Delmark Marks 55th Anniversary

By Luke Willson

March 13, 2008

Bob Koester is a walking encyclopedia of Jazz and Blues. Ask him who his favorite musicians are and a cascade of names comes tumbling from his mouth. Johnny Dodds, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Duke Ellington, Art Pepper… he went on and on.
I visited Koester at Delmark Records, a recording label that he has owned since recording the Windy City Six 55 years ago in St. Louis. And, though many things have changed since then, talking with Koester is a little bit like going back in time.

“There are record companies that are pretty much in a holding pattern, hoping things will somehow improve,” said Koester at his studio in Ravenswood. “I don’t see how they can. But, I like the music too much to quit. I’m too stubborn to quit. When I’m gone, probably cooler heads will prevail, and I don’t know what that will mean.”

Delmark Records celebrated its 55th anniversary on March 7 at Buddy Guy’s Legends. In tribute to Koester and his label, a lineup of some of the best local blues musicians performed, including Jimmy Johnson, Zora Young, and Taildragger.

Koester has a reputation for taking young music enthusiasts under his wing. So I wasn’t that surprised when he agreed to give me, a lowly college journalism student, an opportunity to interview him, and even a ride back to the El when we were done.

The Delmark House is located on a quiet street in Ravenswood. Over the years, the label has had to change venues a number of times due to financial obligations. But it has been in its current location for about fifteen.

He started the tour off with the kitchen, and then showed me the recording studio. A seven foot long soundboard dominated the room, with computers and speakers surrounding it. Quarter-inch and half-inch recorders, even an eight-track, stood against the insulated walls like relics. A large window looked in on the studio.

He’s not known for crossing that window very often, preferring a more hands-off approach with the musicians he records. He related how he didn’t go to his first Avante Garde recording session in 1965, because he felt so out of the loop that he didn’t want his “square vibes” messing up the music.

“You sort of know jazz when you hear it, even Avante Garde jazz,” he said. “There are people who only like traditional jazz. They think anything after 1930 is deluded. And there are people who like Bebop, and they got mad at the ‘moldy figs,’ they called them, who didn’t like jazz after the thirties style or the swing style. But, I think we’ve learned over the years to be a little careful about criticizing a new type of music. Now I can’t say that I was enjoying Avante Garde jazz when I recorded Roscoe Mitchell in 1965. I was proud to do it, because the people who told me I ought to record Roscoe Mitchell, they all dug Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Johnny Dodds, Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, Basie, Ellington, so I trusted them. And I made a cold-blooded decision to do it.”

From the studio, Koester showed me the warehouse. It was dark; the lights were off in an attempt to save a little energy and money. Money is a tight thing at Delmark these days.

“Our business is half what it was before downloading, and will probably remain so,” he said. “And this gives us very little excuse to spend our money on record dates. I don’t know what they’re going to download when the record companies decide screw it, stop recording people… I recently saw sales figures from one of the major companies, and would you believe an Ella Fitzgerald record selling less than 110 copies in one year? That’s sad.”

He turned the lights on in the warehouse and illuminated a forest of shelves and boxes. The physical total of 55 years in the business: CDs, DVDs, LPs, boxes and boxes of music. Who knows what treasures he’s gotten hidden away in all the boxes he’s got back there.

Much of the stock goes toward his retail outlet, the Jazz Record Mart.

“I’ve always had a retail business, I wouldn’t have been able to have a label without it,” said Koester. “It’s got us through some hard times. On the other hand, Delmark has helped the store get through some hard times too… It’s all been fun most of the time, but you got to sit down and reconcile the check books. Figure out what kind of money you have, and what you’re going to do with it.”

A poster of Koester from a few years ago peeks from behind one shelf of records. He looks different, thinner. Chemotherapy has taken its toll.

In his office, we sat down to talk for a little while. Stacks seem to come out of the woodwork here, and Koester told me to move whichever pile of papers I wanted, to make room to sit.

After seeing the equipment in the studio, I felt a little out of my depth with a mini-cassette voice recorder. But, Koester launched right into it, giving me a crash course in Jazz and Blues history. Believe me when I say it would be too much to cover in one article.

“The future of jazz? That’s really hard to say. With the passing of the last of the original Bop guys, I’m afraid there could be a generation of critics who only believe in Avante Garde. There’s always been a tendency of Americans to worship the new… I was prevented from digging Art Pepper back in St. Louis, when a modern jazz fan, and I didn’t know very many, but a modern jazz fan said, ‘I don’t know why you listen to that old-fashioned stuff. You wouldn’t want a 1928 car if you could get a 1953 car would you?’ And he was equating jazz as if, like, the new model is going out of print. I wonder if he listens to Avante Garde today, I’m willing to bet he doesn’t. But I hope he still listens to Art Pepper.”

