It’s September 23, the 73rd anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth. As I sit in the desert peace with the gorgeous sounds of Crescent swirling around me, I’m bathed in perspective and peace, but even Trane can’t provide solace to dispel the rage. In my earlier “suicide note” I made a slight mention of the Lila Wallace National Jazz Network. Specifically: Nine Million Dollars went into the Lila Wallace Jazz Not-work. Hope you enjoyed your share. Of course, many of those involved (read: got paid) in that project would have you believe it was successful. They point to a few tours, but don’t buy into the spin.

I was going to write about it this time because I think it’s important to scrutinize how $9 million dollars could be spent in the “interest of jazz,” and when the dust clears, things only have gotten worse economically, artistically and educationally.

For two-thirds of that money, comprehensive alternative systems, including product distribution (both in-store and Internet), business support, technological support and corporate development could be established and supported long enough to develop its own economic base. And this is just a fraction of the money being passed around in the circle-jerk of corporate and foundation giving. It’s essential for you to understand why nobody wants this to happen - including the foundations, the larger non-profit jazz institutions and most of the jazz professionals who profit from the status quo under the guise of advocacy, commitment and love for the music.

By examining the Wallace program we can begin to understand how this folly is a part of a placebo syndrome. Once you begin to see the pattern through the camouflage, the enemy becomes visible and you’ll be on somewhat more level ground.

Well, I‘m about halfway through writing the piece when the Pariah forwards me a cute little missive from Willard Jenkins, a fairly high ranking member of the Fraternity. This is such an excellent example of what I’m trying to illustrate that it reminded me that you are far from powerless about all this crap, and that you can do something about it. So soon, I promise, but first check out the technique on this little song and dance:

Marty Khan, a guy I have been friends with and worked with over the years, should really be damn certain of all the facts and nuances before loading up his loose cannon. His blanket indictment of the National Jazz Network, a program of which I was one of the architects and a program that faded out when Lila Wallace's money faded out -- at least it faded out in its formal sense; many of those presenters have formed very valuable alliances that are not visible to the naked eye, but which have had a profound effect on jazz programming/presenting in this country. Folks like Marty griped and continue to gripe because the Network didn't immediately operate as a major touring entity -- it did after the initial shakedown cruise, but apparently not to the extent of some folks liking. What Marty does not know is how the relationship between these disparate presenting organizations developed, and the time it took to get such folks -- who heretofore had operated as lone wolves on their turf -- to even think in terms of being a true Network, much less operate as one. Eg. Jazzmobile has widely divergent programming ideas from say, District Curators; ditto the

Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and the Jazz Institute of Chicago. You and I know how difficult it is to get folks whose opinions on what constitutes jazz on the same page (i.e. I say its Greg Osby, some other guy says its the Black Eagle Jazz Band; a third gal says its Diana Krall; a fourth

person says no, its Wynton Marsalis; a fifth guy says hell no, its Roscoe Mitchell; while still another says its the Basie Band, etc., etc., etc.). Marty was never part of any of those discussions -- so how can he register an intelligent opinion?

For those of you who didn’t fully understand what I meant when I referred to the “spin” that the Lila Wallace Foundation and a few paid jazz pros were putting on the failed Not-work -- now you know. Thanks, Willard for the perfect example. Notice the technique. At the beginning he questions my ability to make a judgment. Next, he makes broad, unsubstantiated claims of success and follows that by talking about the difficulties involved in the process (translates: “Hey! We’re lucky we accomplished this much.”) Then back to the head for another shot at my validity.

Willard’s been hanging out with those fine arts folks too long. This bullshit may work on them, but not on any of us who know the real score. And that includes the musicians who won’t confront him or his cohorts because someday they may eventually bestow a gig on them. So let me address his little love note.

Let’s drop the ‘friend’ bullshit; a 20 minute conversation about ‘ball every two years or so hardly constitutes a friendship. Our working together has been very limited, and usually by circumstances, not choice. So let’s not view this as anything personal between two guys. Ain’t nothing but business, elucidation and truth.

Most of you reading this really know nothing about the Network other than that it existed, if you even know that. For something that, as Willard says, has “had a profound effect on jazz programming/presenting in this country,” shouldn’t you know what it was? How it was supposed to work? Something? Anything? But there’s no way to find out, unless you speak extensively to: many of the Network’s presenters; the various workers and Board Members at the now-defunct NJSO, which was supposed to oversee the program; representatives of the regional arts organizations who ran the ancillary programs; various agents and artists who worked with Network presenters. And met with Holly Sidford and Rory MacPherson at Lila Wallace. And that’s a lot of work - impossible to do in retrospect. You’d really need to have researched it while it was happening.

