Much of Sunday's lineup was first-rate. At noon, there was John Santos, the superb Latin jazz percussionist, on the Main Stage in Plaza de Cesar Chavez. He and his sextet played a 1930s ballad by Pedro Flores, the great Puerto Rican songsmith. Then they played "You Don't Know What Love Is," nice and mellow, with muted trumpet. It all moved along exquisitely, with Santos setting the heat at a low-to-medium simmer; just right to start the day.
By 2 p.m., the throngs were ready for Mr. Powder Keg, trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, also on the Main Stage. He blew the roof off a medley of Bird-and-Diz tunes. He sang a bolero. He imitated Eddie Van Halen on synthesizer. He traded fours on Clifford Brown's "Joy Spring" with Zane Musa, his supercharged saxophonist. There was a Vegas vibe to some of it, but mostly this was jazz as high-flying entertainment, in the tradition of Dizzy Gillespie. Listening to the strains of "A Night in Tunisia," Sandoval's final tune, while walking over to the San Jose Rep, I felt content. And after hearing successive sets at the Rep by saxophonist Miguel Zenón and pianist Alfredo
So thanks to Bruce Labadie, the festival's director and main programmer, and Michael Miller, the new executive director of the San Jose Jazz organization, for presenting this string of musical pearls. And yet I've got to say it: This "jazz" festival is suffering from an identity crisis, as it has been for about five years.
Let's start the critique with a question. Why is a nonprofit arts organization -- one that's historically been about building an audience for jazz -- presenting the Ohio Players, funk superstars of the '70s, who headlined Friday night on the Main Stage? These past few years, San Jose's largest annual cultural event has been feeling more like the "San Jose Pop Festival" than the San Jose Jazz Festival (or the San Jose Jazz Summer Fest, as it now is officially known).
One can always rationalize: In an age of tight budgets, government cutbacks and competition for corporate underwriting, the festival needs the Ohio Players and other pop acts to pull in the crowds, to help generate the income to fund the rest of the event -- and to pay for San Jose Jazz's summer jazz camp and music-in-the-schools program. I don't buy it. The San Francisco Symphony doesn't attract underwriters or pay for its massive school programs by presenting a lopsidedly nonclassical season of programs. The best institutions aren't built by pandering. Look at SFJazz, the Stanford Jazz Workshop and the Monterey Jazz Festival, each guided by individuals who love jazz to death (Randall Kline at SFJazz; Jim Nadel at Stanford; Tim Jackson at Monterey) and who stay on top of every development in this music. They're not ideologues; world music and blues happens at their events, sometimes quite a lot. But predominantly, these organizations are about jazz, the full gamut of jazz.
Santos and Sandoval were exceptions over the weekend in San Jose, where jazz mostly was segregated away from the main events, away from the crowds. If there was jazz on the Main Stage, it tended to be outright pop jazz: Ramsey Lewis; George Duke, Marcus Miller, David Sanborn; and Dave Koz. And God bless Trombone Shorty and Mavis Staples; they're tremendous performers. But why is San Jose Jazz holding "Intro to Jazz for Kids" sessions on the Next Gen Stage in the Tech Museum, when jazz can be so hard to find outside the Tech's doors?
Year after year, the defining artists of jazz's mainstream -- Roy Hargrove, Christian McBride, Branford Marsalis, Nicholas Payton, Brad Mehldau, Kenny Garrett, Joshua Redman (who lives in the Bay Area) and many others -- are absent from the festival. These people perform on festival stages around the world; why are they not in San Jose?
Why are such top-tier pianists as Benny Green (who lives in Berkeley) and Taylor Eigsti (who grew up in Menlo Park and taught at Stanford this summer) not at the festival? For that matter, why doesn't the festival partner more actively with Stanford, which presents an astonishing roster of acts each summer? There must be a way.
Why was Ambrose Akinmusire, the most widely discussed young trumpeter in jazz (and from Oakland) not at the festival? Roscoe Mitchell? Hafez Modirzadeh? Andrew Speight? John Handy? They're all important saxophonists, all living full- or part-time in the Bay Area -- and not at the festival. Ditto for vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, who lives just north of Half Moon Bay and is among the greatest living jazz musicians.
I'm sure there are reasons that one or another of the above are not at the festival in any given year -- matters of scheduling or budget. But if the festival can afford the Ohio Players, then I'm pretty sure it can afford Roy Hargrove.
Besides, the above list is just the tip of the iceberg. The programming possibilities for the festival are practically endless. Yet from one year to the next, the festival is not deeply or imaginatively programmed, at least in terms of its jazz. And it's hard to understand why: When Sandoval started ripping through his bebop medley Sunday afternoon, the crowd came alive. Folks were snapping their fingers all over the plaza during "A Night in Tunisia." Which is saying something, because even during Trombone Shorty's Saturday afternoon set, a lot of people were barely paying attention at the edge of the crowd.
OK, let's end by accentuating the positive.
While wandering the downtown streets late Saturday afternoon, starved for jazz, I stumbled up the stairs of the Bella Mia restaurant on South First Street -- and felt like I'd fallen through a trapdoor. Jazz!
On the festival's Bella Mia Stage, Giacomo Gates was singing Cole Porter's "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" -- really singing. He was leaning back and breaking into bluesy yodels over a finger-popping rhythm section led by pianist Larry Dunlap. In the same room an hour later, young vibraphonist Christian Tamburr tore through "Secret Love" with his astonishing glider of a band, featuring Dominick Farinacci, a buttery trumpeter and fluegelhornist, who descends from Clark Terry and seems destined for fame. The music was electric. The room was packed. We all had found our secret love in this intimate place -- but the music would have worked on the Main Stage, too.
