Jazz Festivals in Atlantic Canada booking acts based on grants and sponsorships

(Updated July 2012) – I was Googling TD Jazz Festival and got a great line up – George Benson, Natalie Cole, Matt Anderson / Joan Osborne, Bette LaVette and Tedeschi Trucks Band.

Then I realized NOT ON PEI OR HALIFAX.

Those top jazz acts will not be performing at the TD Halifax Jazz Festival either. It’s the lineup for the TD Toronto Jazz Festival. Year after year the Atlantic Canadian jazz festivals ignore jazz acts that will draw crowds of paying customers. Instead the organizers in Halifax and Charlottetown book local jazz artists or acts no one has heard about.

Since the organizers must have a few good jazz records at home, one can assume they are driven by patronage of local musicians, which is not an evil motive. They also get too much grant money from the Provincial and Federal governments, the TD Bank and other corporate sponsors.

There is no profit motive, to draw big audiences to make the TD Jazz Festivals a success commercially.  While they also get grants, the Fredericton Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival, Cavendish Beach Music Festival, and Truro Dutch Mason Blues Festival book headline artists and draw large and profitable audiences.

There may be other explanations but one would hate to accuse local organizers of not wanting to bring the best of the best to their audiences.

It is hard to imagine that Bonnie Raitt and James Cotton get booked into Truro Nova Scotia, population 23,000 souls, and Halifax and Charlottetown cannot afford to book the same or better level of talent.

Look at the line-up this year in Truro – James Cotton, Marshall Tucker Band, Delbert McClinton, and Shirley King.

Neither Halifax nor Charlottetown festivals have booked Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Colin Linden or Colin James, despite these bands popularity and number of national awards.