Critics picks':
Live music venues really shook things up
Rooms and those who book them saw changes
The biggest news in jazz concerned changes in venues. Locally, Fenton Hollander was shown the door by Charles Hotel management after nearly 20 years of booking jazz at the Regattabar so those duties could be taken over by Steve Bensusan of the New York-based Blue Note jazz club empire.
Hollander responded by opening a rival club, the Real Deal Jazz Club & Cafe, across town in the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center -- and taking his extensive mailing list of jazz club patrons with him.
Ryles passed through some turbulence as well, as longtime booker Frank Vardaros was replaced early in the year by Brian Walkley and Willow Entertainment, only to be brought back to replace his replacement several months later. And while Fred Taylor remained at his longtime post across the Charles River at Scullers, concerns arose that the club might be in jeopardy when the DoubleTree Hotel was put up for sale.
The one room of note to experience smooth sailing, oddly, was Zeitgeist Gallery, the tiny Inman Square outlet for free jazz.
It will be interesting to see how all this shakes out next year and beyond. Will the Real Deal make a go of it way over there by the Lechmere T stop, where bars and restaurants are so much scarcer than in Harvard Square? Will Blue Note's international clout give it a monopoly on brand-name artists? Could Harvard's appetite for land in Allston cause it to gobble up the DoubleTree and put Scullers out of business in favor of, say, a dorm cafeteria?
And the biggest question of all: Is Boston's supply of jazz enthusiasts large and devoted enough to support this many clubs?
So far clubs are struggling. But that has been blamed on a confluence of hazards and distractions beyond the control of club bookers: a rickety economy, the presidential election, and the World Series march by the Red Sox.
Bensusan has also done some public grousing about the inconvenience of Hollander having retained his mailing list when he left the Regattabar, and he and Hollander have bickered over Hollander's enforcing of exclusivity contracts with artists who were signed while he was at the Regattabar.
But maybe somehow they can find a way to get along. And maybe audiences will start filling these clubs to where they can all be profitable. If so, an already thriving Boston jazz scene will become even stronger.
In New York, meanwhile, an already thriving scene got stronger in 2004 in a way that matters nationally, with the PBS-televised opening in October of the house that Wynton Marsalis built -- the lavish new $128 million Jazz at Lincoln Center performing arts complex -- on Marsalis's 43d birthday.
Housed in the
Marsalis was also a visible example of the trend of major record labels shedding jazz artists from their rosters. He put out the first two CDs of his career as a leader with a label other than Sony/Columbia in 2004. Blue Note Records brought him aboard after Marsalis and Columbia parted company after 20-plus years together.
Luckily for artists, small- and medium-size labels -- Blue Note, Telarc, Sunnyside, Concord, and others -- have been stepping into the big-label breach. And in some cases, artists have been starting up their own small labels. Branford Marsalis's Cambridge-based Marsalis Music, launched when he left Columbia a couple of years ago, put out three new CDs and a DVD in 2004, and just this month Dave Holland announced plans to launch Dare2 Records with his big band CD ''Overtime" in February, the follow-up to the group's 2003 Grammy-winning ''What Goes Around."
Yet another approach to getting music to the public in defiance of big-label indifference is ArtistShare, the online-service brainchild of Boston native Brian Camelio that opened for business this past spring and that offers mail-order CDs and MP3 downloads. The debut ArtistShare project, Maria Schneider's ''Concert in the Garden," was a remarkable success, landing three Grammy nominations -- for best large jazz ensemble album, best instrumental composition, and best jazz instrumental solo.
More remarkable still, the recording is completely unavailable in retail stores; the only place to get it is at Schneider's website, MariaSchneider.com.
Still, there wasn't any shortage of superb jazz recordings released on disc in 2004, as anyone can attest who struggled with choosing a 10-best list from the wealth of this year's riches.
Making a living from jazz is as tough as it's always been for musicians and promoters. But there is still a great deal of excellent jazz being created and performed.
