The band Barbacoa.
Barbacoa
Jazz musicians know improvisation is part of the gig. Last year, organizers of the Isthmus Jazz Festival did just that, and hit all the right notes.
The 2018 festival had been bumped from its usual slot on the third weekend in June and its usual spots at the Memorial Union Terrace and Shannon Hall by local jazz musician Ben Sidran and his wife, Judy, whose Madison Reunion claimed the days and spaces. Jazz fest organizers revamped their approach, focusing on more local performers instead of a single starring act. They booked multiple performance locations around Madison, and expanded the former weekend-long festival into a 10-day citywide event.
“Depending on how things go, this year’s version may be one-and-done,” Howard Landsman, board member for the Greater Madison Jazz Consortium, said at the time. “It will depend on how the community supports such a robust schedule of events.”
Fortunately, the new festival formula worked better than organizers ever expected. This year’s Isthmus Jazz Festival, now in its 32nd year, follows the same approach, with an even broader footprint in the Madison metro area.
“We hoped that if we built it jazz fans would come,” Landsman says of the reformatted festival. “The response last year was overwhelmingly positive from attendees, who said we should definitely do the same thing again this year.”
The 2019 festival runs from June 7-16 in 16 locations in Madison, Middleton and Fitchburg. The event was preceded by “Jazz Junction,” a June 1 pre-festival benefit concert featuring the Madison Jazz All-Stars and UW Jazz Faculty Ensemble at Full Compass Systems on the city’s far west side. Proceeds from the concert will help support this year’s festival.
Landsman says the success of last year’s retooled festival reflects a growing audience for jazz. “Madison’s jazz scene has become sufficiently vibrant, and this approach would have been unthinkable seven years ago.”
New venues for this year, including the Catholic Multicultural Center, the Winnebago and the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Fitchburg, help spread the festival throughout the community. Greater variety among the acts, including blues, hip-hop and spoken word performances, help broaden the scope of this year’s entertainment.
The festival also has become more family-friendly. The June 8 Circus Jazz Brunch at the Madison Circus Space will integrate circus acts with jazz performances. “We Got The Blues!” on June 11 at the Bayview Foundation Community Center includes a performance of a student-created work by bassist Ben Ferris and his quartet, which has been teaching young people how to compose in the traditional 12-bar blues format.
On June 11, Café Coda hosts a celebration of women in jazz with local artists Laurie Lang, Lynette Margulies and Jane Reynolds.
Longtime WORT-FM jazz DJ Gary Alderman will offer another in his series of archival jazz video presentations on June 13 at Sequoya Public Library. Alderman says “70 Years of Jazz Greats” includes a special surprise for longtime Madison jazz fans.
The traditional two-day jazz fest on the Memorial Union Terrace on June 14-15 includes some standouts, including the Paul Dietrich Jazz Ensemble (Friday, 9 p.m.), Barbacoa (Friday, 10:30 p.m.), Dave Cooper and QUAD (Saturday, 7:30 p.m.) and Acoplados Latin Jazz Project (Saturday, 10:30 p.m.)
See the full schedule at isthmusjazzfestival.com.
