Estonian Jazz Forum

There are various jazz festivals throughout the year in Estonia. Yet, it makes some of us wonder why do the cities of Estonia lack in places where to listen to jazz every evening.

Few years ago, when walking in the streets of Tallinn the tourists could notice the café revolution of Estonia. There were irish pubs and fancy cafeterias in the heart of the Old Town, but only one jazz bar - Roosa Klaver. That dark basement was filled with music for many years. It was not a problem to find the audience, but hard to keep such a little place opened in the expensive region of the city.
Today, jazz concerts in Estonia are project-based events with a few stationary places to gather its audience at the weekends. In Tallinn, Von Krahl and McCools have jazz musicians occasionally performing in the dim light of the bars; and in Pärnu we could find Jazz Café, which deals more with the development of their catering menu than do pay attention to the jazz programs.

People like to go to Jazzkaar every month, but would also like to sit down and relax with jazz music after ordering a glass of calvados and plate of olives. The Estonian jazz festivals have led the audience of the jazz clubs to the different concert halls and bars of the country. People believe there are no musicians to play jazz in the local clubs every week, though we could notice the many interpretators lacking in output for their music. Cotton Club or Dizzy hardly ever introduced the talents of Estonia, but surely were cosy places for having a dinner with business-partners. In contrast, Jazzkaar brings together jazz artists from different generations, but would not give you time for a dinner.

The secret how the many jazz clubs in the western Europe survive lies in the phenomenon of jazz tourism. In Tallinn, jazz bar beside McDonalds in Viru Street was targeted to Finnish vodka-tourists, who could afford the expensive beer, but were not staying for the evening concerts. Estonian citizens would have liked to enjoy the local jazz music of the bar, but couldn’t afford the same menu that kept the foreign audience busy during their stay. The place was closed down, and re-conditioned for an irish pub named O’Malleys.

It is nice to have Ella Fitzgerald playing on a scratchy vinyl, but one also wants to experience an event with the appearance of the musician on the stage in the very same room of the speakers. The objectives a jazz club should meet are the quality, the atmosphere and the various jazz interpretations to be presented in live shows. “Jazz, like any language, has its own grammar and vocabulary. There’s no right or wrong, just some choises that are better than others”, Wynton Marsali has said. Mutuality in opportunities is the key to the success of a jazz club. When establishing a place for music we should ask the opinion of the artists first. They know their audience better than we do, because they have looked into the eyes of their listeners. Joy is beauty, and beatuy is happiness. One should serve the artists in order to serve their audience.

It is true, there a many wannabe freaks, who emphasize on the appearance of jazz as a style, and do not care of the alchemy of the music. However, when one is already in the mood for jazz he/she wants also to sense the passion that inspires the maker of the music. A jazz club should be opened to everyone. The club might want to focus on the old traditional image of the well-known blue-lighted clubs of the 1950’s, and still keep the stage opened to funky jazz as well. Moreover, there is a crying need for a place where young musicians could show their talents in jazz. Thus far, few of the students from the Estonian Music Academy and other academic institutions have had the opportunity to show their skills in jazz to the fans of the music.

Similarly to the festivals the jazz clubs of Estonia will probably only survive through the wide audience of different tastes in jazz music. The artists of traditional jazz, bossanova and fusion do all have something in common – the need for existence. They inspire each other, but stay independent. And so do the different listeners of the performers who feel comfortable as long as the place provides jazzy atmosphere with respect to their different notions in the music.

A jazz club should be wide in space in its every meaning. The club visitors and the artists must sense the gravity of jazz, and not the need for investments into the continuity of the business. The quality of the jazz club depends on the smiley people, and all the rest will come with it.