Underage Jazz Fans: Hope Is Not Lost

By Luke Willson

Bob Koester has been releasing jazz and blues with his label, Delmark Records, since 1955. Still, he identifies with the younger generation.

“I remember, in my case, it was very difficult to get into clubs,” said Koester. “I didn’t particularly want to drink… I guess, to make sure people don’t drink, they prohibit kids from going in.”

It’s understandable that bars keep young people out. One underage drinker and their liquor license is gone. But in Chicago, where jazz is mostly heard in clubs, there aren’t too many avenues for young jazz fans to enjoy their favorite music.

The City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) produces a number of concerts open to all ages for free. Though their programming is not specifically geared to young people, it is one of the few forums for young jazz listeners.

During the winter months, nearly all of the DCA’s programming is heard downtown at the Chicago Cultural Center. But in the summer, Millenium Park becomes the venue for scores of musical acts.

“The way we see it, the Cultural Center turns inside out in the summer,” said Kennon Brown, the DCA’s Media Relations Manager. “What happens in Millenium Park is what happens in the Cultural Center year round. Of course, in the summer there’s a lot more people able to see it.”

According to Brown, jazz is alive and well in Chicago. But in the summer, when tourists flock to the city, the DCA’s line up is the most extensive.

The Jazz Institute of Chicago (JIC) works with the DCA in many of its jazz programs. Formed in 1968 to counter the idea that jazz was dying out, the Institute strives to restore its cultural vitality.

“I see no problem with it’s musical vitality,” said Daniel Melnick, Operations Manager for the JIC. “Sure, the presence of jazz in popular culture has declined. I think that’s because there’s just not enough exposure”

The JIC’s Jazz Links program is unique in its goal to create the next generation of jazz musicians. Pooling the music programs from public schools around Chicagoland, Jam Sessions are held monthly at the Cultural Center.

Professionals are also recruited by the JIC to be resident musicians at some schools.

“I go in and attempt to get kids to understand and discover jazz is an important musical form,” said Ernie Adams, a resident musician at Dunbar High School. From African drumming to BeBop and Hip Hop, he strives to teach his students that “it’s all connected.”

At the Feb. 4 Jam Session, Adams’ students were among the next generation of jazz musicians on the stage.

“It was very inspiring to see young people not only listening, but trying to create jazz,” he said. “It reminded me of when I was a young man, when jazz was hip and cool for younger people. When it had some significance.”

Just over a year ago, WBEZ 91.5 Chicago Public Radio was Chicago’s source for jazz. But last January, the station cut programming, going with an all news format. These days, an hour of Dick Buckley on Sunday and the occasional feature on 848 are all that remains for Chicago jazz fans.

“A lot of people jump to the conclusion that we changed because people weren’t tuning in, which was not the case,” said Dan Bindert, former host of jazz programming and occasional producer of jazz features on WBEZ. “Pledge drives during our programming produced a lot of money... Management wanted to go in a different direction for a change in philosophy. They felt that people could get music through other delivery systems.”

Bob Koester, who also owns the Jazz Record Mart, says that the change at WBEZ has sharply curtailed exposure for straight-ahead jazz. But, Chicago’s most vibrant scene, the Avante Garde, hasn’t been hurt because it wasn’t played much on the radio in the first place.

While Koester believes that jazz “needs all the outlets it can get,” he is adamant that one of the new delivery systems, illegal downloading from the internet, is severely hurting musicians and vendors.

“It’s mass theft,” said Koester. “If an artist gets 15% of a $15 record he gets a dollar. If he gets a hundred percent of nothing, he gets nothing.”

Koester has been a mainstay of the Chicago jazz and blues scene for many years. His suggestion to underage jazz listeners:

“Come to the Jazz Record Mart. You can listen to jazz all day.”

Where Has All The Jazz Radio Gone?

By Luke Willson

It’s rush hour. You’re stuck in your car on the Dan Ryan at fifteen miles per hour. You have no internet. No XM Satellite. And you’re desperate for… jazz radio. What do you do? What Do You Do?

Before last January, the clear signal of WBEZ 91.5 provided Chicago with jazz eight hours a day, four days a week. These days, listeners are forced to sift through the static of WDCB 90.9. And, most aficionados would probably puke before listening to the smooth sounds of WNUA 95.5.

“Historically, Chicago is such an important growth place for jazz,” said Bradley Williams, a Jazz Studies Professor at DePaul University. “It seems strange that it’s faded away here. Hopefully, it’s just temporary, but I’m not sure the people who are making records have a place to be heard on the air.”

That’s a concern echoed by Chicago Public Radio’s Dan Bindert, local host of Weekend Edition and jazz enthusiast. He says that musicians have lost forty to fifty percent of exposure due to the switch to the news format at WBEZ last January.

