| CARRILLO: | Good afternoon, Assemblyman Murray, my name is Juan Carrillo and I am the Deputy Director of Programs at the California Arts Council. I am honored to appear before you to address issues surrounding the continuity and vitality of jazz. It's an important step that jazz is being discussed here in our state capitol. I look forward to more discussions in the future. First let me say that my introduction to jazz came as a teenager growing up in San Francisco. A friend with a wild enthusiasm for this new and strange music had us sit around and listen to recordings of the jazz at the philharmonic concerts. It was a unique time in San Francisco in that children were allowed into clubs without any restrictions. This allowed us to enter clubs, sit wherever we liked, and listen to live jazz. We learned as high school juniors to arrive early enough so that we could sit at the front tables of the Blackhawk and listen to Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis or Cal Tjader and his tremendous conga players, Mongo Santamaria and Willie Bobo. We had no music education except what the Duke Ellington orchestra or Billie Holiday taught us live. But then the laws were changed in the mid-fifties and we were no longer allowed to sit with the adults. We were confined to "special sections" for minors with separate entrances. But we still came. We were later denied access to such clubs altogether unless they also sold food. But such jazz places existed, and we drove across the bay to Sausalito or attended concerts. Fake identification cards and, ultimately, adulthood made it all possible again. Gone were the obstacles to hearing live jazz. But as we know, in the 1960s, the decline of the jazz club scene began. Experts have blamed the marketplace, or club owners, or the emergence of American rock and roll and its impact on the musical tastes of Americans. We began to loose these critical centers where musicians first learned the art form. Some clubs, of course, continued in newly emerging festivals, like monterey, newport, and playboy and occasional concerts supported musicians to a degree. In the bay area, radio station KJAZ presented an entire format of jazz music. I understand that here in sacramento there was a strong jazz presence until the mid- to late-sixties. While I can describe where i, the aficionado, went to listen to jazz, others need to tell you more of the formal state of jazz education. So where are we? Where is the arts council relative to support for jazz? Of course, jazz has survived and it will continue to survive as long as there is a culture from which it springs. In this century, jazz has become an adopted child of cultures throughout the world and has been shaped further by rhythms, instruments, and the authentic voices of musicians from those cultures. It'S shameful that in other places in the world jazz and jazz musicians are supported by knowledgeable audiences and treated with tremendous respect while here at home there is a general disregard for their contributions. We are largely ignorant of the history and culture of the people from which jazz comes. In a large sense, racism has hurt our ability to fully know and comprehend the world. A big step towards greater support for jazz will come when we have eliminated racism and its impact on our ability to see, feel, and hear better. Let me now turn to the arts council's programs. The arts council has a number of programs that supports jazz in various ways. We provide support for educational activities, touring and presenting, fellowships for composers, and financial support for music organizations. The Artist In Residence Program is a vehicle for jazz musicians to assist members of the community express their own voices in music. Artists are paid for twenty hours of their time under sponsorship of a community organization or school. Artists in the program have introduced their music to the community, have demonstrated instrument making, have assisted young musicians, and have become part of a music education program in high schools. The Touring and Presenting Program provides touring opportunities for jazz artists to be presented in venues and locales which might not have an opportunity to be exposed to their music. Over the past several years, we have made a concerted effort to increase the number of jazz musicians on our touring roster and to increase presenters' use of jazz in their programming. We contacted jazz musicians, their managements and jazz presenters in the process. Staff helped musicians to apply, and as a result, the number and quality of the musicians have notably increased. At the same time, we established a fund for jazz so that money would be assured for jazz when it was applied for. Three years later, jazz musicians applying to the program continues to increase and now we are funding more jazz musicians with more money. We hope that this is a beginning of a trend, but it is too early to say that we have successfully incorporated jazz into the program. We have also worked with jazz presenters and the Statewide California Presenters, Inc., The association of performing arts presenters in the state. This organization has now established a separate and distinct session for jazz in their annual booking meeting. Tim jackson of Kuumbwa and the Monterey Jazz Festival have participated at these meetings. We have provided financial support for jazz presenters to attend the annual meetings of both the California Presenters' and the Western Alliance Of Arts Administrators' meetings to assist other presenters in learning about booking jazz. Edsel matthews of Koncepts Cultural Gallery has expressed his interest in working with both organizations. We have also been in touch on this issue with the Western States Arts Foundation, a regional organization which provides programming and coordination services for the state arts agencies of the west. It operates a touring program in the region. We have had recent conversations with the national jazz service organization and the new england foundation for the arts. These two organizations have received major foundation support from the lila wallace readers digest fund for a national jazz touring network. We look forward to supporting this effort in california if it looks to be worthwhile. This year the Council awarded for the first-time ever Fellowships in performing arts through its new program for individual artists. Several awardees were jazz composers. This program is important in that it recognizes the value of a body of work over time and offers to the artist the $5,000 award as a contribution towards his or her continuing work. Due to constraints on budget and staff time, this program has a four-year cycle and composers are funded every four years. The other years the program provides awards in visual arts, media arts, and literature. Our Organizational Support Program provides general operating support and project support for the state's non-profit arts industry. We receive applications from music performance