Published October 26, 2005
http://www.freep.com/entertainment/m...e_20051026.htm
Heiress' offer could secure Detroit jazz festival's future
BY MARK STRYKER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
The woman who saved the Detroit International Jazz Festival with a
$250,000 donation last spring is ready to make her earlier gift look
like chump change.
Here's the rub: Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts, which has
produced the jazz festival since 1994, would have to give up control of
the event.
Gretchen Valade -- a Carhartt clothing heiress and jazz record label
owner -- has pledged $10 million to create a new nonprofit foundation
dedicated solely to producing the Detroit International Jazz Festival.
In one bold stroke, Valade's foundation could finally secure the
financial future of Detroit's annual Labor Day weekend jazz festival,
one of the city's signature cultural events but one that has struggled
mightily in the last five years to make ends meet.
Valade's plan calls for a new foundation that would oversee artistic
programming, operations, marketing and fund-raising. A $10-million
endowment means that the festival would begin each year with a $500,000
head start in fund-raising, double the amount Music Hall has
traditionally received from a title sponsor. A 5% return on an endowment
investment is standard.
"It sounds like a godsend to me, that this lady with all of her
resources has that kind of interest in fostering jazz," said Edward Van
Slambrouck, a rabid jazz festival fan from Orion Township. "I think it
would be terrible to not utilize those resources."
Tom Robinson, president of Valade's Mack Avenue Records, confirmed the
basic outline of the proposal but declined further comment until after
the plan is formally presented to the Music Hall board of directors
Thursday. Robinson and Valade have been quietly negotiating for several
weeks with members of the Music Hall executive board, a small group of
senior leaders.
Sandy Duncan, president of Music Hall, also declined to comment citing
the sensitivity of the negotiations. Music Hall board chair Alex
Parrish, a partner at the Detroit law firm of Honigman Miller Schwartz
and Cohn LLP, did not return calls to his office Tuesday. Valade also
declined comment.
Festival artistic director Frank Malfitano, who has not played a direct
role in the negotiations, said the idea of a self-sustaining foundation
was the best way to ensure the festival's long-term viability, and that
he had recommended to both Duncan and Parrish that they "seriously
consider the proposal."
"This is a difficult economy in which to raise $1.5 million to produce a
festival worthy of Detroit and comparable to the festival produced this
past Labor Day weekend," he said.
Valade's proposal represents one of the largest individual donations to
the arts in Detroit history, but in return she is asking for control
over the festival's purse strings. This is a double-edged sword for
Music Hall, which finds itself wrestling with difficult issues of
institutional identity, artistic mission, financial prudence and the
best interests of the jazz festival.
On the one hand, the festival remains Music Hall's most successful and
highest-profile annual event, and it was Music Hall that rescued the
festival from its deathbed when financial problems forced Detroit
Renaissance to give it up.
On the other hand, producing the festival has put such a strain on Music
Hall's staff and financial resources that its core mission of presenting
theater, music and dance in a historic 1,700-seat downtown theater, has
faded into the background. Programming has slowed to a trickle in recent
years.
Between 2000 and 2003, the festival lost more than $1 million because of
flat corporate support, administrative and marketing failings and stiff
competition from the Chrysler Arts, Beats & Eats street fair in
Pontiac. However, the 2004 festival broke even and the 2005 festival,
buoyed by a successful expansion and Mack Avenue's support, made a
modest surplus. Still, the earlier red ink nearly pushed Music Hall into
bankruptcy and weakened support for the festival among some board
members.
Most Music Hall leaders have always expressed a strong affection for the
festival, sticking with it through its recent run of deficits. On the
other hand, if Music Hall were to stand in the way of a $10-million
foundation, it might appear to be working against the best interests of
the festival.
It's unclear where the negotiations are headed. It's possible that the
parties could reach common ground allowing Music Hall to retain some
role in the festival but under the umbrella of the new foundation.
Al Fields, interim chief operating officer for the City of Detroit, said
he was working with teams from Music Hall and the proposed foundation to
ensure that Detroit retains the most successful Labor Day jazz festival
possible. He said the Labor Day weekend dates had not been committed to
any entity, and he would not rule out giving the dates to either Music
Hall or the foundation if the parties could not come together.
In 2003, when two parties wanted to produce an electronic music festival
Memorial Day weekend at Hart Plaza, city officials chose an upstart
group rather than the founding organization.
"We're committed to doing the best thing for the music festival," said
Fields.
Valade, 80, is the granddaughter of the founder of Carhartt Inc., the
Dearborn company that makes rugged work clothes that have also become
hip urban fashion. Valade maintains an advisory role as chairman of the
company, which had revenues of about $400 million last year. A
passionate jazz fan since childhood, Valade started Mack Avenue Records
in 1998.
Valade, who lives in Grosse Pointe Farms, also remains fiercely loyal to
her hometown of Detroit. When she learned that the largest free jazz
festival in North America might fold following Ford Motor Co.'s decision
to withdraw its longtime title sponsorship, she reached for her
checkbook. Her initial $250,000 donation in March eventually grew to
$500,000 in cash, 42% of the festival's $1.2-million budget. Mack Avenue
also donated an additional $100,000 worth of in-kind contributions.
Mack Avenue signed a one-year sponsorship deal with the festival last
spring.
The 2005 festival was by any measure one of the most successful in the
event's 26-year history. Conceived by Malfitano, the expansion pushed
the festival beyond Hart Plaza and into the Woodward corridor and Campus
Martius. Roots music, blues and R&B on the new stages increased its
populist appeal. Attendance and concession revenue soared, according to
Music Hall officials.
But there is a more sobering perspective. Music Hall officials report
that the 2005 festival made $125,000, but revenue included the final
$325,000 of a multiyear grant from the Knight Foundation of Florida
related to the expansion. If Mack Avenue were to withdraw its $500,000
in support, that would leave an $825,000 hole in the festival budget
that Music Hall would have to fill in Michigan's brutal economy.
* * *
Support for the arts
Other recent large individual gifts to the arts in metro Detroit:
Max and Marjorie Fisher, $10 million, Detroit Symphony Orchestra
(1997-2003).
Josephine Ford, $20 million, Center for Creative Studies (1997).
Richard Manoogian, Josephine Ford and A. Alfred Taubman, $45 million,
Detroit Institute of Arts (2005); Manoogian, Ford and Taubman, $50
million, DIA (1999). Note: The three donors gave these gifts as a group.
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