From its first downbeat in 1972, the Wichita Jazz Festival has been about two things: bringing jazz greats to Wichita and offering educational outreach to area school jazz programs.
The combination seems to have worked. The festival is now one of the nation’s oldest, trailing only a few, such as the Newport Jazz Festival and Monterey Jazz Festival, in longevity.
Its genesis was a newspaper column written by Ted Blankenship for the Wichita Beacon in which he floated the idea of starting a jazz festival here and asked readers to contact him if they were interested. Turns out, plenty were. Blankenship, who now writes a column for The Active Age, went on to serve as the festival’s first president.
“I thought we should involve the WSU Music Department, and the festival became a teaching thing as well as a festival,” Blankenship remembers. “That has always been the core of the festival.”
The first festival featured three days of college and high school performances, clinics and workshops. Organizers packed the closing program Sunday with big-name artists: Pat Metheny, Gene Harris, Clark Terry, Jay McShann, Marilyn Maye and Julian “Cannonball” Adderley. All events were held at Century II, then just three years old.
Despite that start, Blankenship said the festival faced difficulties in its early days. He credits the involvement and guidance of Terry, a trumpet legend, with innovative ideas such as presenting an all-women jazz band made up of musicians from around the United States.
Throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, the festival gained recognition throughout the international jazz community by bringing world-famous performers to Kansas. Memorable headliners included Art Blakey, Chick Corea, Oscar Peterson, Ray Charles, Dave Brubeck and Doc Sevrensin of The Tonight Show band.
The pattern continued into the ‘90s, with appearances by the likes of Branford and Wynton Marsalis, B.B. King and Mel Torme. Community and corporate support was strong.
In 1994, festival organizers helped clean up the dormant Orpheum Theatre for a concert which started the theatre’s long journey toward restoration. With some debt after the 1994 events, Music Theatre of Wichita proposed bringing the vocal group Manhattan Transfer to Wichita for a holiday concert presented by MTW and the Wichita Jazz Festival. Tied into the Wichita Chamber of Commerce annual banquet, and featuring the Wichita Jazz Orchestra and strings from the Wichita Symphony, over 5,000 people enjoyed that concert in Century II’s Convention Hall. MTW and WJF entered 1995 in good financial shape.
(WJF is the same age as Music Theatre Wichita, The Wichita River Festival and the Walnut Valley Fest in Winfield. There must have been something in the water in 1972.)
The 21st century brought new challenges to all arts presenters in the form of changing consumer interests and digital media. The marathon Sunday events the festival had become known for became impractical. But the festival continued to present world-class artists and educational programming every April. Esperanza Spaulding, Joe Lovano, Bill Frissell, the Count Basie Orchestra and the Yellowjackets are some of the artists who’ve performed in recent years.
The festival has presented programs at the Cotillion, Broadview Hotel, Crown Uptown Theatre, Scottish Rite Temple, Odd Fellow Hall, Kansas African American Museum and many restaurants and clubs.
This year’s festival, to be held April 22-26, features as strong a lineup as it’s had in years.
Performers include jazz drum master Peter Erskine; Wichita favorites Donna Tucker and Matt Wilson with his Good Trouble quintet; and Newton native April May Webb, who recently won the Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Competition. Her band S.O.A.R (Sounds of April and Randall) features her husband Randall Haywood on trumpet, pianist Yoyai lkawa and Webb’s two brothers, Jacob on bass and Nathan on drums. New York-based artists Pat Bianchi on organ and Dan Wilson on guitar will be part of the April 25 all-day activities at WSU.
For complete event and venue information, visit wichitajazzfestival.com/events.
Dee Starkey is the former owner of the Jim Starkey Music Center and a board member of the Wichita Jazz Festival.
