The widest open guessing game in town between now and the 7 o’clock start of Monday night’s emotionally charged Redevelopment Agency meeting is: Who will win the producer’s chair for the eight-week Summer Music Festival concert series in the Courtyard of City Hall?
How will the vote go?
Three weeks after Agency member Scott Malsin made a blockbuster pitch to bring in Ruth Price and the Jazz Bakery to share the billing with the popular longtime producer Gary Mandell — who ain’t eager to share with anyone — the Agency will be presented with three options:
• No. 1 — Approve a Professional Services Agreement with Mr. Mandell for services as producer of all eight concerts in an amount not to exceed $55,000;
• No. 2 — Approve a Professional Services Agreement with Mr. Mandell as Music Producer for six concerts in an amount not to exceed $21,000 and a Professional Services Agreement with the Jazz Bakery for services as Music Producer for two concerts in the amount of $7,000;
• No. 3 — Approve a Professional Services Agreement with Mr. Mandell for services as Music Producer for four concerts in an amount not to exceed $14,000 and a Professional Services Agreement with the Jazz Bakery for services as Music Producer for four concerts in the amount of $14,000.
As the engine-starter for the Jazz Bakery, there is no doubt where Mr. Malsin’s vote will go. He favors the choice that will give the Jazz Bakery the maximum exposure since all of this was his idea, the four-week/four-week split.
The high drama will lie mainly though not entirely with Agency Chair Mehaul O’Leary and Jeff Cooper, the two colleagues who sided with Mr. Malsin on Feb. 7 in an exploratory vote to measure the interest of the lady behind the Jazz Bakery since the early 1990s, Ruth Price.
Both Mr. O’Leary and Mr. Cooper told the newspaper this afternoon they have not made up their minds, indicating the final score is distant from certain.
In the staff report that has been delivered to the five members of the Redevelopment Agency, Ms. Price is portrayed coolly, indeed passively. Could that be pivotal for voters.
In the arm’s-length view of the City Hall staff:
“Ms. Price has expressed interest in the possibility of partially programming the Festival in 2011. Ms. Price has proposed programming for the Festival that would span the spectrum of American jazz and world music with jazz influences.”
That does not sound like an impresario knocking on the door to get inside.
When the first 11 words of the report were relayed to Mr. O’Leary — “Ms. Price has expressed interest in the possibility of partially programming” — Mr. O’Leary chuckled.
“That is where I would have stopped reading,” he said. “Sorry to be so blunt.”
The brief glimpse failed to convince the Chair that the Summer series is high on her to-do list.
Mr. O’Leary expects Ms. Price to appear at the meeting and make a persuasive plea.
“As the businessman on the City Council,” he said, “I am looking for someone to come in with good reasons to show tat she can pull off a concert.
“If she can make a convincing pitch to me, then I may consider.
“I need more from her than ‘Oh, sounds like a great idea.’ That is not what is involved — organizing, planning, marketing, all of that.”
Mr. Cooper is not tipping his vote.
“Before deciding,” he said, “I want to talk with both contractors. I want to see what they are comfortable with before I make any kind of decision.”
Mr. Cooper said the debate over who should produce this summer’s concerts, the 10-year veteran Mr. Mandell, who brings in capacity crowds, or a combination of Mandell-Price, the long enough. The Council waited months for an answer from Santa Monica radio station KCRW-FM, which never appeared interested and then clinched that view by attaching a price tag well beyond City Hall’s reach, as all parties knew.
“I can tell you this, though,” Mr. Cooper said. “I am going to make my decision that.”
When he spoke, he was preparing to return a call to Mr. Mandell, “who reached out to me.”
Mr. Malsin, who hopes to lasso — who probably needs to lasso — the votes of Mr. O’Leary and Mr. Cooper, told the newspaper:
“Having the opportunity to work with the Jazz Bakery is very exciting. It is something that will enhance the concert series as well as strengthen the (presently homeless) Jazz Bakery’s efforts to build their permanent home back here in Culver City.”
