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A Sun Forecast; Free Sunday Concerts In '75

A Sun Forecast; Free Sunday Concerts In '75 image A Sun Forecast; Free Sunday Concerts In '75 image
Parent Issue
Day
11
Month
April
Year
1975
OCR Text

As summer and the prospect of hot fun in the sun approached it appeared as if, for the first time in nine years, the celebrated Ann Arbor Community Parks Program free Sunday concerts would not take place. The Republican-dominated City Council allocated not a penny to the Program last year and as of this moment not only aren't there funds in sight this year, there isn't even a site. However, Ann Arbor's concerned citizenry went to the polls this past Monday, April 7, and broke the back of the Republican majority on Council by electing Democrat Al Wheeler mayor. 

Wheeler is apparently disposed to disperse the clouds of uncertainty hovering in the Park Program's future. He told the SUN, "I would certainly be receptive to a proposal about the program. I think that it's an important part of the cultural life of this community." The situation had looked grimmer earlier in the week when we spoke with City Administrator Cy Murray who said flatly, "We have no plans for the Parks Program this year." He 'explained that city government officials were trying to deal with severe economic troubles and that their decision, or lack of one, concerning the Parks Program was simply "a matter of priorities."

Peter Andrews, one of the program's organizers, had predicted this response. "The whole problem over the years has been the fact that the Parks Program has been viewed as an irrelevant social and cultural event by the older folks in Ann Arbor because it wasn't their choice of cultural activity. None of them basically understands that such a program is really vital to a community that has no activities for its youth - no dances, no clubs, no community centers... zero for its youth. And the city administrator, Cy Murray, is no good for anything other than serving who is elected." After the recent turn in electoral events we can only hope that Peter is right.

The concerts themselves have always featured some of the best Michigan musicians available and problems usually associated with "pop festivals" and "rock concerts" are almost non-existent at these community-organized events. There are very few drug ODs, almost a complete absence of downers and other sense-deadening dope, and rip-offs are extremely infrequent. And, although many folks in this town are likely to take it for granted, another singular feature of the free concerts is the freedom to get high with your friends in hassle-free peace thanks to the presence of the "people's police," the Psychedelic Ranger Security force whose benign watchfulness has rendered unnecessary the presence on the site itself of any of the Ann Arbor or Washtenaw County constabulary.

Other regular features include free child care provided by the Children's Community Center; low-cost organic foods; first-aid facilities, drug information and crisis treatment; a community information service; emergency citizens-band radio communications facilities; and traffic direction (provided by none other than the Ann Arbor Police Department). Good vibes are the rule.

The very first concerts were held in the summer of 1966 and mostly featured unamplified avant-garde jazz as performed by such outstanding musicians as Charles Moore and his band, the DC5 (now the CJQ); Stanley Cowell (now of Music, Inc.); Joseph Jarman (now with the Art Ensemble of Chicago); and many other.

Rock and roll bands came onto the scene in the summer of 1967 and as the program increased m popularity the first waves of conservative reaction came in. Laws were passed outlawing amplified music in the parks during the winter of 67/68. John Sinclair, the MC5, the UP, and others decided to challenge that law one Sunday in July 1968 by going down to West Park and playing anyway. The confrontation with the police and city administration that followed resulted in a stuttering dialogue that continues to this day.

In 1969 the concerts were shifted to Gallup Park (next to a swamp in the Huron River) to the windswept "Fuller Flatlands" and back to West Park. By the next summer the city had decided to allow construction of "an old folks home" overlooking the stage at West Park, thereby abolishing loud rock and roll from the vicinity forever. Rather than dying out, however, in 1970 the free concert movement got more firmly established than ever before. Peter Andrews (then a young rock and roll promoter who managed a local power band called the SRC), got deeply into the program, helped set it up as a legal entity, and encouraged the participation of more and more people, especially those involved in the alternative community service organizations that were just then getting started in Ann Arbor.

Andrews in 1972 explained the musical/political importance of the concerts: "A tremendous amount of what we are doing with this Park Program is trying to secure a future for our culture, for our musical culture. We are trying to give those musicians that are most talented locally, that are not in the big band scene, a chance to expose their music as adequately and as effectively as possible so that they can be appreciated, the audience can learn what good musicians there are locally, and can support them throughout the summer, fall and winter months."

The concerts got more and more organized throughout 1970 and '71, the music got better and better, and more people were coming out to dig it all the time. The city meanwhile kept hoping it would all go away somehow and kept shifting the concert sites - from the Gallup Park swamplands (which the Park Program renamed Diana Oughton Memorial Park) to the refilled and dusty city dump (later renamed Otis Spann Memorial Field).

Since the beginning of the free concerts the money necessary to put them on has been supplied by people contributing through "bucket drives" at the events, and contributions from merchants and community organizations around town. In 1971, the Park Program's success finally demanded enough attention to merit city funding. The same government that had banned the concerts outright in 1968 was giving money to support them in 1971!  Money was allocated again in 1972 by the HRP/Democratic coalition, and in '73 a total of $6700 was supplied to the program as part of the "revenue sharing" funds given to the city by the Nixon government. (It should be noted, however, that $4100 of the money was spent on Ann Arbor police who were working outside the concerts, as required by the city.)

The free Sunday concerts might not have come off this year if the Republicans had keep their council majority.  But Mayor-elect Al Wheeler told the SUN, "I think the concerts are an important part of the cultural life of this community."

Last year the Community Parks Program - faced as it was with a Republican-controlled city government, a government badly in debt and determined to eliminate almost all of Ann Arbor's community service programs- received no money from the city. The concerts went on anyway thanks to the selfless efforts of the community people involved, with bucket drives and other fund-raising as a basis.

This year the program will be seeking a permanent site that can be properly built up over the next few years as a possibly multi-purpose outdoor facility, and some city aid. Really, $6 or $7.000 a year isn't that much money for a program that serves at least 5,000 people every week, more than just about any other city recreational or cultural activity, most of which cost far more to operate for far fewer people served. With city money going to build golf courses and swimming pools, a little aid to this program now in its ninth year of successful operation, should be possible.