Last week we initiated the first in a series of jazz festival flashbacks, highlighting the inaugural event in 1985. Let’s roll forward to 1986, shall we?
Top Gun was the summer’s hottest movie. The band Boney M released The Best of 10 Years album, while a boy group called New Kids on the Block were birthed in a recording studio. But the biggest news was that Vancouver was hosting the World Exposition on Transportation and Communication, aka Expo 86. The city had spent millions transforming itself with new buildings and pavilions, not to mention the new SkyTrain, in preparation for millions of visitors.
After a successful prototype the year before, the newly founded Coastal Jazz and Blues Society had secured major funding (more on that below) to make good on their promise to host an annual music festival. The event was rebranded with the main sponsor’s name in the title – du Maurier International Jazz Festival.
The lineup was fierce. Over 120 performances topped by headliners Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis and Ornette Coleman. There was a birthday tribute to Benny Goodman led by Canadian vibraphonist Peter Appleyard. Other performers included Tito Puente, South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, Bobby McFerrin, the Cedar Walton Trio, Bill Frisell, and Tim Berne, a saxophonist who is still playing for Coastal Jazz as recently as last year’s Ironfest. Not to mention dozens of Canadian musicians. There was an intentional lean to the avant-garde, in hopes of recreating the spirit of the great European jazz festivals, as noted by co-founder John Orysik at the time.
“We wanted the program to be adventurous and innovative, rather than the tried-and-true, safe war horses.”
Of all the great festival moments, there was one that has since become legend: a young Wynton Marsalis surprised Miles Davis by crashing his set on stage. Words were exchanged. Things got heated. One can assume some competition between the talented up and comer – who was already touted as “potentially the greatest trumpeter of all time” – and the elder statesman. (Interesting to note, perhaps – Wynton’s show was sold out by the time the program guide went to print. Miles’ was not.) No one really knows what was said, but the drama captured the world’s attention, and it’s been talked about it ever since.
For a nascent festival, the publicity was astounding. It must be said that none of this would have happened without the dollars to secure top names like Davis and Marsalis. As the LA Times reported, at that time corporate sponsorship was waning. “According to the June 14 issue of Billboard, Playboy and JVC were the only remaining major corporate sponsors of live jazz in the [sic] country. More and more musicians have had to look to Europe and Japan for opportunities to perform before large concert audiences.”
Enter the cigarette industry.
Du Maurier, a Canadian brand of cigarette produced by Imperial Tobacco Canada, had established an arts council in 1971 to develop Canadian talent and to broaden public interest in the performing arts. The 1986 Jazz Festival secured $200,000 in grant money and promotional support through du Maurier, a move that may have generated mixed feelings (especially among those who opposed the industry), but certainly offered the financial freedom to execute a top notch event at a critical point in time – when all the world’s eyes were on Vancouver.
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