“When WBEZ cancelled jazz programming, people wrote to the editor and wrote articles that all seemed to jump to the conclusion that it was cancelled due to a lack of audience,” said Bindert. “But, we had a large audience.”

Nevertheless, there seems to be a reservation that the glory days of jazz on the radio have disappeared. Even college stations have stopped playing it.

“Our target audience is primarily young adults from 18 to 24,” said Scott Vyverman, Faculty Advisor for WDRP Radio DePaul. “It is fair to say that jazz music is probably not the music that our target audience listens to with great frequency.”

He might be right. While Northwestern University Radio WNUR 89.3 has fairly extensive jazz programming, it can’t be picked up in the city. Other local colleges, such as DePaul and Columbia, have very little jazz in their programming at all.

It seems that Chicago’s jazz lovers are going to have to enter the 21st century, even if their tastes remain in the 20th. Online radio is replacing terrestrial radio, and, in some ways, is doing a better job. Broadcast stations have little chance of pleasing all jazz listeners, let alone everyone else. With the amount of fragmentation in tastes and styles, coming to an accepted definition within the genre is impossible.

“In general, people want variety on the radio up to a point,” said Bindert. “The person who tunes in for a Lester Young record from the ‘40s doesn’t want to hear somebody plugged in to an electric guitar with screaming syncs, electronic effects and hip-hop influence. It’s hard to connect all the audiences. There are a lot of open-minded people out there, but it becomes unwieldy in the radio format”

Online radio can reach millions, separated by thousands of miles. Now that listeners can stream stations dedicated to specific styles, from Dixieland to Avante-Garde, the possibilities for jazz may be growing.

Jazz Links Jam Session

By Luke Willson

Think of jazz, and you probably imagine a dark, smoky club, where the listeners sip quietly on their martinis. But that’s not what it was like at the Jazz Links Jam Session on February 13.

The MC was hard to hear over the chatter of excited children in the audience. Kids sat at tables in front of the stage, chewing on happy meals and fiddling with their musical instruments. A clarinet tooted as the rhythm section opened up their chops on the first tune.

The jam sessions, produced by the Jazz Institute of Chicago, showcase students from various local public school music programs, in an effort to get young people interested in jazz.
The Institute lined up a stellar backing for the young musicians – David Carroll on bass, Ernie Adams on drums, and Robert Irving III, known for producing two Grammy-nominated albums for Miles Davis in the ‘80s, on keyboard.

“In this country, you only hear jazz in weddings and movies,” said drummer Ernie Adams. “I’m overseas a lot, and young people in places like Europe come out to hear it. Here, it’s thought of as background music, and people talk above it, like tonight.”

The MC was back on stage by the third group, reminding everybody that, with such great jazz artists on stage, they should be “a great jazz audience.” That meant no more talking, and it got pretty quiet. For a while. However, by the end of the evening, the chatter had crescendoed until it was hard to hear the people on stage again.

Diane Ellis, the band director at Arthur Dixon Elementary School, had some trouble keeping her students settled down too. When they started to horse around in the hall outside of the performance space, a flash of anger was enough to silence them. But, for some reason, her claim that the thirty kids with her were “pretty quiet on the bus over here” seemed like an understatement.

“Lil Sax” Ellis, a professional alto saxophone player with her own all-female jazz group, said that every one of the over 800 students in her school has to learn an instrument. Her program is keeping young people involved in the musical style. And she starts them young. Very young.

The Tiny Tots Jazz Combo that she directs is made up of students from first to fourth grade. The group showcased six singers, a drummer, two piano players (on the same piano) and an electric bass player. The drummer, Kenari, was a veritable Chick Webb, though he was only in first grade. He carried the group, taking a long solo and utilizing the entire set. He even played with Ellis’ middle school students.

“I wish I had gotten started that early,” said 16-year-old drummer Charlie Snyder, from Northside College Preparatory School. “I wasn’t that good until seventh grade. I started playing in sixth, but if I had started in first…”

Snyder, and a few of the older kids, played with the flair and control of professionals. The best musicians in the Jazz Links Program get to open for big names this summer at the Jazz Festival, as they have in years past.

Daniel Melnick, the Jazz Institute Programs Manager and Musical Director of the Jazz Links Ensemble, says that even though the program has yet to produce actual professionals, he’s not disappointed. It’s just not old enough, he commented. But, a few former students are at some of the best music schools in the nation, like Juilliard and Oberlin.

Out of tune and unbalanced, not every group was made up of prodigies. But, it was great to hear the kids playing their hearts out.
Jacquese, an 11-year-old alto sax player from Harold Washington Elementary, said that the Jam Session “made you feel like something was really happening.”

Upcoming Jam Sessions are scheduled for March 12, April 9 and May 14 at the Chicago Cultural Center.