All that jazz, & more

Kevin Diehl, whose avant-jazz-meets-Afro-Cuban percussion group Sonic Liberation Front plays the festival for the first time this year, pointed to local presenting organizations like Ars Nova Workshop and Bowerbird, saying, "I think some older musicians are still used to this idea of something called a 'jazz club.' But they're not physical places anymore, they're e-mail lists or communities. We musicians should step it up and create more opportunities."

Bassist Keith DeStefano, whose new-jazz sextet the Puzzlebox Experiment also debuts at West Oak Lane this year, points out the difficulty in reconciling those artistic and business aspects.

"With jazz in general, you have the artist side, where you just want to perfect your craft and be great at what you're doing, and then there's the side where you have to promote yourself and get out there and get exposure. It's hard to get the two together in one person."

Drummer Tony Deangelis, another festival first-timer, also bemoaned that dichotomy.

"Jazz musicians play jazz for the love of jazz, not for the love of money," he said. "But I'm married, I have a kid, and nobody knows who I am, so it's really hard. As far as the festival goes, I think it's a good thing to bring jazz to the limelight for a change and show that there's a lot of talent in this city and a lot of different styles of jazz. I just wish there were more clubs around to help keep this stuff happening."

But speaking from the veteran's vantage point, tenor sax player Barnes insisted that the current state of affairs is nothing new.

"Jazz has never been dead in Philadelphia like people say. The tourist bureau doesn't talk about all the places that jazz is really being played, but jazz has always been played all around. Every corner bar may have a band. I haven't stopped working yet, so I don't see how jazz is dead at all." *

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