CUJBA was founded due to the closing of 'Nature's Table' in the spring
of 1991. The reason, no real venues were taking care of our need for jazz
and blues; the cycle was way down. The concept of the founding of CUJBA
was to draw together: club owners, musicians and fans in order to get more
happening on the scene. Before long several clubs took up the call and were
presenting jazz and blues more frequently. Over the last 5, or so, years
the venues have come and gone. Jumer's, Treno's, The Alley Cat, Bratwurks,
6' Under, The Clybourne are a few that gave it a brief try and quit. Joe's
Brewery, Jillian's, and others do it rather irregularly. The Blind Pig,
Zorba's, The Embassy and the Hideaway, and perhaps The City of New Orleans,
have stuck it out the longest. There are and have been other venues and
they will probably continue to come and go. Nothing lasts forever? Or does
It?
There are cycles of good club attendance and venue support, like a pure
sine wave they come and they go. There are times of boom, when there are
more places to go to hear music than one can possibly physically do, to
down swings when there may be only a few happy hours during an entire week.
There are times when the crowds are pitifully small no matter what band
is playing(from the local garage band to a national headliner lots of no
shows in the audience).
What are the causes of these cycles? If I thought I could answer these questions
I would probably be running the most luxurious, well attended, best booked
club in the history of the world. From the standpoint of a club owner the
main thing is making money. After all, the reason that any one goes into
business is to make money. Clubs have historically tried many different
ways to put bodies in the seats of their establishments, such as Happy Hour
Specials(no longer legal), live music, billiards, and the list goes on and
on.
When something works the owners keep it going until there is a perception
the hook has run its course and the crowds have begun to wither, then it
is on to some new method of drawing in business. When there aren't enough
butts in the seats or cash in the till you can pretty well figure that the
place will soon quit whatever they are doing and try something new.
The music lovers can and should do something to slow down these cycles of
clubs not keeping the music. The key word here is ATTENDANCE. Get out to
your favorite venue at least once or more per month, tell your friends to
get out there, invite people from out of town to come down for a visit and
show them your favorite hang out. Some of the attendance problems could
be solved if more of the musicians went out to hear each other more often.
If each local performing group had one member attend each gig by others
performing the same genre of music there would be an automatic audience
for the music. This would accomplish several things: 1) the club owners
would have people in the house and keep the music happening, 2) it would
keep venues going so there would be places to play and hear great music,
3) you could hear the way some other performer is doing a song differently
from the way you perform it or you could get some ideas on other songs you
may be able to do better. Regardless of the reason, musicians have everything
to gain from making appearances at music venues when they are not playing.
The reasoning behind this article is that I believe that, in talking with
several musicians, club owners and fans over the past few months, it is
time for us to get together once again and see what we can do as a community
to keep the clubs presenting music, the musicians getting reasonable paying
gigs, and the fans having regular places to go. It is totally amazing the
number of very talented musicians we have here in the CU area. When you
go to other towns check and see how many places have much live music, and
if they do is it worth hearing. In CU it is usually a gratifying experience;
not always the case in other places. Keep your ears and eyes open for more
on a possible get together of any interested parties(club owners, musicians
and fans) on helping CUJBA to improve our local scene and keeping the music
and venues going strong.
In the spring of 1995 the readers of Swing Journal, Japan's leading jazz
magazine, cast their votes in the latest of the popularity polls of which
Japanese jazz aficionados never seem to tire. In two of the more bizarre
categories, "Most Popular Japanese Artist in History" and "Most
Popular Jazzwoman in History," an astounding upset occurred-in the
former, national legends like Akiyoshi Toshiko, Watanabe Sadao, and Yamashita
Yôsuke were toppled by the young upstart Ônishi Junko; in the
latter category, even distinguished jazz ladies such as Billie Holiday,
Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mary Lou Williams just didn't have what
it took to beat Ônishi. No, I'm not kidding.
So what is it that Ônishi Junko has that those great artists don't?
She's got a multi-million yen promotional campaign on her side, plus the
combination of "cuteness" and sex appeal that Japanese consumers
absolutely demand from their stars. Every new album on which she plays is
accompanied by leggy photographs of the pianist. Her stardom has crossed
over to the mainstream of people who know nothing of and care less about
jazz. When a jazz pianist appears semi-regularly in trashy sports tabloids
(which offer equal doses of sports sensationalism and pornography), under
the headline "beautiful pianist," it's obvious that her harmonic
sense and rhythmic drive are not under scrutiny.
Many older musicians resent Ônishi because they think she doesn't
adopt the deferential attitude that they expect from younger musicians.
Some musicians in the avant-garde camp resent her fame. She's been called
an "impertinent woman," and the "Jazz Cinderella." Everyone
has an opinion on her. And the attention she commands has brought jazz back
into the entertainment industry's spotlight. As the first Japanese musician
to headline a one-week gig at New York's Village Vanguard, and as a Blue
Note recording artist, she has brought prestige to her country's jazz world.
It should be easy to say that Ônishi Junko is yet another media-manufactured
star, riding her good looks to fame while other, more capable musicians
languish in obscurity. But it's not that simple. The fact is that Ônishi
Junko is a marvelous musician. As one listen to her live albums at the Village
Vanguard will demonstrate, she has an imagination that simply won't quit,
not to mention the technique to articulate her ideas at bullet-train speed.
Moreover, if her Vanguard date with Wynton Marsalis' rhythm team of Herlin
Riley and Reginald Veal seemed to indicate her acceptance into the neoclassicist
fold, she refuses to let the boundaries of that clique's ideology confine
her. She is one of the very few musicians of the Young Lion generation,
in either Japan or the US, to tackle the compositions and musical systems
developed by Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus. Her partnership with Japan's
leading avant-garde altoist, Hayashi Eiichi, indicates a breadth of musical
vision that puts the Marsalis camp and the so-called "Jazz Restoration
in Japan" to shame. Her future career promises to be as bright as that
of her predecessor in the "impertinent woman" and "Jazz Cinderella"
categories, Akiyoshi Toshiko.
There is no question that single, twenty something, salivating male jazz
fans are behind Ônishi's astounding popularity in Japan. But if our
cynicism about the marketing of Ônishi Junko as a jazz sex symbol
prevents us from appreciating her musical talent and promise, it's our loss.
Her US releases are Cruisin', Live at the Village Vanguard, and Piano Quintet
Suite.