I'm looking for pound notes, loose change, bad checks, anything

I'm swamped right now with various things, but I took a break to read this Nate Chinen post on the recently unveiled Chamber Music America commissions and on grants for jazz generally. The ensuing conversation includes comments from pianist Vijay Iyer and bassist Ronan Guilfoyle and is well worth your while. This is a discussion that's been going on the classical community for a very long time, as grants play a much more important and prominent role over on that side of the fence. But we haven't seen much talk of this in the jazz community as of yet and it's interesting to see some of the same issues play out -- especially, the concerns over (people's perceptions of) what grant panels want to see influencing the viability of certain types of projects.

I don't remotely have the time to weigh in at the moment (in part because I'm, um, working on a pending grant application), but here's a taste of what's being said:

Nate Chinen:

Commissions like these have become a fundamental part of the jazz economy. And, I’d add, now a significant factor in jazz’s creative life. Last year I confessed some guarded ambivalence about this fact in a related Gig column, musing about the specific qualities of these “new jazz works” that tend to look good in grant-proposal form.

I know, I know: Gift horse, mouth. It seems churlish, maybe even foolish, to question any institutionalized program that sees fit to distribute funding in the name of creative music. 

Looking over the list of past recipients, I can’t help but notice many who later made excellent related albums. Consider Chasing Paint(Arabesque), by soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom; Swimming(OmniTone), by French hornist Tom Varner; Tragicomic (Sunnyside), by pianist Vijay Iyer; Ivey-Divey (Blue Note), by clarinetist Don Byron; and Codebook (Pi), by Mahanthappa. Or Steve Lehman’s Travail, Transformation, and Flow (Pi), one of this year’s best so far.

That’s just a small handful, and it doesn’t even begin to account for the many commissions -- from Chamber Music America and other organizations, including venues -- that only led to concert and festival performances. I’ve seen quite a few of these, including some that felt overwrought or overthought. Whether that was a consequence of the commission is, of course, impossible to know.

Ronan Guilfoyle: 

Coming from Europe I always find it intriguing at the soul-searching that goes on the US jazz community whenever the music is given any grant aid. In this case the money is for commissioning of compositions and as far as I can make out is one of the few areas where jazz musicians CAN actually apply for some money to help them out in the brutal economic scene that surrounds the playing of jazz in America. Coming from a country where you can apply for grants not only for composition, but for touring, recording, performing, buying expensive instruments and even the development of an idea, it seems strange that there’s any questioning of something as small as the awards available to jazz composers from Chamber Music America. As an expression of percentage of population America probably gives less money to the arts than anywhere else in the western world. And I know many European jazz musicians are baffled at America’s lack of support for jazz in particular – America’s great gift to the musical arts. So when some small support does come it seems doubly strange to question it – these guys can use all the help they can get in trying to make a living playing creative music!

Vijay Iyer:

Nearly every prominent composer in the history of classical music had patrons (as did plenty of less prominent ones). Now we're talking about a miniscule amount of patronage for American jazz. There are so few grants of this nature in the U.S. that Ronan's mention of "funding bodies" in the plural feels like an exaggeration. CMA's two programs - New Works and the French-American initiative - are the only jazz-specific ones out there to my knowledge, and they have been the source of controversy among CMA constituents, who skew heavily towards classical performers and their patrons.

(All other nationwide programs that commission new jazz works - e.g. NEA, American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, Guggenheim - have "classical/new music" and "jazz" composers competing for the same funding. Classical people have their own additional resources, institutions, and infrastructure that we don't have.)

Like Ronan, I have been both a recipient and a panelist for various grants. I received some key project support and awards early in my career. In most cases I sought these things because I had no choice - there were no other means of support for the work I wanted to do.

Read the rest here. I should say that my own career thus far would not have been possible without the support I've received from the Jazz Gallery's Large Ensemble Series, the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, and -- most recently -- the Aaron Copland Fund for Music's Recording Program. It goes without saying that I am honored and grateful to all of them. But I should also note for the record that were it not for the early, substantial support I received from the Canada Council for the Arts, it's hard to imagine how I would have been able to keep my head above water long enough to even begin to apply for any US-based grants. It's thanks entirely to the Canada Council's support that I was able to study with Bob Brookmeyer and Maria Schneider, and participate in the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop. If I'd been born on this side of the border, I'm not sure I'd be running a big band today.

Comments

[Jason Parker]

1.

Amen to funding, no matter the source! I think Ronan has great points about how we tend to get our panties in a wad here in the US.

I was recently awarded a grant from a county agency devoted to funding public arts That coupled with the micropatronage program I ran has allowed me to complete my new CD with almost no money out of my own pocket. Now I have boxes of CDs which are PAID FOR. I don't need to sell even one to recoup. This has given me an amazing feeling of freedom as to how to get the CDs into people's hands. I can sell them, give them away, throw them like frisbees...whatever!

Patronage, as Vijay says, has been around since the arts began. I see no reason why we should fear it.

I do hope there will be more organizations devoted to the funding of jazz, but until there are, there's still plenty of organizations willing to give to jazz musicians under the larger umbrella of "the arts". Go find them. They are in your town too.

[DJA]

2.

Hi Jason,

Now I have boxes of CDs which are PAID FOR.

That is a indeed an enviable situation, and it's awesome that you were able to make that happen!

Grants for recording purposes are actually extremely difficult to get -- we were very fortunate to receive the funding we did from the Copland Fund (and, of course, our generous supporters) but even so, this covers only a fraction of our total recording costs. Bigband is mad spendy.