Jean Hangarter photo

From all of us at JazzBoston, Happy New Year and thank you for your love of jazz and your continued support of the Boston jazz scene. Whether you perform, compose, present, teach, promote, broadcast, listen to, write about, or just read about the music, you are an important member of our city's jazz community.

Suggested resolutions for 2014:

• Hear live jazz at least once a week
  
• Discover one new jazz venue every month
• Take a child to a jazz concert
  
• Apply improvisation in your daily life.

At center: City Councilor Tito Jackson with (rt) FloorLords break dancer Lino Delgado & (lt) JazzBoston ED Pauline Bilsky. Back row: (2nd from lt) Discover Roxbury ED Derek Lumpkins, (rt) session leader Steve Johnson, ED, Rappaport Foundation. Click to view full size.

Nearly 1,000 hopeful Bostonians came together at Roxbury Community College from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm on Saturday, Dec. 14, for Mayor-Elect Marty Walsh's City-Wide Town Hall Meeting. Between Walsh's opening and closing remarks, 11 working groups covering the main issue areas awaiting the new administration held morning and afternoon sessions. JazzBoston participated in both Arts & Culture sessions.

What we heard

We learned a lot about the concerns and priorities of other members of the arts community participating in the morning and afternoon Arts & Culture sessions. Some themes stood out:

• Unity and collaboration. People felt it was very important for the arts community to be united, to come together regularly, and to work together.
  
• Racial discrimination. There was bitterness and dark humor in many comments, and sounds of affirmation as examples were cited.
• Dedicated performance spaces in every neighborhood. Space for the arts is scarce or nonexistent in many neighborhoods. More City-owned properties should be made available on a permanent basis.
• Simplified, more sensible permitting. This subject, we learned later, came up in every session of every working group. In the Arts & Culture sessions, one of the comments was, "It shouldn't be illegal to dance in Boston."
• More respect and pay for local artists. There was a widespread feeling that out-of-town artists get more respect and the city should collaborate with promoters to showcase local artists at city venues.
• More celebrations and festivals to bring people together. The Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival was cited as a good example.
• Public/private partnerships. Most people realize that the city can't do it all.

At both the morning and afternoon Arts & Culture sessions, we were the only members of the jazz community in the room, and one of only two representatives of the music world. The other was the vice president of the Boston Musicians' Association in the morning and the BMA's president in the afternoon.

We were able to present most of the ideas we had prepared for using jazz, along with the other arts, to help create both One Boston and a Better Boston, and we left behind a written statement outlining them. Here's a summary. The complete statement will be available on the JazzBoston website next week.

• Greatly expand music education, including jazz education, in the public schools. It is widely recognized that learning music and ensemble playing communicates important values to young people.
• Make it easier and cheaper for venues to be licensed to present live music and to allow dancing. Rethink why a license is even needed for these activities when a restaurant or bar is already licensed to do business.
• Make city-owned venues available for community arts events at no cost. We recognize the city has a cost for these venues, but much of that cost is fixed cost.The incremental cost for a performance is not that big.
• Work with the jazz community to provide a mechanism for energizing and bonding the broader arts communities through participatory and collaborative events.
• Support a program that has been a dream of Mel King's for a long time: Bring interactive jazz presentations to multigenerational audiences in safe, healthy, alcohol-free venues in four to six underserved neighborhoods. The program, would make a continuous circuit of venues selected by King, who has asked JazzBoston to adapt our "Riffs & Raps: Jazzin' the Generations" program and help find funding.
  
• Partner with the jazz community to create a major public event for International Jazz Day '14. This is an opportunity to put Boston on the world map for cultural tourism, and at the same time bridge racial divides by bringing together, onstage and off, all the different nationalities in our city. The event could be a single blockbuster free public concert on the evening of April 30 or a daylong series of free events, including collaborations between jazz and other art forms, leading up to the evening concert. For the concert, JazzBoston could assemble a lineup of musicians representing the ethnic diversity of the Greater Boston area, including at least one star with international recognition. The location could be City Hall Plaza or Copley Square, or the Boston Common. The event would be publicized worldwide by UNESCO, Jazz Corner, and the Thelonious Monk Institute. It would also be streamed live worldwide. Boston would join the jazz city pantheon of Paris, New York, and New Orleans.
  
• Following the example of New York City, where a block on West 77th Street was recently named for Miles Davis, rename blocs, squares, places, or whole streets after Boston-born jazz legends. Focus on locations in African American neighborhoods as a means of building pride and spurring development ... in addition to supporting the branding of Boston as a great jazz city. JazzBoston can provide a list of musicians and possible locations. Start with Roy Haynes and Roxbury. Make this designation during Jazz Week '14.
  

In response to the A&C group leader's call for "dreams," defined as ideas costing more than $1 million, JazzBoston proposed two:

• Launch a long-term, far-reaching marketing effort in partnership with MassJazz, the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism, the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, and JazzBoston to brand Boston as one of the world's great jazz cities as a means of increasing cultural tourism, building civic pride, and keeping the jazz scene itself growing (JazzBoston has been collaborating with MassJazz since the state's jazz marketing campaign was launched a few years ago.) Take additional steps to make Boston into an even greater jazz city. An essential element: an annual jazz festival. Whether the festival is produced by private sponsorship or public/private partnership, the city would need to provide significant support and facilitate implementation.
• Follow in Chicago's footsteps and create a coalition of private and public organizations to fund the jazz scene. It was an executive from Boeing who led the effort to create the Chicago Jazz Partnership, a collaborative philanthropic effort made up of corporate, foundation, and public funders to promote and support Chicago jazz. Here the mayor could use his bully pulpit to get a similar partnership under way.

