Concerts’ Free-dom Is Threatened

This is about free.

Free concerts in the park, in the mall, in office complexes, and now in the “food courtyards” of new multiple movie houses.

Never have so many gotten so much for so little . . . so far.

Free has been about the only area of growth in the shrinking job picture for musicians. Big bands are down to trios, live groups have been reduced to a synthesizer player, studio work has cut back and clubs have gone karaoke .

But musicians working the mall-office-complex circuit find opportunities expanding. Day work for musicians! Outdoors, away from the cozy and clubby! All because the musicians union, developers and office tower landlords have become impresarios of the free and musically correct.

“Musicians used to think only of club work at night,” says Ed Bazel of Entertainment Associates, a booking agency. “Now it’s a different economy. Mall work is safer, is for some year around. And the audiences are there.”

But why free?

“It’s excellent promotion,” says Susan De Boismilon, whose De Bois Productions books Wednesday evening acts into the Century City Shopping Center. “Free concerts entice people to watch the concert and visit the facility. Everyone will rush to a free concert. Who doesn’t love music?”

But some people involved in these free programs fear that cutbacks may be coming.

Many free concerts have been supported in part by the music performance trust fund of the musicians union from royalties on recordings sold. From the $7.8 billion in retail sales last year, the trust fund received approximately $10 million.

The royalty money is doled out almost like a matching grant: for cities or government agencies putting on free musical events, the union provides 50% of the musicians’ bill and the city has to come up with the rest. For private parties, such as developers or mall operators, the union provides 40%.

That royalty is strongly opposed by the Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA), which is about to go into triennial bargaining sessions with the union. “That royalty represents a direct payment to the union,” Jay Berman, president of RIAA says, explaining the industry’s opposition to providing royalties to the union. He indicated that bargaining agreements over recent years have seen a negotiated drop in payments.

The union fears a complete loss. Over the life of the fund more than $344 million has gone into free programs in the United States and Canada, with almost the same amount matched by governments and businesses. In Los Angeles, the trust fund provided $350,000 last year for school concerts and other free public events, including many private mall concerts.

“The trust fund has increased employment for musicians,” says Max Herman, president of Local 47. “The public gets free music of a kind it can’t usually afford, especially in ethnic areas. Some of our greatest talents work for minimum wage in these free concerts just to provide music. We know the industry which is now dominated by foreign companies intends to go further and maybe eliminate the royalty.”

Cheryl Tiano, music program coordinator at the County Museum of Art, is also concerned about the possible effect on free concerts by a reduction or loss of the trust fund. For good reason. One of the museum’s two jazz series relies on help from the trust.

Its 5-year-old Sunday afternoon outdoor jazz concerts attract 800 to 1,000 people on alternate summer Sundays; the funding comes from public sources--the art museum, board of supervisors, the county’s performing arts commission and the union trust fund. Meanwhile, through donations, corporate gifts and museum sources, a Friday night free jazz series started recently, an outdoor club atmosphere for the plaza on the evenings the museum stays open until 9 p.m.

Why free ? To help make the museum more accessible, to provide an added value, says Tiano. People who come for the music might also see the exhibitions (not free). And those who come for the art might stay for the music (free so far).

For this summer, at least, free is still a hot ticket.

The operators of Orange County’s Fashion Island have been putting on free Thursday evening jazz and big-band concerts for five years, running from June through the end of this month, primarily to attract the interest of shoppers.

Los Angeles’ California Plaza budgeted $600,000 this year and $850,000 next year for its free concerts, Wednesdays and Fridays at noon, Thursdays at 5 (“Commuters’ Choice”), Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Rental income provides 95% of the cost of the free programs, three-fourths of which involve musical groups. In addition to its series at the Spiral Court next to MOCA, California Plaza will be opening a second venue, Water Court, this fall, three new stages on the bridge over Olive Street. The largest is actually a waterfall that can be turned off, its surfaces dried off and then used as a stage.

Michael Alexander, artistic director for the plaza’s performing arts programs, books the free concerts and works with a number of community groups--Plaza de la Raza, Inner City Cultural Center, Japan America Center, for example--in providing some of the offerings. “With the lunchtime audiences we hope that they will be introduced to a wealth of live opportunities in Los Angeles, that they will later explore other art institutions and cultural activities.”

Before California Plaza was built the city required that certain spaces for art and performing arts activities would be set aside.

Why free ? Free concerts become an amenity to downtown workers, they bring foot traffic to the retail stores in the complex, and in Alexander’s words, they “provide leadership in the community and a commitment by the builders to downtown and to the belief in the future of the city.”

It does something else. “L.A. has an artistic depth unlike any other city,” Alexander says. “It can help develop artistic growth within the city by opening performances to diverse artists.”

A group calling itself CARS (Community Arts Resources) helped put on some of the early free concerts at California Plaza. Now it’s moving the concept of free to another level: Hollywood Boulevard.

The Hollywood Galaxy is one of those new movie house-retail-restaurant malls. Because certain Los Angeles builders are required to spend 1% of their construction costs on arts--for some a statue, for others a fountain--the Galaxy’s developing firm, Kornwasser & Friedman, decided on free performances to fulfill its obligation to Hollywood Boulevard enrichment. That’s when Peggy Riley and CARS got busy, producing twice weekly free concerts involving professional local musicians, dancers and singers. Their goal is four weekly concerts.

In addition to booking artists, CARS also provides performance opportunities at Hollywood Galaxy for established groups seeking an audience, such as the National Academy of Songwriters, which craved and got a bimonthly showcase. The Galaxy’s free events include Sunday concerts from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday morning family programs and at the end of September it will be offering a Saturday 5 p.m. music program.

CARS is into other free events: a Santa Monica-sponsored counter-Columbus festival Sept. 13 on the Santa Monica Pier, a Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency-sponsored street performers festival Sept. 24 in various parts of the city and an October parade and festival of masks on Wilshire’s Miracle Mile.