The much ballyhooed debut of jazz last night in the Summer Concert Series in the Courtyard of City Hall was, well, it was much-ballyhooed.
And.
And.
Inescapably, it must be mentioned that an estimated half of an already downsized crowd looked around at the intermission, stood up, stretched and decided to do something else somewhere else the second half of the show.
In the stone quarry business, this is called a rocky beginning.
After a strong, lengthy fight last winter — an annual ritual — over who should replace Gary Mandell, the venerable impresario of the series, it was decided Mr. Mandell would be fully in charge of the first six Thursdays while Ruth Price of the Jazz Bakery booked the final two weeks, last night and next Thursday.
The attraction was an unhousehold name, a quartet known, elaborately, as Woodford, Ratner, Ehling and Wallace, a sobriquet not thought up by anyone who ever has been within a hundred miles of a marketing agency.
For the first time in 11 years, or more than 120 Summer Concert Thursday nights, Mr. Mandell was downstream, working and busy, but away from the spotlight, which, on this night belonged to Ms. Price.
One week after Mr. Mandell drew the largest crowd of the summer, more than 1,000 to cheer noisily for a Beatles soundalike group, the inaugural jazz program presented an unscheduled contrast in volume as well as style.
Jazz’s Best Friend
City Councilman Scott Malsin, the hero of efforts to bring the Jazz Bakery onto equal if not superior footing in the summer series, was beaming afterward.
Describing the W-R-E-W quartet as young and “very adventurous,” Mr. Malsin said he was pleased that opening night offered “a high level of musicianship.”
The jazz performers along with singer Dwight Trible brought to the Courtyard “a style of music I can’t ever recall having at our concerts before. It was great to see really young musicians of such a high calibre playing for us.
“I think (owner/founder) Ruth Price and the Jazz Bakery are well known for offering a high level of creativity and artistry.”
Advocates of turning away from Mr. Mandell’s brand of programming argued that another genre, namely jazz, would lure more youthful audiences to the Courtyard.
But the 18-to-25’ers did not return after flooding the grounds for the pseudo Beatles show the Thursday before.
Said Mr. Malsin: “One of my suggestions last winter was to bring in KCRW-FM (as principal promoter) because they are more focused on bringing in a younger crowd.”
KCRW, however, demurred.
“But I believe the Jazz Bakery has a strength that is a different demographic than we have reached before,” the Councilman said.
“It was a good-sized crowd. I am expecting we will see a very large crowd next Thursday for Poncho Sanchez because he is a very well known Latin Jazz musician. It’s a very popular style.”
Mr. Malsin, characterizing the crowd as “diverse and medium-sized,” said that “there were clearly people who had not attended the concerts before.”
Mr. Malsin was asked if he believes jazz will need some time to catch fire in Culver City.
“That is kind of a hard question to answer,” he said.
“The Jazz Bakery was a very exciting fixture for years in Culver City, and it is exciting to be welcoming them back (once their location is formalized).”
A longtime fan of the Mandell Thursday night productions in the Courtyard went away with mixed feelings, kind of pleased by the musicianship but disappointed by his surroundings and, from a commerce standpoint, disappointed for the Downtown restaurants the series is supposed to help.
“If this is a gig to promote businesses Downtown, I can’t see that it was as successful as Gary Mandell’s concerts,” he said.
As for the performers:
“The music only achieved slight smatterings of applause as the solos wound down.
“There wasn’t even an encore, and I left early.”
If the audience looked more closely than usual, they would have seen Mr. Mandell operating quite behind the scenes.
As a producer of the show, the owner of Boulevard Music supervised the non-jazz aspects of the evening, overseeing the normally jammed Courtyard, the Green Room, and crucially, supervised the sound system.
“I definitely earned my money with the sound system,” Mr. Mandell said of the product from Technology Artistry of Santa Fe Springs.
“They brought a new sound system last week, and I made a decision this week because I was pushed over the edge by the tragedy at the Indiana State Fairgrounds where five people were killed.
“I asked the man from Technology Artistry if he had backup cables because they are 400 pounds, and they hang by like a three-quarter-inch chain.
“There are no safety cables. I told them I don’t feel comfortable with people walking underneath them.
“So we went back to the old (sound) system. That is what they are paying me for. I made that decision.
“Chances of the chain breaking,” said Mr. Mandell, “are one in a million. But the chances of a 70 mph gust of wind coming up, as it did in Indiana, were just as small.
“It is not going to happen here while I am in charge.”
