My letter to the Detroit Jazz Festival (sigh.....)
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| Posted on September 1, 2017 at 17:42:56 | ||
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Posts: 5563
Location: SE Michigan Joined: May 30, 2001 |
Hello, After coming to this festival regularly for 30-some years--mostly as a spectator, but also as both a student and professional performer--I was very surprised and disappointed by the extremely reduced level of access to the music this year. The paid seating section has grown by many times and the free seating that remains is not nearly enough to accommodate the number of listeners who have always shown up. My wife and I came downtown tonight to see Wayne Shorter and possibly a couple other acts, but were totally taken by surprise by the situation. Despite being about an hour early for the show, the free seats had clearly long been fully occupied. A large paid section sat mostly empty, but when I went to register I was told it was too late to get in to Friday's shows at any price. Oh, and seating will be like this all weekend, and if you want to get into VIP seating (which appears to be the only way one can have any confidence at all that they will be able to see and hear what's going on anymore), it will cost you $125 a day. My wife and I went home. I'm not interested in sitting outside a performance venue where I can barely see the screen or make out the music being played. Okay....quality performances cost money. Nobody gets that more than me, a former full-time pro musician. I didn't complain when bringing in your own food was banned, I bought programs every year as well as records and CD's. I understand the need for this type of support. But this was a major change in policy that doesn't seem to have been well-communicated. To me, this festival is an institution I have supported and loved for decades. Tonight, I felt like that institution turned its back on me. For various reasons, money is always tight for us around this time. I could maybe justify paying that money for myself, a certifiable jazz nut, to come down for a day. But meet up with my young adult kids like I often have, or try to consume nearly every day of the festival as I have so many times? There's no way that is going to happen--and I make a good living! Maybe the character of the festival really needs to change in this way, I don't know. But I don't think it's really right to continue to promote this as the "largest free jazz festival in North America." It's only free on a lottery-type basis now...and it's certainly not what it used to be, when that descriptor was truly justified. Sincerely, Duane Harvey dh
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