Another Festival That Once Was

by Mike Metheny


"If people don't wanna come, you can't stop 'em."
-- Yogi Berra

Here at JAM, we've been urged by some to address in specific detail the demise of the Blues and Jazz Festival. "After all," they say, "it's probably the biggest story of the year for the jazz community."

For now, we will resist. It's a complicated tale with more facets yet to be revealed; other local publications, we hear, are preparing balanced, in-depth reports; and yes, JAM's central role is to develop and promote the local jazz scene, not shine a glaring spotlight on failure.

In the opinion of this humble observer, however, summer 2002 is another good time to take a long hard look in the mirror.

Complications and facets (and fading corporate sponsorships) notwithstanding, if KC really was living up to the "jazz city" status frequently awarded by PR weavers and cheerleaders alike (present company included), a) the jazz grounds of the Blues and Jazz Festival would have been overflowing start to finish every year since the festival was split into two main stages, and b) thousands of jazz fans from near and far would have flocked to Penn Valley Park -- literally claiming their spaces on the grass well before the first act played a note -- to enjoy an event that should have served as an annual Mecca for jazz lovers everywhere, regardless of tastes or stylistic preferences.

But instead, we complain about the heat, or the headline talent, or whatever other reasons we can summon to rationalize our indifference.

And now the festival is gone.

The departure of the Blues and Jazz Festival is not without precedent. Nor are many of the contributing factors. On a steamy summer's day in 1998, when the fledgling Kansas City International Jazz Festival was still trying to make a go of it at Crown Center (after two previous attempts at Starlight Theater), there were a few hundred dedicated fans onhand to hear some of the world's finest jazz talent, all on the same afternoon that tens of thousands packed into Royals Stadium to see our well-compensated baseball team play the Chicago Cubs.

The following year The Kansas City International Jazz Festival also became yet another pleasant memory.

Do you think these observations are inflammatory and unfair? Is the JAM editor taking an unnecessary poop on the party? Would you rather this dicey subject not even be discussed? Then let me ask this rude and unwanted question: Did you regularly attend and support the jazz side of the Blues and Jazz Festival in recent years? Or, did you stay away because, well, you like jazz... but, you don't like it that much?

Be honest.

Because, of the many things that led to the end of that wonderful weekend in July -- as well as the star-studded event at Crown Center -- jazz community apathy surely figures in there somewhere... maybe even close to the top of the list. And if that's true, we may need to stand in front of that mirror just a little bit longer this time and take a closer look at the kinds of priorities that can make or break a Jazz Town in transition.

Otherwise, esteemed JAM readers, additional festivals, clubs and concert series are destined to become even more pleasant memories.

And considering all that Kansas City still has to offer its long and proud jazz heritage, that would be a drag.


Mike Metheny -- old enough to be approaching geezerhood, yet still young enough to care -- is the editor of JAM and has attended every Blues & Jazz Festival from the beginning. He has also performed at the event three times, once when it was so hot that, by set's end, he was standing in a puddle of his own boiling sweat, his flugelhorn was glowing like the surface of the sun, and, as he collapsed into the waiting arms of Nurse Diana Krall (or was that a mirage?), his final words were: "15 beers and I never even got a good buzz."



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