As we tread slowly towards the festival’s 40th anniversary, we’re revisiting each one in a flashback. (Click here if you missed our first few.) Let’s fast forward to some highlights of 1988.
Calgary hosted the Winter Olympics that February. The Soviet Union had just collapsed. The movie Die Hard was not yet considered a Christmas movie. In fact, it was still weeks away from dominating the summer box office.
And from June 24 to July 3, Coastal Jazz embarked on its third annual du Maurier International Jazz Festival, with a lineup that included “a little that’s obvious and a lot that’s valuable.” (Globe and Mail). Over 350 artists were featured from France, Senegal, Brazil, Switzerland, England, Germany, Australia, US and across Canada. Today, we can easily take for granted how special it was then to see obscure acts from the other side of the world, such as headliner Youssou N’Dour of Senegal, who had recently collaborated with Peter Gabriel and Paul Simon, and would go on to work with every big name under the sun.
Only a few years in, the festival had already gained a reputation for its adventurous, obscure programming, and that was very much on purpose. Coastal Jazz’ founders – the ones booking the acts – were genuine music fans who ran record stores and hosted jazz radio shows as their day job – to say they were obsessed with all facets of the genre might be an understatement. For a city with little jazz exposure, these people were the de facto shepherds of jazz music, building an audience one show at a time. What is jazz? We struggle with that question today. Artistic programmer Ken Pickering described it then as a “musical universe.”
Co-founder John Orysik noted in an interview, “In 1988 it’s almost impossible to really define what jazz is. Traditionally, jazz has been music that incorporates improvisation. It has a spirit all its own. It’s the sound of surprise, you never know what’s coming around the corner. What we do is put together bands and situations that are highly stimulating. A lot of bands and artist that we book during the festival go on to become major recording artists. We catch them in the germinal stage.”
Some things never change. Over the last 39 years, Vancouver’s festival always aimed to balance the obvious with the avant garde. Our stages have continued to be a launching pad for many artists (thinking of you, Diana Krall). For those of us working at Coastal Jazz today, it’s comforting to see how a music fan’s approach to booking acts, baked into the festival’s DNA in the early years, still stands today.
Jump back in time with more festival flashbacks. Have a memory to share? Join the conversation on Instagram, Facebook or X @coastaljazz.