groups, presenters and festivals, educational and training organizations, radio stations, community centers, and many others whose connection to jazz is less distinct or who deal with other art forms. Jazz organizations receiving support in this category include Kuumbwa Jazz Society, Koncepts Cultural Gallery, Jazz In the City, International Association of Jazz Appreciation, Stanford Jazz Workshop, and KLON-FM. You will hear testimony from some of them today. Finally, there is a Multi-Cultural Entry Grant Program. This program was devised to reflect a certain reality in many communities, that is, that non-profit, tax-exempt status does not exist for some arts groups. This program provides $2,000 for three consecutive years for these groups to present their work to the public or to strengthen their skills. Jazz ensembles have been funded in this category. There is more that could be done. It is an enormous undertaking. But this is a field, I think, that feels any good effort when it happens. There is such a long history of jazz musicians looking for support from the private sector--the club owner, the record industry, and the individual promoter--that state support linkages are not numerous or strong. State support has been limited. The possibilities are not talked of among jazz artists in any significant way that I am aware. The education of children in music also needs to be addressed. Surrounding all this, the role and value of the artist in the society needs to be better understood and appreciated. We welcome the opportunity to work with you to insure that jazz is recognized and supported as it should. Thank you. |
| MURRAY: | Thank you, Mr. Carrillo. Will you take a few minutes to generally describe the structure and function of the Arts Council and how jazz fits into the overall structure. |
| CARRILLO: | I will start with the purpose for which we were established. The legislative intent is to fundamentally provide more public access to the arts. We do that through a number of programs. We have a council of eleven members. Nine are selected by the governor, two by the legislature. We have a staff of 52 members, although we are heading towards a reduction of about 14 or 15 positions. We have ten funding or grant programs. Some are targeted for the support of organizations and some for individuals. All of our support goes through a process: an application process and a review process by a panel of peers. The panel makes recommendations for funding, and those recommendations go to our council who has final approval on all grants ... |
| MURRAY: | Your annual budget is approximately... ? |
| CARRILLO: | Our annual budget is approximately $15 to $16 million. |
| MURRAY: | You are at the state level what the National Endowment of the Arts is at the federal level? |
| CARRILLO: | That's correct. I might also add, to put the $15 million into perspective, that the demand on the $15 million has been growing tremendously over the last, I would say, seven years. |
| MURRAY: | In the big context, $15 million is not a whole lot. What type of budget does the national endowment of the arts have? |
| CARRILLO: | $175 Million. |
| MURRAY: | So $15 million for the state is kind of comparable to the national budget? |
| CARRILLO: | I suppose. |
| MURRAY: | You are involved in all of the arts? Visual arts, literary arts, and performing arts ... |
| CARRILLO: | We are structured by function. We grant by function. What the organization or individual does ... |
| MURRAY: | You have it broken down by areas? |
| CARRILLO: | We have touring, for instance, and all the touring arts or the performing arts applies to that ... |
| MURRAY: | In addition to performing arts, what other arts do you fund? |
| CARRILLO: | Literary programs, visual arts, sculptures, art in public places, traditional folk art programs ... |
| MURRAY: | Performing arts is one section or one portion of your total responsibilities? |
| CARRILLO: | We fund performing arts programs in various ways, in various programs. |
| MURRAY: | Talking just about the performing arts portion, that includes what areas in addition to jazz? |
| CARRILLO: | The larger categories would be dance, music, theater, some people separate opera and musical theater ... |
| MURRAY: | In music, jazz is a portion of that? |
| CARRILLO: | That's right. Jazz is part of that group ... |
| MURRAY: | In the music category, do you think jazz gets its proportional share of attention? |
| CARRILLO: | Yes and no. No, in that my remarks indicated that I think there is very little support for jazz ... |
| MURRAY: | As compared to every other music... ? |
| CARRILLO: | Well, even on its own. Without comparing it ... |
| MURRAY: | I just want to compare how the arts council with its limited resources devotes a certain portion to music. Within that portion it provides for music, do you think jazz gets its proportional share of attention? |
| CARRILLO: | It's difficult to answer that. It's difficult. |
| MURRAY: | Do you have an opinion? |
| CARRILLO: | I have lots of opinions. I would say no, I don't think it's getting its proportional share. The only reason that I hesitated is that there are so many other art forms that are not getting their share. We feel that every day across the board. |
| MURRAY: | We'll stipulate that art lacks its proportional share of society's resources, but is the actual share distributed, in your opinion, adequate? |
| CARRILLO: | I would like to look at it so that I have a clear answer for you. In some ways it's like--I don't mean to move in another area--a question we get asked about Native American representation on the Arts Council. When the population is so small relative to the larger populations, what standards are you using? If it gets less than one percent of the Arts Council's funding because there's less than one percent going on in the world, is that fair? Again, I have opinions about that ... |
| MURRAY: | Would you agree that jazz represents something that perhaps other musical art forms do not--in that it is totally American? It's American derived, American developed, whereas most of the other musical forms that I am aware of are not American originated. |
| CARRILLO: | Other musical forms are being supported outside of the state arts council by the private sector and by individuals. Jazz is not. You don't see the big patrons or the big corporations and foundations supporting jazz in tremendous ways as they may for symphony orchestras. Symphony orchestras come to us, among all of this, as a very large animal. It takes its bite--and it's a large bite. Whether it's unfair or not, symphony orchestras will also argue that they receive little support from the Arts Council. Our range of support for organizations is from less than 10 percent to less than 1 percent of their annual operating budgets. We're not a significant figure in most organization's lives. |
| MURRAY: | Okay, thank you, Mr. Carrillo. We certainly appreciate your presentation. Now I'd like to ask you to join us up here (on the podium). |