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By\u00a0Ed Masley<\/p>\n
Doc Jones is a man on a mission.<\/p>\n
No sooner had International Jazz Day ended in late April than Jones, a music educator who plays saxophone and keyboards, was making plans for 2018, which he hopes will be the biggest year yet for the annual event here in the Valley.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife says, \u2018You don\u2019t ever stop,\u2019\u201d Jones says. \u201cBut it\u2019s all one thing. It\u2019s all about Jazz Appreciation Month and International Jazz Day. I done got caught up in this for the last seven years. And I think it\u2019s wonderful, man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Herbie Hancock, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz \u201cto highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe\u201d founded International Jazz Day in 2011.<\/p>\n
Jones held the first International Jazz Day celebration in the Valley in 2013, a year after attending Jazz Day in New Orleans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had 7,000 people out there at about 8 o\u2019clock in the morning,\u201d he recalls. \u201cIt was a phenomenal site. And after the concert, which was simulcast around the world, I had an opportunity to talk to Herbie Hancock for 5 or 10 minutes. I showed him my 504 jazz magazines that I published in New Orleans. And Herbie said, \u201cDoc man, you\u2019ve got a platform. You need to be marketing this day. It\u2019s gonna be big one year.\u201d<\/p>\n
After getting City Council member Michael Johnson on board, Jones arranged an introduction with a well known famous musician living in the Valley, who as Jones says, \u201callowed me to use his personality and his image for the first two years as my guest speaker and we were off and running.\u201d<\/p>\n
This past April, Governor Doug Ducey declared April 30 International Jazz Day, a proclamation he presented at the day\u2019s events at Cityscape.<\/p>\n
In the proclamation, Ducey called jazz \u201cthe universal language of freedom spoken eloquently by people in the United States and abroad\u201d and \u201can international language that bridges differences and brings people together regardless of race, age, gender or socio-economic class.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s Jazz Day Celebrations will begin on April 7 at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts at 3:00 p.m. (Tickets now on sale at events.jazzdayaz.com and at the gate) followed by the 2nd Annual Jazz at Lunchtime event at the Arizona State Capitol on April 18 from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. before concluding a month-long celebration of the music on April 29 at Mesa Arts Center at 4:00 p.m.\u00a0Jones is currently looking for sponsors and partners to underwrite his efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo do it correctly, we need to raise $150,000 to $200,000, to do what I\u2019ve been trying to do,\u201d he says. \u201cThe biggest cost is the talent. Eventually, when we have the budget, we\u2019ll be able to put super talent on. I\u2019ve been talking with Kenny Garrett, Jonathan Butler, Stephanie Jordan, Azar Lawrence. I\u2019ve got artists ready to go. And then the model I believe in, some people have been mentoring me out of New Orleans, they said, \u201cDoc, man, always have 80 percent local talent.\u201d That\u2019s what they do in New Orleans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, Jones says, he\u2019d like to do a Jazz Day celebration that felt a little more Viva PHX but for jazz, held on multiple stages, with artists playing different kinds of jazz in different locations.<\/p>\n