Well I did. All of the above, and more. Shortly before and after each of the national (and some regional) meetings I spoke with various attendees for the insiders’ attitudes and views, and even attended a regional meeting in 1994. I got cynicism, pessimism, frustration and confusion - along with an occasional singing of the camp song.

This cannon ain’t loose. Even if I hadn’t done all that legwork, is he saying that a person with 32 years of experience and involvement with this business, closely observing the process, can’t “register an intelligent opinion” on a $9 million dollar, 10 year national project, just because I wasn’t on the inside at the meetings??

The point is this: Who cares about the meetings and the efforts and the difficulties. Who cares if one person is into Ornette and another person’s into Chico Marx. That’s for the critics to annoy us with.

I know about these meetings. I’ve been to too many of them. The purpose of these meetings is to hold them, not to accomplish anything by them. We’re looking for RESULTS. And the results of this program are bullshit. It’s the building that the architect is judged by and this particular building is a crummy little shack.

I know it’s part of Willard’s job to spin, but not at the music’s expense. Not only does he claim that I’m talkin’ shit, but also thinks that I was pissed “because the Network didn’t immediately operate as a major touring entity.” Who told him that? Not me. And who are the “folks like Marty?” Agents? (We ended our jazz touring program in 1991.) Guys with shaved heads? Knicks fans? Sicilians? -- Or is it just all of us who don’t buy into this particular brand of bullshit?

I’m pissed because it didn’t operate as an entity at all. I’m pissed because some deep pockets threw a helluva lot of money out there and to this day no one can clearly state what this Network was, or was supposed to be. Holly Sidford at Lila Wallace couldn’t tell me when we had a meeting back in 1993, and it was her fucking “vision.” Neither could her top boy, Rory MacPherson, nor Willard, nor his various assistants at the NJSO, nor any of the presenters or regional directors. And neither could the consultants who did the interim report, which the Not-work’s spinners heartily debunked (to the few folks who saw it).

The only definition I ever got just seemed to be that the Network would help promote and support Jazz -- expand people’s knowledge; create opportunities; good for jazz; artspeak, etc., artspeak, etc....

Kind of like Dr. Murgatroyd’s Golden Elixir -- a cure-all for all that ails ya.

Or a Republican tax cut.

So Willard should be damn sure of his facts before he loads up his loose pointed finger.

Let’s look at some facts straight from his letter.

1. It was “a program that faded out when Lila Wallace’s money faded out.”

Wasn’t there something in the planning to sustain it? Or was it designed to crash? Did they really plop $9 million on the table with the expectation of a fade-out?

2. “...many of the presenters have formed very valuable alliances that are not visible to the naked eye.” Why not? What’s the big secret? What are they? And what positive effect can they have if they’re invisible.

3. These invisible alliances “have had a profound effect on jazz programming/presenting in this country.” I may have to agree with him there. Fifty plus gigs this year for the Lincoln Center Orchestra and Wynton at $25-45,000 apiece. The virtual elimination of the mid-range gig ($5-10,000), the disappearance of the extended engagement, fewer concerts at much higher artist fees and ticket prices, and as Willard wrote in his own article for Antioch Review “Where’s the Jazz Audience?”

“A profound effect”?? No shit! Just like the retirement of Michael Jordan had a profound effect on the Chicago Bulls; Ronald Reagan's puppeteers had a profound effect on our economy; and Timothy McVeigh had a profound effect on Oklahoma City.

As much as I appreciate the Not-work’s willingness to shoulder so much of the blame for the current state of touring/performing, the Not-work was more of a symptom than a cause, although it certainly didn’t do anything to stop the slide.

There are many factors at work:

1. The Sony/Wynton Center/New York Times triumvirate of manipulation, revisionism and personal and corporate greed;

2. The emergence of the Presenter/Jazz Professional as stars, where mediocrity is pimped, enabling these new “stars” of the business to glom the limelight without guilt;

3. The mega-corporate takeover of the record labels, creating artificial bottom lines and burying million of sales in corporate subterfuge;

4. The International Music Network agency - helmed by an agent/darling of the Fine Arts World. They’ve pushed the prices of the Lincoln Center Jazz Bore-chestra into the absurd, along with the fees of their other high-profile clients without the slightest concern as to the effects they’re having on the economics of the art form.

