan State University Jazz Orchestra with Dee Dee Bridgewater, the Wayne State Big Band’s tribute to Benny Goodman with Eddie Daniels, Western Michigan University Jazz Combo with Stefon Harris, the Brubeck Institute Quintet, the Detroit School of Arts Combo with Gerald Clayton, and the DSO Civic Jazz Orchestra with Christian McBride.
The Kid Bop stage for wee-boppers and their parents was swingin’ every day with a great troupe of young tap dancers. And for our “jazz heads,” who somehow can’t ever get enough information, the Pepsi Jazz Talk Tent played host to Wayne Shorter, Hank Jones, Christian McBride, Jimmy Heath, Louis Hayes and many others, including national writers and jazz researchers. The DownBeat Blindfold Test made its DJF debut with host Dan Ouellette putting Charles McPherson in the hot seat.
We were also happy to present Jazz Guardian awards to festival founder Bob McCabe, saxophonist/educator Ernie Rodgers, trumpeter Marcus Belgrave and Hank Jones.
All in all, it was a magnificent celebration of our 30th year. Some exciting plans are already in the works for 2010. So, stay tuned. The next three decades are sure to be burnin’!