Send us your ideas, come to the next public hearing

The next Arts & Culture public hearing wll be held on Saturday, January 25, 9:30 - 11:30 am, in the Rabb Lecture Hall of the Boston Public Library, Copley Square, 700 Boylston Street. JazzBoston will participate. Please join us there. The jazz community needs to be seen and heard. Click here to register. Also, please send us your ideas so that we can include them in our follow-up statement.

Clockwise: Members of Boston's jazz community gather for portrait, Wally's matriarch Elynor Walcott front center (click to enlarge); Riffs & Raps performance, Dorchester Boys & Girls Club; JazzBird radio app gurus Richard Mott & Doug Ashford; Jazz Week '13 poster, HS Jazz Band Showcase, BPL.

Based on NEA data, 300,000 jazz fans are lurking in their dens all over Greater Boston, with 70,000 - 80,000 in the City of Boston alone. We want to hear from more of you, and we need your support.

What we do

Since JazzBoston was founded in 2006, we have been working to connect, serve, and promote the entire Greater Boston jazz scene. Today we are the region's only jazz advocacy organization. We stand up and speak up for the music and the people whose lives are connected to it, personally or professionally. (If you're reading this newsletter, you are one of them.) We write letters, and we attend public meetings ... like the Town Hall meeting on Dec. 14, where we were the only representative of the jazz community.

We also have programs and events that address some of our city's most important educational, cultural and social issues ... Jazz Week, Riffs & Raps, the Campaign for the Future of Jazz Radio, and JazzBird, among others.

Imagine what we could do together

This is an especially opportune moment to work together. For the first time in 20 years, we will have a new mayor, Marty Walsh, and he has promised to make arts and culture a top priority. We want to be there every step of the way to ensure that jazz is on the agenda. With more members behind us, JazzBoston will have a stronger voice and better chance of making a difference.

Please help us continue our work for the Greater Boston jazz community, the music, and you. Become a member at the highest level you can afford, or just donate whatever you can. Click here for jazz. Thank you, and Happy New Year!

PS: Join before Jan. 15 to be invited to our annual Members and Friends Appreciation Party and 8th Birthday Celebration at the end of the month.

Mark Shilansky and Gunther Schuller.

Put these free events in your calendar for the New Year!

Dave Whitney Presents "Jazz at The Bijou -- Pt. II"

As part of their "Classic Jazz" series, the Lincoln Public Library will be presenting this concert by trumpeter Dave Whitney. The Lincoln Public Library Terbell Room, January 8, 7:30 pm.

NEC Faculty Spotlight Concert
Faculty members from the Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Department will come together for this annual concert. NEC's Jordan Hall, January 27, 8 pm.

Mark Shilansky and Fugue Mill
Fugue Mill weaves jazz through the fabric of Americana, world, and classical music. Original group pieces will be featured alongside music by composers such as Leonard Cohen and Samuel Barber. David Friend Recital Hall (921 Boylston St.), February 10, 7:30 pm.

New Works for Berklee Jazz Orchestra
Berklee's Harmony Department Faculty Big Band presents a concert of new, original works and arrangements for concert jazz orchestra. David Friend Recital Hall (921 Boylston St.), February 11, 7:30 pm.

Third Stream Headwaters
See how NEC's Contemporary Improvisation Department (originally known as Third Stream) has developed over the years. This concert will feature previously unheard works by Gunther Schuller and Charles Mingus. NEC's Jordan Hall, February 13, 7 pm.

A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall
NEC Contemporary Improvisation Department students and faculty will perform original compositions and arrangements that explore their identities as artists in relation to the struggles, challenges and social issues that they come up against every day. NEC's Jordan Hall, February 18, 8 pm.

Frank Wilkins, Rebecca Parris, and Wannetta Jackson.

2013 was another great year for jazz in Boston. So why not spend the last hours of it listening to some good music? We've done a round-up of the jazzy ways you can ring in this New Year.

If you want to get home early, head out to the Acton Jazz Cafe for dinner and a show with Rebecca Parris and The Paul Broadnax Trio. Enjoy the rich voice of Boston's beloved singer while helping yourself to an appetizer buffet, served dinner entrees, and a dessert buffet. Close out the night before it gets too late with a champagne toast! Acton Jazz Cafe, 7-9 pm, $50.

The vocal group "Countdown" will be the highlight of Chianti's New Year's bash. This intimate Beverly venue will have live music from 9:30 pm to 12:30 am and will be serving its regular menu throughout the night. Chianti's, 5:30 pm-12:30 am, $20.

For those going to First Night Boston, make sure you stop at the Berklee Performance Center to see the Donald Harrison Quintet. Not only will you be seeing this 1981 Berklee Alumnus and former Jazz Messenger, but you'll also be the live audience for the kick-off concert of NPR's Toast of the Nation hosted by Eric Jackson. Berklee Performance Center, 8:45 pm, $10.

Scullers Jazz Club will be presenting their own New Year's celebration featuring Pieces of a Dream with Wannetta Jackson. Two of the original Pieces of a Dream members, James Lloyd and Curtis Harmon, will perform with the Boston based vocalist. If it strikes your fancy, go to a five course dinner in the Green Room before the show and stay the night. Scullers Jazz Club, 8 and 11 pm, starts at $100 per couple.

Slade's Bar and Grill will be having their usual Tuesday night event, New Year's edition. Frank Wilkins' band will be performing, followed by dancing and a countdown to the New Year. Slade's requests that you wear their colors: purple and/or gold. Slade's Bar and Grill, 7 pm, $20.