Jazz hopes rise with towers

The twin towers rising in midtown Manhattan, at Columbus Circle, were planned long before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and were not conceived as a symbol of hope in hard times.

But considering that the AOL Time Warner Center also will serve as the headquarters of Jazz at Lincoln Center -- the biggest and most ambitious jazz organization on the planet -- the place may convey a sense of healing and inspiration beyond its physical resemblance to the fallen World Trade Center.

“We’re living in tough times, and jazz is tough-time music,” says Wynton Marsalis, artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, which will occupy a massive space situated between the two commercial-residential towers.

“I think that in difficult times, people need the arts even more, because you want to return to something that reminds you of who you are,” Marsalis adds. “In America, jazz is who we are.”

Marsalis long has championed jazz as the quintessential American musical idiom, in that it involves a democratic, loosely improvised exchange of ideas among equals sharing a bandstand. Moreover, its swing- and blues-based ideas were invented in America and quickly exported around the world, while its complex harmonies and formal structures have taken American music to new levels of sophistication.

Even so, raising $128 million to create a sprawling jazz arts center encompassing three performance spaces, a broadcast center, recording studio, rehearsal rooms and the like is not easy. Although Jazz at Lincoln Center has raised about $100 million to date, the last $28 million tends to be the most difficult to come by.

“Yes, the climate for raising money is very difficult right now for everyone, not just for jazz,” says the group’s board chairwoman, Lisa Schiff, who remains confident that the remaining funds will arrive by the tentative opening date of fall 2004.

“But you would expect the climate to be difficult, because we were wounded on Sept. 11, and as a result of that our economy has been wounded and individuals have been wounded.

“At the same time, though, I think the level of patriotism and the feeling of being American is stronger now than in a long time,” Schiff adds.

“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that today we identify ourselves more as Americans, and jazz is identifiably American music. So maybe the time is just right for a place like Jazz at Lincoln Center to open its doors.”

When that happens, listeners will behold a jazz center more versatile and dramatically scaled than anything yet imagined.

For while symphony halls across America long have been programming jazz, none is devoted entirely to the music, and most accord jazz a role peripheral to classical fare.

America’s best jazz clubs, meanwhile, offer superior programming, with great artists playing venerated rooms such as the Village Vanguard in New York, the Jazz Showcase in Chicago and the Jazz Bakery in Culver City. Yet these intimate places cater to relatively small audiences and do not venture into education, studio recordings and other related activities.

The new home of Jazz at Lincoln Center -- a collaboration between architect Rafael Vinoly and acoustician Russell Johnson, among others -- will address the art form in many ways and settings. To be called the Frederick P. Rose Hall, the venue will include:

* The Rose Theater, a concert space seating 1,100 to 1,230. This may be the most versatile of the performance spaces, because the seats will be located in movable vertical towers. For jazz performances, the seating towers can be brought in close to the musicians; for opera, theater, orchestral or film events, the seating can be rearranged to create a traditional proscenium setting.

* The Allen Room, seating 300 to 600. This may become the most famous of the spaces, since its 50-foot glass wall will provide a panoramic view of Central Park. The movable tables and chairs will surround a dance floor.

* Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, seating 140. This small nightclub will run into the wee hours but will double as a space for seminars during the day.

In addition to the performance rooms, the center will include two rehearsal studios and a classroom covering 3,500 square feet, and the Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, a multimedia display looking at moments from the jazz past.

Although these facilities will be on the sixth floor of the AOL Time Warner Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center will maintain a street-level box office and larger-than-life marquee at 60th Street and Broadway. From there, visitors will ride up to 100,000 square feet of jazz.

If all goes according to plan, the music-making will begin in about 18 months.

“Then the challenge will be to deliver great music,” says Hughlyn F. Fierce, Jazz at Lincoln Center president and CEO.

Howard Reich is an arts critic at the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune company.