While the coronavirus pandemic has shut down nightclubs, bars and concert venues, musicians still have the desire to work and perform. And audiences still want to hear live music. To help satisfy the needs of both, the Sioux Falls Jazz and Blues Societyhas launched a weekly virtual concert series. On Thursday evenings local musicians present live stream performances from their homes or the backroom of R Wine Bar via the SFJB Facebook page.
In March after live gigs were first canceled, the SFJB hosted a live Jazz-Athon on Facebook Live as a fundraiser for local jazz and blues musicians. Alex Gilbert-Schrag, the organization’s executive director, says the event’s success encouraged her to launch a regular series.
“There was such a good interest and turnout from the public that I felt that there was a need in the community for something like this,” she says. “I started to reach out to artists to see if they would be interested. It’s a way not only for Sioux Falls and Jazz and Blues to be able to support them, but to give them a different type of platform to reach new audience members, to get donations and to just help us get through this time.”
Jim Speirs is the executive director of Arts South Dakota and trumpeter with the JAS Quintet. He helped put together the March Jazz-Athon and played during the event. He says the performance went well but it was an odd experience playing to an empty room. “It was odd to know that there were 80, 90, 100 people listening, but we couldn’t see any of them react to what they were hearing. It was strange not having that communication that’s essential to music as an artform.”
Gilbert-Schrag says local musicians are missing getting together and collaborating. “You get so used to being able to go out and just play in groups of four or five or whatever that may be,” she says. “Now the biggest struggle is that for the most part you’re just playing by yourself. We’re moving into this technology of being able to play together virtually, but it’s still not quite the same. I feel that jazz is so much about collaboration and playing off of each other that when it’s taken away, a big part of why you do the music is gone.”
The only collaboration Speirs has been involved with lately is recording trumpet solos in his home studio for other musicians’ projects. Otherwise he’s just been practicing on his own to keep his chops up. “Trumpet is such a physical instrument that you can’t just take a week off,” he explains.
He hasn’t even been able to get together and play with the JAS Quintet. “Right now we don’t feel like it’s in our best interest or the community’s best interest for even a band of five or six people to get together in a studio space. We’re following the guidelines,” he says. “We’re looking forward to that time when we can get back together again and perform. We know that’s going to happen. It’s in the future, we’re just not sure exactly when.”
Along with the frustrations of not being able to play together, Gilbert-Schrag says musicians are facing financial difficulties with the loss of gigs. “We’re lucky that here in Sioux Falls you can be a professional musician and make money off of that and make that your sole focus,” she says. “But when that’s taken away, what do you do? As an organization, the Sioux Falls Jazz and Blues Society is trying to help out as much as we can so they can go back to being professional musicians once this is all over.”
Gilbert-Schrag says the uncertainty of the future is the biggest struggle for her organization. SFJB canceled its spring concerts and still has plans to reschedule them. “We’re looking at the fall, but with the understanding that we may have to reschedule performances yet again. It’s hard to know when people will feel comfortable in coming out in groups,” she says.
Even though it’s been difficult not knowing when the SFJB can stage concerts again, Gilbert-Schrag says the organization now has the opportunity to plan for something bigger and better. “It’s like we have this enforced downtime which gives us a lot of room to brainstorm and be creative.”
One of the ideas is continuing livestreamed concerts even after musicians can get back into clubs for live performances. “We’d like to maintain it in some capacity,” she says. “It’s opening up a different type of programming that we didn’t necessarily offer on a regular basis. We have some of these infrastructures in place and now that people know to look to our Facebook every Thursday for jazz, why can’t we do something like that similarly on a regular basis once this is all over?”
Speirs says musicians are feeling antsy because they want to get out and perform. But he says with the extra time on their hands and time alone practicing, new ideas are developing. “I think we’re in for some cool, new music when this is all over with. I’m sure a lot of local musicians and musicians around the world will have a lot to share when they can get back out in the public and play live performances.”
The next Sioux Falls Jazz and Blues virtual concert is April 30 with guitarist Chris Champion performing from 5-7:00 pm.