Report on our 3rd Annual Jazz Festival

Saturday, September 26 - Noon to 9:30 pm!

     Well it was a long day, which started off with one of the toughest decisions in my life and ended with a young man proposing marriage to his sweetheart.  I’m talking about our day long 2009 South Park Jazz & Arts Festival that came off last Saturday, September 26.  It’s around 9 am and I’m standing at the Park Drive Gazebo and Karin Manovich, the neighborhood association president is saying “it’s your call, are we going inside or outside?”  The park looks wet as a swamp and the sky looks like it could rain any minute.  We had been watching the weather reports for a week and hourly for sometime before this point in time.  Weather.com was most favorable with 10% precept through our time frame, while Channel 2 was still saying 60% chance of rain.  At this point I had both doors open, the park was ready and Emerson Academy was being held open for us, so I did in fact have a choice.  I finally made the call to go outside and the festival was on.
     We started at noon with the SMAG Dance Collective doing “Cat in the Hat” before a larger starting crowd then ever before, which worked out well in attendance for Dave Greer’s Classic Jazz Stompers who were the next act up.  The Stompers represented our Traditional Jazz (the roots of jazz) component of our offering.  Next The Dayton Jazz Orchestra represented the Big Band Swing Jazz era followed by The Ron Jones Quartet putting forth a wonderful rendition of Straight Ahead Jazz.  Then came the April Aloisio Quartet with April’s version of Latin Jazz and we wrapped it up with Deron Bell’s band putting out some crowd pleasing Contemporary/Funk Jazz.  Deron, at one point, turned over his microphone over to a man who proposed to his lady on the dance floor during the last performance.  We tried to have something for everyone, even offering an array of political candidates, some running for office and some attending just to hear jazz.
      There are many to thank; without whom this event would not have come off.  The Montgomery County Arts and Cultural District grant was the largest source of funding this year.  In addition we received contributions and in-kind donations from Kroger Company, Heidelberg Distributing, The City of Dayton, The Dayton Towers Luxury Apartments, The Dayton City Paper, Affordable Graphics Solutions, Dayton Access Television, WDPS 89.5-FM, Hope Lutheran Church, Emerson Academy, The South Park Tavern, Park-N-Go Airport Parking, Full Circle Development and David Esrati, who furnished the lighting for the third year.  Special thanks go to our local Kroger Store who donated the free ice cream for kids of all ages.  Another special thanks to the Night & Day Café on Brown Street for all the free Boston Stoker Coffee.  Let us not forget to thank all the visual artists and organizations who came out to make this a true community event.
      A big thank you to the South Park Neighborhood; Karin Manovich, Shane Anderson, Jill Davis and all the many volunteers who past our flyers and posters out on Urban Nights and other places.  Getting the park ready, the electric dropped, the tree moved, the second stage constructed, parking signs, the moving and set up of tables and chairs and all the other details that had to be handled.  This has always been a good collaboration between South Park and Jazz Advocate and it is our sincere wish to come back for other jazz events in the future.
      Last but not least I want to thank the all volunteer Jazz Advocate board of directors who donated and immense amount of time for this project.  I remember a year and a half ago starting in April of 2008 when we put in three months of hard and intense work putting our grant application together for this years festival.  At the time we thought; wow if we can get this funding we’ll be able to really expand this year’s festival.  Good thing we put in the effort back then because as the economy turned out, without the County’s grant we would not have had a festival this year.  – Ron Gable

special funding from Montgomery County!
Schedule for the South Park Jazz & Arts Festival:
(A free to the public neighborhood event!)

2008 South Park Jazz & Art Festival on September 27
(More Here)
Thank You For The 2008 South Park Jazz Festival
(More Here)

2007 South Park Jazz & Art Festival on September 29
(More Here)