Fifty days after the beginning of the pandemic, the world of jazz performance continues to be greatly affected. For the most part, venues are still closed and no live music is being played in person. Jazz performances take place in a wide variety of venues and each one is having to deal with the crisis differently. Often smaller jazz performances take place in restaurants and bars, some of which have been able to keep a revenue stream going by offering take out food. However, as a recent article in the Columbia Spectator pointed out “establishments that rely on crowds to turn a profit are left by the wayside. And for the local performers who rely on these performance spots to generate their own income and build audiences, the potential ramifications of the COVID-19 quarantine measures are particularly bleak.” In Asheville, there are even local rumors that certain venues may have to close permanently due to the pandemic.
Venues are in turn looking for other sources of revenue, wherever they can find it. The Columbia Spectator reported that small jazz clubs like Smoke are hoping that a combination of GoFundMe, pre-purchased gift cards, the coronavirus relief bill, and paycheck protection program loans will keep them afloat. Certain venues, like the Lincoln Center, who record almost all of their concerts have turned to their vast records to create a new source of revenue. A recent article in Jazziz reported that Lincoln Center is releasing “a full-length concert every Wednesday on its YouTube channel.” It seems like every venue is using a collage of funding sources to keep them going. However, the most difficult part of this situation is that no one knows how long those alternate funding sources will have to last.
For the most part, festivals have also been canceled across the board and are being rescheduled for the fall, fingers crossed. A few however, like Love From Philly, have made an effort to broadcast virtually. The Philadelphia music festival usually doesn’t include jazz music but this year viewers got to see Christian McBride playing bass from his living room and Joey DeFrancesco singing and playing organ at his house. According to an article in the Inquirer, the festival is a “fund-raiser for 30 Amp Circuit, a nonprofit that’s distributing micro-grants to Philadelphia musicians and venue workers whose livelihoods have been impacted by COVID-19.” On the musician side of the jazz performance world, artists are similarly scrambling to do whatever they can do to make ends meet and in some cases, like Emmet Cohen, continuing to make music.
At just twenty nine years old, Emmet Cohen has already made a name for himself, just last year winning the 2019 American Pianists Awards and becoming the Cole Porter Fellow of the American Pianists Association. I sat down with him virtually through Zoom on May 1st to discuss how he has experienced the pandemic. We primarily discussed his experience transitioning to live streaming from his house with fellow musicians Russell Hall and Kyle Poole, who join him in person to perform on an almost daily basis. The fact that they have continued to play together as a trio has gotten all three of them some flack on social media for not abiding by a strict quarantine. According to Cohen, they had been touring together for weeks before the pandemic lockdown and since they all live “practically next door” they decided to essentially quarantine together.
Cohen said Sulivan Fortner’s live stream with Cecile McLorin Salvant was his inspiration to start doing live stream concerts. For him, the task of running all the technology while also performing has been the biggest challenge. Cohen had only live streamed a few concerts from his iPhone before the lockdown. Since the pandemic has started, he has acquired one condenser mic for his baby grand piano, and two more condensers for drums and bass. He runs mics through a recently bought Behringer interface and into an open source software called OBS, which links the video from his iPhone and the audio and allows them to stream to different platforms simultaneously. The set up allows the trio to stream shows multiple times a week. The stream on Monday night is always free, which according to Cohen was a conscious decision because “no one has any money right now” and that “maybe the people that need this most are the people that can’t pay for it.”
Perhaps the biggest hurdle for virtual streaming right now is the inability to collaborate in time with other musicians. Cohen has broadcast a handful of concerts featuring guests streaming from their homes. According to him, however, all of the streams had to be pre-recorded so that the guest artist could record over the top of an already recorded track by Cohen and his trio. Here in Asheville, a local jazz artist has also begun creating videos in the same way as Cohen (pre-recorded tracks to be overdubbed by other musicians). Jason DeCristafaro, who runs the jazz jams at One World West Brewery and at Southern Appalachian Brewery, has begun posting videos every Monday and Wednesday night of himself and other musicians playing virtually from different homes.
According to DeCristafaro, the biggest challenge, in addition to learning how to use the recording technology, has been the amount of time it takes to create just one video. The process of recording backing tracks for each musician to record over has become an hours long process that for him can be exhausting. DeCristafaro has chosen to use an audio and video software called VSDC which is similar to OBS but apparently includes better audio editing software. In addition to having an interface, he has a Rhode Video Pro Mic that he uses to mic his synthesizer and vibraphone. While talking to Jason via Zoom, he expressed hope that it would be the less popular musical styles, like jazz, that would potentially return first after the pandemic, due to the smaller crowd sizes.
As a jazz musician myself here in Asheville, I have embarked on a studio set up of my own with the help of tech students in the Music Department. Like many others, I was grateful to receive a stimulus check, and also like many others, spent some of the money on non-essential items — in this case, some very basic recording equipment. For myself, the process of setting up recording equipment with my piano and learning how to use OBS has been one of the silver linings of this pandemic. It feels great to be able now have the skills to record myself and stream those recordings, if I desire, to a wider audience. But like everyone else I’ve talked with, despite the positive aspects of live streaming, I’m also just waiting for the day when we can return to perform live with each other.
Works Cited
Bromberg, Bella and Nigel Telman. “Please Don’t Stop The Music: Local Venues andPerformers Cope with Closures and Looming Financial Crisis.” Columbia Spectator. (April 28, 2020). Accessed Online.
DeLuca, Dan.“Love From Philly, Day 2: A Virtual Jazz Fest with Christian McBride, Joey DeFrancesco and More.” Inquirer. (May 3, 2020). Accessed Online.
Emmet Cohen Interview. Interviewed by Joey Harrington. Zoom. May 1st, 2020.
Jason Decristafaro Interview. Interviewed by Joey Harrington. Zoom. May 1st, 2020.
Micucci, Matt. “Norah Jones, Vijay Iyer, David Broza & More: The Week in Jazz.” Jazziz. (May 1st, 2020). Accessed Online.