5. The trade-off of the serious presenter for flashy big-time FAPS (Fine Arts Presenters, not to be confused with the Fucking Asshole Phonies. I understand your confusion), who program much fewer, but much higher profile artists for much higher fees and equally higher ticket prices and who have no personal interest in the music , past, present or future.

6. The emergence of the Knitting Factory and its clones, bottom feeding from the fallout.

7. The omnipresent need for White executives and administrators to control, constrict and sterilize all African-American art forms. (Now look, let’s save the Dick Sudhalter Bix vs Pops/Crow Jim debate for another time. Jazz is an African-American art form, regardless of who’s playing it. If you don’t understand or accept that fact, then you don’t understand one of the fundamental reasons why your professional life is so difficult).

These are just some of the reasons. I could go on and on. And I will. But not now.

You’ll never affect the Jazz Daddies at the labels or the Jazzy Jacks and Jills that call the shots at clubs, jazz societies and festivals. They’re as permanent a fixture in personality and behavior to the jazz world as scorpions are to the desert (at least it’s not illegal to stomp on a scorpion). But these other folks.....! They are accessible to you -- and answerable. And the stakes are so much bigger. Millions and millions of dollars are flowing though the fine arts/funding/corporate underwriting economy in the name of jazz.

Now this is a world where composers, choreographers and fine arts performers with a fan base, artistic reputation and ticket buying public no greater than many reasonably established jazz artists, are receiving performance and commission fees way beyond anything you’ll ever see.

Why is this? Because they’ve grabbed their piece of all that money through advocacy and lobbying by their own particular art forms’ representatives, and because they use not-for-profit corporations, which today’s funding administrators are convinced that jazz artists are not capable of using.

And y’all are fixated on these $2500, $5000, $10,000 slave deals that the business occasionally bestows upon the occasional “Lottery Winners.”

And who is benefitting from all of this? The same people who run the business. NOT the labels. It’s the presenters, the institutions, the researchers, the “experts.” All grabbing their piece of the pie.

Do you notice who’s not on the list? Eeyup! That’s right. Trickled on again - if you get that much.

Look at the Players involved:

Lila Wallace, Doris Duke, BET, Lincoln Center, Disney, IAJE, Bell Atlantic, just to name a few.

BET’s been around for years now. Ignoring for a moment its purchase of George Wein’s Festival Productions, does anybody know anybody who’s been paid to appear on BET? I mean other than their on-air personalities, staff, consultants, guest experts, etc. Stockholders, landlords, service companies, limo rentals, restaurants, expense accounts, hotels and the tax man.

You notice who’s not included, don’t you? Now maybe I’m wrong - maybe it’s not just for exposure anymore, maybe it’s not just public domain clips, maybe every Festival Productions contract won’t require audio and video rights. Maybe artists are being paid fairly for their performances.

And maybe the L.A. Clippers will win the NBA Championship. Anything’s possible.

The Doris Duke Foundation is about to drop between $10 and $12 million into “Jazz” in a program meant to build upon the Wallace program (without researching its effects), except that it’s going to be even more elitist.

Lincoln Center Jazz’s annual budget is $11 million. That’s dollars. Per year. Do you have any idea what impact $11 million could have on the business and art of jazz. Are we seeing that impact. I mean other than the glorification of mediocrity, the exploitation of Ellington and the revisionist education of a misled public. Do we really need a hall designed acoustically for jazz. And how is that different from plain ol’ good acoustics. Unless they mean to define jazz as only one singular form, maybe as played by one man, of one mind. Hmmm. The TAJ MARSALIS.

As for the other culprits - who knows what intricate financial relationships exist both formally (BET and a whole variety of jazz institutions), and informally (Lincoln Center/NY Times) . It all sounds pretty damn Republican to me. Does any of this piss you off? Do you feel powerless? Victimized? Resigned? Cynical? How about Radicalized? Outraged? DESTRUCTIVE!?

Destruction is almost always required before construction. Positive destruction -- or at least (as George Clinton says) a creative nuisance. Now you can sit back, take another hit off the j, or the Evian, or whatever, and sing the old “S.O.S. - same ol’ shit” song in your best Dexter imitation, or you can take some step to at least let yourself be heard. It’s the S.O.S. attitude that perpetuates the S.O.S. reality.

You can actually do something about this. These are thin-skinned people, operating in a fragile manufactured reality -- highly defensive and terrified of exposure. Notice that Willard had no comments on my piece other than how it may have reflected on him. This vulnerability is the key to your power.

Space prohibits me from going further, so in the next installment I’ll give you some easy steps to take. Till then, stay pissed.

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