The Death of Jazz: Greatly Exaggerated [WSJ] #jazz

With His New Undead Jazz Fest, Brice Rosenbloom Makes It Plain That the Historic Genre Is Still Taking Vital Breaths By STEVE DOLLAR

In a city known for the world's greatest summer jazz festivals, few entrepreneurs launch a new one without sounding a little bit nervous. So Brice Rosenbloom's confidence is novel. As the moving force behind the Undead Jazzfest, which debuts this weekend at venues in and around Bleecker Street, the promoter has a track record. And a clear agenda.

"The one thing we're trying to fight against is this notion that jazz is this mysterious code people are trying to break," Mr. Rosenbloom said recently. The 36-year-old native of Louisville, Ky., who arrived in the city in 1997 after a brief stint working for the San Francisco Jazz Festival, has traversed the sometimes combative terrain of New York's jazz and improvised music scenes. Among numerous gigs uptown and down, he's booked seasons for the Knitting Factory (when it was still a TriBeCa mecca for outré rock and jazz) and Jazz at Lincoln Center (during its inaugural year in the Time-Warner building).

No matter the event, one goal remains constant—and it has a lot to do with the new festival's $35 ticket price, which comes out to slightly less than $1 per act playing on stages at (Le) Poisson Rouge, Kenny's Castaways and Sullivan Hall. "The main thing," Mr. Rosenbloom said, "is to get people in the door."

That's exactly what he managed to do in January, when he expanded the sixth annual Winter Jazzfest—traditionally a sidebar to the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference—into a two-night event at five clubs in the West Village. It was a smash, with an audience of about 4,000 packing rooms to hear next-wave bandleaders like drummer Tyshawn Sorey and big-band composer Darcy James Argue. "Those numbers aren't going to fill Madison Square Garden," Mr. Rosenbloom admitted. "But they are going to make an impact on the jazz scene."

It's a scene that could use a shot in the arm. Last summer, the vaunted JVC Jazz Festival became a casualty of the economy, and its former producer, the legendary impresario George Wein, scrambled to relaunch a new version of it. He succeeded, and the CareFusion Jazz Festival will run June 17-26. The mostly star-driven, high-ticket event is contrasted by the Vision Festival, a doggedly non-corporate affair that launches its 15th year on June 20 with a multi-generational, avant-garde spirit.

There's a bit of overlap among all three festivals, but Undead distinguishes itself with a street-level sensibility.

"Brice has been pivotal to our programming," said Justin Kantor, a founder of (Le) Poisson Rouge. Mr. Rosebloom has served as music director since the venue opened two years ago, helping make its eclectic format—chamber music with sides of indie rock, electronic beats and jazz—a viable concept. The next step was expanding that approach to create a kind of street party around a festival of adventurous jazz.

"People may know a handful of these names," Mr. Rosenbloom said, "but they have an opportunity to stumble upon new music they may have never heard of."

As he did with the Winter Jazzfest, the promoter collaborated with Adam Schatz, a young musician and presenter who runs his own floating series called Search and Restore. Undead features highly seasoned players, such as pianists Matthew Shipp and Uri Caine, and saxophonists Tim Berne and Tony Malaby, alongside new blood like drummer Dan Weiss and the quartet Thirteenth Assembly. There are larger outfits led by drummers Ben Perowsky and John Hollenbeck, and there are groups whose names imply something other than buttoned-down orthodoxy, like the high-octane trio Happy Apple and the six-piece Superhuman Happiness, led by saxophonist Stuart Bogle of the Brooklyn Afrobeat band Antibalas.

The festival also plays a few wild cards, like the funk avatar Bernie Worrell. Jazz doesn't create household names anymore, but the festival is a strong reminder of the creative vitality of a form that never stops evolving.

"It's an easy way to check out a lot of music," said Mary Halvorson, a guitarist who will play with Thirteenth Assembly at Undead, and also has gigs with other combos playing in the CareFusion and Vision festivals. The everything-at-once structure gives the fledgling event a spontaneous atmosphere that's more unpredictable.

As for its name? Undead isn't only a joke, emphasized by the green zombie hands displayed in the festival's logo. It's actually a rejoinder to an August 2009 piece written by Wall Street Journal columnist Terry Teachout. "Adam coined the name," Mr. Rosenbloom said. "[Mr. Teachout] asserted that jazz is on its last legs, that audiences are dying off. This festival says there are many exciting, young, talented groups bringing fresh and meaty sounds that a new generation is responding to."

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