IAJE Failure: An Opportunity?

There's been a lot of discussion about the International Association of Jazz Education Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing. Willard Jenkins, who has a decades-long history with the IAJE, has posted some interesting blogs on the topic (here's the latest post, in which he declares his disgust with the New York Times for not probing the erstwhile IAJE executive's statement that he had no idea the organization was in deep financial distress).

Now it looks like there's an effort to replace the popular New York jazz convention with something similar from the folks at Jazz Improv. A friend went to the inaugural convention in October 2007 and said it was pretty sleepy. But if there are no other options in January, all that could change -- and clearly Jazz Improv is seizing the opportunity with yesterday's announcement:

The Jazz Improv LIVE! Convention & Festival team is pleased to announce the addition of Steve Baker, who served as the Executive Producer of the International Association of Jazz Education (IAJE) Conferences during the past 20 years, and DL Media, which directed public relations for the IAJE conference since 1995 and has been at the forefront of the jazz industry for the past 20 years.

The Second Annual Jazz Improv LIVE! Convention & Festival, in January 2009, will include more performances, panels, workshops, and exhibitors, more space, more days. In concert with the emerging paradigm, the changing landscape of the music industry in general and the jazz world in particular, important components of the event will include artist empowerment, legacy events, and a focus on the fans and audience development.

Eric Nemeyer, founder of Jazz Improv Magazine and Jazz Improv LIVE!, and who produced the first event, said: “Steve brings to the table the essential experience and expertise to make a significant contribution. He’ll help us bring to life the expansion of the Jazz Improv LIVE! Convention & Festival, as defined in the extensive business plan I wrote when we began planning a couple of years ago. Don Lucoff and DL Media bring enormous expertise in public relations, as well as ideas and perspectives from his experience as co-director of the industry track of the IAJE conferences.”

Jamie Cosnowsky of Jazz Improv said: “It is and always has been our intention to work with and embrace everyone who shares our passion for this music, our commitment to integrity and honesty, and quality. We are looking to embrace as wide a swath of the Jazz community as we can. The addition of these two professionals to our team not only maintains the continuity established by the highly successful NYC IAJE conferences of the past, but also further strengthens a partnership of efforts that includes some of the most highly-skilled, talented and committed individuals in the Jazz world.”

Can this small-but-scrappy media company fill the big-establishment shoes of the IAJE? Perhaps they can, while bringing a more market-driven ethos to the overly academic jazz world. Indeed, Cosnowsky implied just that in a rant on his blog about the state of jazz (click here to read the whole thing):

To best understand the collapse of the old paradigm, one must recognize that it was due to the consumers displaying their ultimate power and control in the most basic and straightforward manner: refusing to participate in a hostile, unreasonable and artificially conceived economy; one that simply did not return enough on their investment to make it worthwhile for them to pay ridiculously inflated prices for little plastic discs, sterile concert halls and uncomfortable clubs - all in an environment steeped in arrogance, indifference and greed.

While these elements have always existed in the past, one new angle has been added to the diagram – the musicians themselves have often adopted those three characteristics. The reasons for this, as well as the reasons why the entire economic paradigm has spun out of control, are extensive and not necessary to consider here. The bottom line is that product isn’t selling, concert attendance is dwindling, radio play is diminishing, television exposure is nearly non-existent and despite the proliferation of Jazz education in recent years, the music itself is suffering an artistic crisis. The attempt by the performing arts world and its related foundations, government agencies and monolithic institutions to establish Jazz as a Western Classical Music (with a hip dialect) has failed miserably as that world is reeling by a similar collapse of its own paradigm for reasons of a similar nature.

So here we are, either at the brink of dawn of a bright new day that has been waiting somewhat impatiently for the darkness to recede; or limping off the playing field in tatters a few too many years after the end of a glorious life. Those of us who have come together to conceive this new paradigm believe in that new day. However, it is going to take clear and focused vision, innovative solutions, steadfast commitment and – to borrow a phrase that is much in use these days – a change in the mindset that has put us into this dire situation. Those of us who have united in this plan feel that the ideas contained here will properly set us on the proper path.