Troubled Venues Ask City for Bailouts

and libraries! who needs 'em? besides the homeless who shower in the bathrooms? Sure it may be nice to say you have a library card, but when was the last time you actually went?

And don't even get me started about theater!

/brock rooney (eyebrows and all)

... throw a few decent club nights before you start dipping in the family funds.

True.

Wow.

I know you're not all that well informed about many things outside of the stereotype of self-absorbed, clueless, white homosexual, Brock... but geez have you even set foot in any of those places? Once?

What a fucking tool.

having 3 places all within a block of each other that charge the same high prices is pretty silly IMO

Same goes for you. Ever set foot in 1300, Yoshi's, or Rasselas?

Given that you can eat them both, sushi and Ethiopian food are clearly the same gimmick.

Clearly, in an area like the Fillmore where the city has done its best to destroy businesses... we ought to just kill the few remaining jazz clubs because they don't spin enough Madonna.

::rolls eyes::

F 'em...have some sack and figure out what you need to do to change. The owners of those clubs are retarded.

I'm going to be elitist and condescending for the duration of this comment.

When I hear kids saying "jazz is dead, get over it" I don't know whether to cry or make jokes. The main reason that people don't like jazz is simply because they don't have the mental capacity for music that isn't the sonic equivalent of Maxim Magazine. Maybe part of it is good old devolution, but I think it's mostly that in these days of endless digital media people have the opportunity to listen to everything, and as a result understand nothing. Who even has a favorite song anymore? Who listens to a song more than 10 times? 50? Nobody. A song needs to be listened to at least that many times to understand it and in turn be able to comprehend other music, just like learning language. But nowadays MP3s sit there on people's hard drive like a trophy. After all, it's the American Way to measure self worth by how much one can consume. As annoying as it is for me to read Kerouac describe jazz, I sure wish people listened to music that intensely these days.

So what's the solution for the Fillmore jazz scene given few people can follow the music? The clubs have to trick people into listening to good music. There's a lot of good things happening locally that's pushing jazz forward, like Mitch Marcus and Jazz Mafia. Jazz Mafia deserves props for bringing in people with gimmicks but still leaving enough room for the musicians to be able to create art. Likewise, Wednesdays at Amnesia pulls in the hipsters seeking dim light and Belgian beers, and hey there's awesome music being created (although not many people are actually listening). I'd like to see the Fillmore take on more of that vibe. Yoshi's is great, but I like the Oakland one better because it's smaller, the sound is better, and it's less sterile.

Needs more nooks.

skibidie wibidie wobbidy do
skobbidie wibidie bobidie boo
dobidie wobidie skibidie-oh
jazz!

Steven Sondheim is still alive? Next thing you'll tell me is that Leonard Bernstein was spotted on the piano at Martuni's.

Brock, you're trying to pick an example of a living musical genre, and you pick musical theater? Does anyone other than high school theater dorks and elderly queers listen to musicals?

Cabaret type performance of musical standards is completely dead, and the only musicals that draw a reliable crowd are Andrew Lloyd Webber/Rent type tourist traps.

Jazz is marginally more alive than the musical, and with the right bands in the right places (NYC Birdland, Vanguard etc.) it can be profitable and successful.

The problem with the Fillmore is that SF nuked all of its jazz history and is trying to rebuild it all at once instead of growing it organically. A related problem is that the local scene is too small, and the good contemporary musicians are in NYC.

I don't know if I can agree with that finality, Brock. Period? Really? Ir/Relevant to whom? I cough it up to see shows as well as support KCSM radio, so not me.

Brock:

Really, we listen to Sondheim and Spears, and even we know, save for a the occasional Biscuits & Blues, jazz is not a moneymaker for SF venues.

So the first sentence was just about your listening preferences, using the royal we?

I thought you were saying that Sondheim and Spears were "popular" music with the American public when jazz is not.

Anyway, I still stand behind my point -- the city subsidizes all sorts of things to various degrees because they attract tourists and tax dollars. Might as well be jazz, which is as alive as anything that's not indie rock and rap. Although the Fillmore clearly needs a better business plan if they're going on about bailouts already.

Fuck putting dance clubs on Fillmore. It's hard enough to deal with the ugly wanna be hipsters who invade my neighborhood every weekend on their way to Fillmore Auditorium, we don't need more scum on my block.

I went to Yoshi's last night to see the Broun Fellinis, and they sold the joint out on a Monday. Hopefully that's a wake-up call for them to book more adventurous acts and more local acts instead of the tired old stars they usually.

I think of Jazz as probably being regulated to a niche market role these days, but it's an important niche--especially for a city with a long jazz history and a city that depends on tourism.

I agree that these clubs should be more creative in their booking. Stuff like Wednesdays at Amnesia, Thursdays at the Elbo Room, the Boom Boom Room mix of jazz/funk/jambands.

But I also think city government has some responsibility for helping the Fillmore jazz district. The redevelopment of the Fillmore in the 50s and 60s devastated the African-American community, and I think we have a moral responsibility to try to fix that. I know that sounds a little preachy for an SFist comment, but what can you do?

p.s. skibu666 FTW.

I'm a senior citizen born and raised in San Francisco. In the 40s and 50s I remember going to many jazz clubs with my Dad as my Mom's hair wouldn't withstand the fog and wind so he took me with him. There were jazz clubs in all neighborhoods. Then rock and folk music were popular and "jazz was dead." Disco came and "jazz was dead" etc. Well music fans, jazz is not dead but is alive in our hearts, on our vinyl, on our tapes and on our CDs. Jazz will be alive through whatever the current music interest is as that current music will fade on to the next interest.

I thought Jazz at Pearl's was closed for some reason. Is it not? Their website only shows pics of local eccentrics.

If you blur your eyes a little, the headline reads "Troubled Venuses Ask City for Bailouts".

Wow. As someone who passionately documents the local scene (see website), this post is disappointing in so many ways it kind of pains me a bit. But, to each his own, live and let live I say.

Look, sure, jazz is a niche these days, and as such it's hard to argue with some of your points, but to demean the whole genre like that is kind of lame and pointless really. If there's one thing I'M ABSOLUTELY 100% SURE OF, it's that jazz will still be here in some form or another long after the latest fad in popular music comes and goes. It's proven itself resilient in that respect for decades and decades at this point. You must remember, jazz will never die completely because pretty much all popular music has evolved from from it, and whether you realize it or not, sometimes reaches back to it (look at Christina's Back to Basics, look at hip hop's use of jazz samples, look at jam band improvisation, etc.). Jazz is dead like classical is dead, it might not be mainstream anymore, but it will always be around, there will always be people who appreciate it. Shit, if even a quarter of the bands these days even had a tenth of the talent of a solid jazz musician, then maybe, just maybe, they could kill jazz off, lol.

The really tragic thing here is how the redevelopment agency completely and utterly destroyed the jazz scene in San Francisco a generation or more ago. If it weren't for that, we might have a scene like NYC still does. Anyway, bottom line is that the agency that killed off jazz in the city in the first place, surely isn't the agency to bring it back.