I have always heard people say, who have been around a lot longer than I have, that [JazzFest] is probably bigger than Homecoming for the music department. If you wanted to run into someone you went to school with, your best chance of that is JazzFest for the year.
–Prof. Tim AuBuchon
The PMA-Upsilon Phi Jazz Festival is one of the longest running collegiate jazz festivals in Missouri, second only to the Drury University Jazz Festival (est. 1966). For 48 years, JazzFest has made an enormous impact on TSU jazz students, the larger TSU community, Kirksville, and the visiting middle school and high school bands.
Summarizing the general experience, AuBuchon notes,
[JazzFest has] several different purposes. For one thing, it’s a really good excuse to bring an internationally renowned guest artist to campus. So… the people benefitting from that are the whole community—the student and faculty population and everyone in the area because that concert is open to everyone. More specifically, it benefits the music students and the jazz students because they get to work with the guest artist in rehearsals and performances and clinics. There’s also the aspect of the festival that’s open to high school and middle school bands, who bring their bands up and play and they get a clinic. …I feel like that’s very beneficial and I think that the band directors and students always agree and get a lot out of it. …[T]hey also have a general clinic with the guest artist in the afternoon—he’ll do kind of a general workshop and the visiting students can participate in that. So it actually benefits a lot of people and there’s kind of that dual purpose of the outreach, the education aspect, and, of course, recruiting doesn’t hurt to get people on campus.
After speaking my interviews with him, Ryan Staines, and Zach Green, it was apparent that JazzFest offers and means many different things to each of these groups. For being such a small festival, it has an enormous impact.
How do these communities benefit from JazzFest?
Students
-Vacation and Fun: Students get to check out a college campus
-Educational: The opportunity to hear and meet other bands and to work with an internationally renowned guest artist. They also benefit a great deal from the clinics.
-Showcase their talent: Impress the judges and other schools with their performance.
Truman State University/Students
-Recruitment and PR: With so many high school students on campus, JazzFest is a prime recruiting opportunity for the TSU music department.
-Entertainment: There are few opportunities to bring a big name jazz artist to town so JazzFest is a great cultural opportunity.
-Some students are inspired by the guest artist to get more serious about music.
[Student reactions] run the gamut from, “That was really awesome! That was the best concert I ever had!” …all the way up to, “This changed my whole career path and musician philosophy,” and everywhere in between.
–Prof. Tim AuBuchon
Kirksville
-Local tourism: Student musicians bring people to town. This is a special event so alumni and families come in more.
-Benefits local business: The visiting alumni and families spend money at local shops, restaurants, and hotels. (AuBuchon jokes, “It’s not quite like deer season, but it’s busier than usual!”)
[JazzFest gives] them more exposure to jazz. There are the “Jazz in the Hub,” Wednesday night concerts [and] official combo concerts. I know a few combos perform at Maxwell’s from time to time. We have a couple of jazz pianists who have regular gigs around Kirksville. So there’s that exposure that happens. But starting, I guess, almost five decades ago with this jazz festival, it allowed people to [say], “Oh! jazz is still this growing thing… Let’s go check it out.” And, you know, it gives people something to do. People come back to town.
If not for the Kirksville community, exposing them to more music, it allows the Truman community, especially the alumni community, a reason to come and visit. It’s like, “I want to visit, but this random weekend in February might not be the greatest.” Put a jazz festival on there, they’re like, “Sure, I know all my friends will be back, so I’ll come back!”–Ryan Staines
How would these communities be affected if JazzFest ended after this year?
Visiting Schools
Though JazzFest offers tremendous educational benefits to students, both AuBuchon and Green reluctantly admit that these schools would simply find another jazz festival to participate in if Upsilon Phi’s festival ended. The sad truth is that the impact on these schools would not be direct (i.e., the effect would not be significantly negative). For most of these schools, Upsilon Phi’s JazzFest is one festival among many others. Still, without it, they would miss out on another great opportunity to grow as musicians.
Truman State University/Students
The absence of this festival would negatively affect TSU students and alumni more than anyone. AuBuchon, Staines, and Green agree,
The alumni would be very upset, and eventually sad, but mostly upset at first. For the [TSU music] students, I think that would really be a disservice to them because we don’t have the money normally throughout the year to bring in [a notable artist] like that. And that’s just great, even if they don’t consciously learn anything. Kind of worse case scenario, they’re still having it rub off on them, even if they’re not interested in getting any better at jazz or music… they still get to play with this guest artist and that elevates everything. And that’s just the bare minimum; I mean, I feel like everyone gets at least that out of it.
–Prof. Tim AuBuchon
Kirksville
For the larger community, the loss of this festival would be a minor blow to the local economy. Many locally operated shops and restaurants rely on the small bursts of business brought in by the bigger events put on around the city, especially by TSU. JazzFest is also one of the city’s festivals that contributes significantly to Kirksville’s diverse cultural identity. For one, the ever-changing student population brings in an eclectic mix of artistic traditions. What’s more, the stylistic variety of guest artists keeps the Kirksville music scene fresh and exciting; without this, the small town would seem much smaller.
Why do people keep coming back year after year?
Ultimately, JazzFest is an excuse to catch up with old friends, to celebrate jazz music, to better oneself as a musician, and to have fun. It means something different to everyone involved, but it has played an important role in the lives of students, faculty, and locals alike.
A lot of [people] just enjoy hearing the guest artist and the whole jazz aspect, but I think [for] the bulk of them, it’s probably more of a social thing, …[especially for the alumni who] know that those people they went to school with [and] only see at JazzFest are going to be there. Going on for as long as it has, that history and tradition kind of builds up of the alumni showing up and going to the Dukum and having some beers…. The motivation could vary, but they sort of know what to expect. If they didn’t want to hear jazz or associate with people, they probably wouldn’t show up. But I think they enjoy it on a variety of levels: some just purely social, some definitely more musical, but most probably somewhere in between.
–Prof. Tim AuBuchon
The brothers of Phi Mu Alpha–Upsilon Phi (Photo credit: Adam Boyles, 2015. Courtesy of the photographer)
