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Repubs Nix Blues & Jazz Fest

Repubs Nix Blues & Jazz Fest image Repubs Nix Blues & Jazz Fest image
Parent Issue
Day
26
Month
July
Year
1974
OCR Text

Repubs Nix

The third annual Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival has been killed by the Republicans on City Council, who objected to the event attracting "undesirables from all over the country," creating "a tarnished city image" and "an influx of dope, which we're already inundated with."

The Republican 6-vote Council majority pulled a surprise move last Monday night by refusing to grant approval for Festival use of Otis Spann Memorial Field, site of the free Sunday concerts. As a result, there will be no Blues & Jazz Festival this year, although some possibility exists that an all-day indoor Festival Benefit will be held in its place to help insure the holding of next year's jamboree.

Opposing the Republican move on Council were all the Democratic and Human Rights Party representatives, and also Assistant City Administrator Mike Rodgers, who called the Festival "a magnificent cultural event."

But the Republicans were of a single, pre-determined mind to ignore all protests to their power play. As Republican Councilman McCormack explained Monday night, "I don't think the people of Ann Arbor want this sort of a spectacle again. Let me give one example of what I saw out there last year. There was a group of twelve smoking pot out of this apparatus which they had made by filling up a steel funnel with a couple of coffee cans full of pot, and hooking a tube from that to a gas mask. And they were putting this gas mask over their heads and passing it around in the group and their eyes were going like this, wowowow..."

Learning of the demise of this year's event, Peter Andrews, a director of Rainbow Multi-Media, the non-profit corporation which produces the Festival, called the Republican move "racist and reactionary. These people seem to be removed from the reality of who lives in Ann Arbor - thousands of whom fit their definition of 'undesirables.' But the future of the Festival is bright - the Republicans won't rule Council after next April."

SMOKESCREENS

The Republican move was lead by Mayor James Stephenson, who in the past has run for election on a program of "running the hippies and revolutionaries out of town " Stephenson and his men offered two other less obviously prejudicial reasons behind their denial of the site.

First was that the Festival last year had failed to adequately clean up after itself leaving Otis Spann a mess. This, said Stephenson, proved Rainbow Multi-Media to be "irresponsible and unreliable." So in Stephenson's view, did the fact that some of the people who worked on the outdoor free parking last year, have yet to be paid wages owed them.

Responding to these charges, Peter Andrews explained that there had been a problem with cleanup last year, as the group contracted to do the job failed to complete it. But "to show our good faith and admit a mistake", Rainbow Multi-Media offered to post a $5,000 bond with the city ahead of the event, which could be used for cleanup in the event that it wasn't taken care of. "$5,000 would be more than enough to adequately clean Otis Spann if anything went wrong."

As for the unpaid Rangers, Andrews explained that last year's Festival had lost money, leaving several outstanding debts. "But 95% of the individuals who worked with us were paid in full. Of a $25,000 budget for the Rangers, $22,500 has been paid. The rest would have been taken care of last Tuesday with front money from Festival backers if the Republicans had approved the event. With no Festival this year to generate money, it will be harder now to pay these people right away."

Andrews went on to say that the idea of a one-day Festival benefit was now being investigated "because we fully intend to meet our debts. And the Republicans knew this when they voted against the event. I had personally met with them earlier to explain the situation."

Council Democrat Carol Jones called the Republican-advanced excuses "smokescreens. It's more because of the people that are coming than because of what you're throwing up here, and it just isn't fair."

HRP Councilwoman Kathy Kozachenko added that "I don't think that you should oppress the rest of the city with your cultural values. You say you don't want these kind of people coming here, just like you don't want certain kinds of people living in your neighborhood."

Jamie Kenworthy, Council Democrat from the 4th ward, commented that he was "appalled at what this Council is doing. You don't want to take adequate performance bonds to meet your objections, or stipulate strong conditions -- you just don't want to hold this thing."

A TARNISHED IMAGE?

Also reacting to the forced Festival cancellation was RMM Creative Director John Sinclair, who emphasized that far from tarnishing the city's image, the Blues and Jazz Festival was "an internationally respected musical event. And nationally it was broadcast live on 93 radio stations in 33 states. What's undesirable about that? The Republicans conveniently overlook that just about every aspect of the Festival went smoothly. They make it be about garbage, instead of a beautiful al event."

The Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival first appeared as the Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1969. In 1972 Rainbow Multi-Media revived the event which had been abandoned due to financial losses, and added the jazz feature of the program.

