Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1973

ann arbor BLUES & JAZZ festival 1973  Otis Spann Memorial Field-September 7-8-9

People who got off on the music and the spirit at last year's Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival can look forward to another three-day blues and jazz jamboree at Otis Spann Memorial Field following the end of the Community Parks Program's free concert series on the same site every Sunday from June through August.

This year's festival will be held the weekend of Sept. 7-8-9, the first weekend after the U-M students return to town for the fall, and will feature five major concerts of contemporary black and black-based music.

The Festival will open Friday evening. September 7th with Roosevelt Sykes, Walter Horton and Carey Bell with the Boogie Brothers and Sister Sarah Brown; The Revolutionary Ensemble (Leroy Jenkins, Sirone, and Jerome Cooper, representing Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians); Hound Dog Taylor & Houserockers; Leon Thomas, and the mighty Freddie King.

The Saturday afternoon concert, titled MUSIC OF DETROIT, will feature an extended session of Detroit blues as performed by a specially assembled group of Motor City blues veterans, many of whom are known to music lovers only by one or two cuts on obscure blues collections and who will be receiving their first major exposure via the Festival appearance. The set, which will be produced by Detroit blues entrepreneur L.C. Minor especially for the Festival, will be announced as soon as the line-up is finalized.

Also featured on the MUSIC OF DETROIT show subject to his final approval, will be a major blues-man whose greatest recordings were made during his residency in the Motor City; the great Detroit jazz innovator Yusef Lateef and his group; and the fine avant-garde Detroit unit, the CJQ, whose performance at last year's Festival can be heard in part on the just-released Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1972 anthology on Atlantic Records (SD-2-502).

Saturday evening's show will bring together on the Festival stage the music of two of the greatest black artists in the history of Afro-American music: "the genius of soul," Ray Charles, featured with his Raelettes in the Ray Charles Show '73; and the genius bassist-composer Charles Mingus and his sextet, featuring the brilliant Don Pullen on piano and Detroit's own Roy Brooks on drums. Mingus was forced to cancel out of his scheduled appearance at last year's Festival due to commitments in Europe, but his presence at this year's event was secured far in advance.

Opening the Saturday evening show, if negotiations can be successfully competed, will be legendary Chicago-based blues artist whose is distinctly marked by his long years in the foundries of Gary, Indiana before he "made it" as a recording star. And, preceding the Charles Mingus segment, Chicago's own Lucille Spann, the guest of honor at the 1972 gathering, will return to the stage named for her late husband and partner, backed by Ann Arbor favorites Mighty Joe Young and his band.

The Sunday afternoon concert will feature the dry, soulful, rambling Texas music of Lightnin ' Hopkins and Ornette Coleman and an extended performance by an incredible collection of early rhythm & blues giants assembled and led by Johnny Otis and including Big Joe Turner, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Ivory Joe Hunter, Margie Evans, Roy Milton, Pee Wee Crayton, Roy Brown, the Three Tons of Joy The Mighty Flea, the Otisettes and others.

Sunday night closes the Festival with two of the genuine "stars" of last year's gathering, the young blues giant Luther Allison and the incomparable Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Discipline Arkestra. J.B. Hutto & the Hawks, one of Chicago' s funkiest blues bands, will open the show, and there will be a couple of surprises before the evening's over.

Tickets for the festival went on sale in Ann Arbor April 5 at $16 for the series of five concerts(one dollar more than last year due to an increased artists' budget and the minor losses suffered by the Festival's producers, Rainbow Multi-Media-see the SUN. issue No 43). Only series tickets will be sold in advance, and the early availability is meant to insure UM students who wish to attend the Festival that they will be able to do so when they return in September. People who are definitely planning on attending the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival 1973 are urged to cop early, or at least to reserve your tickets now so you won't be left without them when it's time to get down at Otis Spann Memorial Field.

For prisoners, working people who have to work over the Festival weekend, physically incapacitated people, and those who can't afford to attend or are otherwise not able to be there, the 1973 festival will be broadcast live over an Ann Arbor radio station and at least one Detroit station. In addition, plans are being considered for broadcasting the Festival music throughout the country via a special radio network. Video projections of the stage performance will be featured at the site, with full videotaping of the event also being planned.

As with last year's Festival, plans have been made to contribute a percentage of the net receipts from the event to Project Community, a student-community organization at the University of Michigan which co-sponsors the Festival with Rainbow Multi-Media; the Community Parks Program, which presents free music concerts at Otis Spann Memorial Field every Sunday through the summer; and the Ann Arbor People's Ballroom, a non-profit. community-controlled music, dance, and cultural center for the local rainbow community. Full details of the arrangement will be released at a later date.

Other aspects of the Festival will follow the precedent set last year (free child care, literature stands, medical help, security by the Psychedelic Rangers, etc), with up grading of services and increased and improved facilities promised by the RMM organization. Again, full details will be regularly released through the summer as plans in each area are successfully finalized.

People seeking ticket information may call 761-7148 or check at the ticket desk in the Michigan Union daily through the week. Brothers and sisters seeking employment at the Festival can call 761-3670 and leave your name, phone number or address, and the kind of work you want to do. Workers won't be needed for another couple months, but with unemployment the way it is under Nixon and Milliken there are a lot more folks out of work than there are jobs available for the Festival.

Stay tuned to the SUN for more Blues & Jazz Festival information from now til September.

(Editor's Note: Sisters and brothers who don 't have the price of a ticket laying around can raise the money by telling SUNs. which you can get for free from us and sell on the street for a dime apiece. You keep the dime, and 160 papers sold make up the fare for all three days.)

Photo Lisa Gottlieb

Sun Ra and his Solar-Myth Arkestra,featured performers at the 1972 Blues and Jazz Festival will be back for this years festival.