Miami's Jazz Scene

I feel the pieces are in place right now in South Florida.
-Larry Rosen, Jazz Roots

With a jazz series to debut in the fall and plans to open a jazz club on site this year, the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts is embarking on the cultural equivalent of a jazz solo: exploring new rhythmic and melodic paths, not knowing where they will lead but confident that the outcome will be one of creative unity.

Miami has seen this before. Individual efforts to ignite the city's jazz scene have sometimes ended in silence, with a closed nightclub, or failed to leave a lasting impact beyond a once-a-year concert or festival.

To be sure, Miami has a budding jazz scene, with a dedicated jazz radio station (WDNA-FM 88.9), vibrant programs in local colleges and universities and a loyal audience that turns out for performances at nightclubs, churches, bandshells and just about anywhere the music is performed. But the Arsht Center is aiming for the moon.

Specifically, it wants Miami to forge its place within the jazz canon, to inspire a musical movement that would unite Miami and jazz inextricably, the way it is forever linked in New Orleans, New York and Chicago.

Jazz Roots, Rosen says, will explore the music's multicultural metamorphosis -- from the subgenres of ragtime, swing, Dixieland and bebop to Afro-Cuban and Brazilian jazz, fusion and ”straight ahead” jazz.

The series also aims to unite Miami's immigrant cultures through a common musical denominator: the drum. By tapping that common denominator, Rosen hopes Jazz Roots -- and maybe later the jazz club at the Arsht Center -- will create opportunities for musicians to launch a movement in Miami.

Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, Knight Concert Hall, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. First of six monthly concerts begins 8 p.m. on Nov. 7. Other concerts on Dec. 12; Jan. 16; Feb. 20; March 27 and April 18. Subscription prices for all six concerts range from $150-$750.

Info: 305-949-6722