Besides featuring black blues, jazz and R&B musicians not usually offered at outdoor "pop" events, the Festival embraced several other fairly unique concert features. These included a full range of services to the audience, covering drug help, medical care, child-care facilities, a video screen so all could see clearly, natural food stands, information booths staffed by community organizations and other programs. Additionally, had the Festival made a profit above expenses, which is a distinct possibility in the future, the money would have been divided between RMM and several other non-profit community groups, including the free Sunday concerts, the proposed People's Ballroom, Project Community at the University, and others in need of funding the city isn't providing.

Holding forth for two years on Otis Spann Field, this year an effort was made to obtain a better festival site less costly to secure and prepare than the former city dump. Approaches were made for several sites, including one in Pittsfield Township near the airport. But the Pittsfield Board of Supervisors refused permission to hold the event there, candidly admitting that "if we allow this to go on we probably won't be re-elected."

A further effort was then made to hold the event indoors, inside a facility like Crisler Arena. But Crisler was turned down by the University, which isn't surprising, given the restrictive regulations the U is currently implementing to prevent facility usage by community organizations.

So that left only Otis Spann, site of the Sunday concerts. RMM felt that despite the lack of grass and the less than wholly desirable state of the field, this year's Festival could be pulled off there without sustaining financial loss as in the past two years, due to more experience in handling the event and its increased popularity.

But now Otis Spann is not a possibility, and at this late date neither is an outdoor Festival, as it is too late to continue holds that had been placed on various artists for the event, including James Brown, Gato Barbieri, Esther Phillips, Dr. John, Professor Longhair, a group assembled in tribute to Eric Dolphy, Luther Allison, and Jimmy Dawkins, just to name a few.

REPUBLICAN TRACK RECORD

The killing of the Blues and Jazz Festival joins a long list of Republican abuses in their 15 months of majority control. They have voted in the Packard-Platt Shopping Center, McDonalds and Burger King fast-food joints over widespread community opposition, revoked the $5 marijuana law (which was re-enacted by the people last April), moved to widen State Street, and killed all city funding of social service programs like Ozone House, Drug Help, the Free People's Clinic, the free parks program, and most of the child and health-care centers in town.

These same six white men, tiedas they are with the banks and the University who together control Ann Arbor, also participated in revoking $16,000 earmarked by the previous, more progressive City Council for a People's Ballroom and Community Center. The money was revoked just as the sponsoring organization, Tribal Funding, was about to use the cash for down payment on a building on Washington St. for the Ballroom and Center.

The move against Tribal Funding closely parallels what just happened to the Blues and Jazz Festival. At that time the Republicans decided they didn't want the "undesirables" to control their own downtown building, so they cancelled the contract, while offering several other smokescreen "reasons" for their action. They said Tribal Funding had exhibited "non-performance on their contract" for failing to put on the dances it required. But the irony in that case was that "performance" would have started immediately if the Council had turned over the money provided for purchase of a Ballroom building in the contract.

For that action, the Republicans are now being sued by Tribal Funding. Recently, the City Attorney, Edwin Pear, advised Stephenson and the rest that their cancellation of the contract was illegal and would not stand up in court. He recommended that they offer a cash settlement out of court to avoid the embarrassment of a judicial defeat to their position.

Tribal Funding has refused to accept their initial offers as too low (below the amount offered in the original agreement) and the case may eventually still go to court. But Pear's recommendation points to the credibility of Republican-advanced excuses for coming down on groups they simply don't like.

Actually, it goes beyond "not liking" the whole gamut of alternative and radical programs that are concentrated in Ann Arbor, which the Republicans wish would simply disappear. The Ann Arbor GOP is keenly aware that they are now a minority in this town, and that come this April may very well lose the Mayoral and several Council races, and with them their control of Council. Their moves in this next period are directed at keeping their political opposition as powerless as possible. Downtown buildings and funds for social service and alternative programs strengthen the opposition, and so are being crushed.

But the GOP's moves are bound to backfire as they antagonize the majority of Ann Arbor's progressive citizenry. As Mao Tse-Tung has said of reactionaries in the throes of losing power, "they are like fools who lift a rock, only to drop it on their own feet."

With a united alternative community next April, and without vote-splitting in the Mayor's race and 4th ward by the Human Rights Party, the Republican majority can be defeated, and the City Council can be moved to support positive activities, as it did in 1972-73, providing secure Blues and Jazz Festivals and much much more.

"Undesirables," Unite!

-David Fenton

Opposing the Republican move on Council were all the Democratic and HRP representatives, and also Assistant City Administrator Mike Rodgers, who called the Festival "a magificent cultural event. " But the Republicans were more concerned about the (undesirables this attracts, some of whom may even stay here!"

Lucille Spann, wife of the late pianist Otis Spann (for whom the Festival Field was named), 1972 Festival.