Vancouver’s jazz festival ‘still ambitious’ after 30 years

Share

A year into its life, Vancouver's new jazz festival became the talk of the music world. It was 1986 and two legends – Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis – had been feuding in the media over who was carrying the torch for jazz. "Wynton was claiming that Miles was no longer a jazz musician; that he was essentially diluting the music," says Vancouver International Jazz Festival co-founder John Orysik.

Both musicians were touring that spring and both were on the Vancouver festival's lineup. As Orysik (who was there and later interviewed Marsalis about it) recalls, Marsalis had been dared to go up onto the stage during Davis's performance at the Expo Theatre.

"I was standing side-stage and watched this whole thing unfold where Wynton just came out of the wings and came onstage and decided to play. And essentially Miles upbraided him and said, 'Wait a minute: You can't play the kind of music I'm playing; get off my stage, mother–.' And Wynton put his tail between his legs … and walked off stage."

And the phones started ringing the next day. "People were calling me from New York saying, 'What took place there? Is it true that there was a confrontation between Miles and Wynton Marsalis?' I said, 'Absolutely; it was something to behold,'" says Orysik, the festival's media director.

"That's probably one of the most fortuitous episodes in my life … when history was created."

Orysik and Ken Pickering, artistic director and another one of the festival's co-founders, are sitting in the boardroom of the Coastal Jazz and Blues Society's recently renovated offices, reminiscing about the festival's history, on the occasion of its 30th anniversary. They're also looking ahead to some big changes for the organization.

"The great thing is, here we are 30 years later and we're still ambitious," Orysik says. "We still have plans."

The festival began in 1985, driven by Pickering, Orysik and Robert Kerr, its founding executive director (Kerr left in 2006 to run Vancouver's Cultural Olympiad). Pickering and Orysik were old high school friends, who would walk to school together, arguing loudly about music. "People would actually come out on their porches to see if there was a fight happening because we would be screaming at each other," Orysik says. (Among the issues in dispute: Neil Diamond. Orysik was a fan; Pickering was not.) They started a Music Appreciation Club at their East Vancouver high school (among the MAC's highlights – playing Sly and the Family Stone's Sex Machine, a nearly 14-minute instrumental; not everyone was appreciative). Pickering opened a record shop specializing in jazz (as well as blues, world music and folk), initially with a partner, and Orysik was the Vancouver correspondent for the jazz magazine Coda and worked at CJAZ-FM, an all-jazz station, where he met Kerr and brought him into the circle.

As the group hung out, slowly the notion of presenting jazz concerts and then a festival emerged. In late August, 1985, they put on a small regional jazz festival featuring primarily musicians from Vancouver, Seattle and Portland, Ore. There were about 20 artists on the bill for the "first annual" Pacific Jazz and Blues Festival. (It was in fact the only year the festival carried that name.)

"We were self-financed; we were kind of really flying by the seats of our pants," Orysik says.

But it was considered a success – and it attracted major sponsorship. In 1986 – when Expo came to town – the Coastal Jazz and Blues Society was incorporated, du Maurier was on board as the title sponsor, the festival moved to June, and offered a program of some 150 concerts – a huge increase. Then the legendary Davis-Marsalis showdown played out.

"It really gave our festival a spotlight," Orysik says. "All of a sudden there's this jazz festival in Vancouver where the two biggest names have had a confrontation and so I was able to leverage that for a lot of publicity."

The festival has grown considerably since then, adding a street component in the late 1980s in Gastown that moved to the centre of downtown three years ago, and which expands by two days this year. When new regulations prevented du Maurier, a tobacco brand, from continuing to sponsor the festival, TD Bank stepped in and has been title sponsor since.

The 30th-anniversary edition of the festival features about 1,800 artists in 300 performances – including 150 free shows. Now Pickering, 63, and Orysik, 62 – once the young Turks of the jazz-festival circuit – are considered elder statesmen in that world.

And yes, 30 years later they're still dreaming stuff up. Under new executive director Mike Forrester, the festival is going to increase its philanthropic efforts. It is in the process of incorporating a foundation, the Coastal Foundation for the Performing Arts, which will exist to support the goals of the Coastal Jazz and Blues Society. A new board for the foundation has been formed (in addition to the society's existing board), and there are plans to ramp up the society's education and outreach programs to some 20 weeks a year. They're also planning a festival at Christmas, to begin this year.

After a post-recession break from year-round programming, the festival felt it was important to get back into that space, so they brought a legendary local series, Cory Weeds's Cellar Jazz, into the fold – with shows at the VSO's Pyatt Hall; they're working with a downtown club venue to program jazz on an ongoing basis (details have not been announced); and they're planning more large shows outside of the festival window. They entered that world with a glitzy bang in May, when Coastal Jazz and Blues presented the only Canadian stop for the Lady Gaga/Tony Bennett tour over two nights at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

"That was a real leap," Orysik says. "But when Ken came into my office and said, 'What do you think about doing Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga,' I didn't blink an eye. I said, 'Absolutely; we gotta do it.' … And I think it's a feather in our cap."

"It was very expensive, very ambitious, big risk," Pickering says. "We were maybe a little bit nervous, but at the same time we did do it, it was successful, and the end result was pretty awesome."

The TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival runs June 18-July 1 at various Vancouver venues (coastaljazz.ca).