Esperanza Spalding performs Friday at the 2009 Summer Solstice Jazz Festival in downtown East Lansing. Though only 24 years old, Spalding has been playing gigs since the age of 15.
Whenever Carl Cafagna hits a note on the sax, clarinet or another instruments he’s mastered, he is carrying on his father’s passion for jazz.
“My son became what I always wanted to be,” said Al Cafagna, Carl’s father and a retired MSU philosophy professor. “It’s a great thrill for me to have (him) at the East Lansing festival.”
Carl Cafagna now works as a professional musician in Detroit and opened the East Lansing Summer Solstice Jazz Festival on Friday with one of his 12 bands, the North Star Saxophone Quartet.
Although Al Cafagna did not become a professional jazz musician, he brought jazz to East Lansing in another way. In 1996, the East Lansing Arts Commission founded the East Lansing Summer Solstice Jazz Festival under his direction.
Now in its 13th year, the festival, held at the corner of Abbot Road and Albert Avenue, is a free, two-day event that was attended by more than 5,000 people during the weekend, East Lansing Communications Coordinator Ami Van Antwerp said.
Nationally known jazz
Despite some rain Friday and humidity Saturday, many residents enjoyed performances from the nine main-stage acts and various interlude-stage performers, Van Antwerp said.
The event goes on, rain or shine, she said. Intermittent rain Friday made it clear a little water couldn’t dampen the jazz.
“It is becoming something people mark their calenders for,” she said. “We are on the cusp of becoming a tradition in East Lansing.”
The festival, hosted through a partnership with the city of East Lansing, Wharton Center for Performing Arts and the MSU College of Music, is funded by corporate sponsorships, individual contributions, a Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs grant and an Ingham County Hotel/Motel Tax Funds for Arts and Tourism grant, Van Antwerp said.
Increased funding and interest have created many changes for the festival since 1996 when it was held in the Erickson Hall Kiva, Al Cafagna said.
“Each year, it has gotten bigger,” he said. “Finally, we have gotten a two–day festival, and with the collaboration with the Wharton Center, we have had nationally famous people and some of the best performers in the sate of Michigan.”
The partnership and donations allow the festival to bring in nationally known acts including Friday’s headliner, Esperanza Spalding, Wharton Center spokesman Bob Hoffman said.
“We are incredibly lucky to get somebody of her caliber,” he said. “She is up and coming, not only among jazz artists, but she blends with so many musical genres.”
Jazz for all ages
Also headlining the festival was the jazz duo Carl Allen/Rodney Whitaker Project with Carl Allen on drums and Rodney Whitaker, director of the MSU jazz studies program, on bass. Whitaker is known for his work at the university, but East Lansing jazz fans often forget he is more than local talent, Van Antwerp said.
The Carl Allen/Rodney Whitaker Project recently was ranked No. 8 on the Nielsen SoundScan list for radio play.
“There is nothing better than performing in your community,” Whitaker said. “For me, performing is a way to show my appreciation for all of their love and support.”
Along with work as a professional jazz artist and MSU faculty member, Whitaker is the director of the MSU Community Music School Jazz Camp.
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The week prior to the festival, 64 high school and middle school students took jazz classes from MSU music faculty and other professionals, including Spalding. To end the camp experience, the students performed between main stage acts at the SSJF.
“I think it gives them a goal to look forward to toward the end of the week,” Whitaker said. “It is a tremendous opportunity for them.”
*American legacy *
“One of the things we are managing to do here is to preserve jazz,” Al Cafagna said.
He said he knows from his son’s experience that a musical career can be difficult, but he never would discourage someone from his or her passion.
Carl Cafagna said jazz always was a part of his home, and he was raised listening to his father’s almost 500 jazz records and his mother playing piano.
“I don’t ever remember being discouraged from music in any way,” Carl Cafagna said. “It’s what I was raised to do.”
Al Cafagna said the festival and the MSU jazz school make careers in jazz possible for artists such as his son.
“Right now, just like the wild animals survive in the zoo, jazz really survives at festivals like this and in jazz schools,” he said. “Jazz music is one of the only unique American legacies.”
