Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola
Sum1
A gift buoys a new home for jazz
Robin Pogrebin The New York Times
NEW YORK Against a backdrop of generally shrinking donations to arts groups,
the Coca-Cola Co. has agreed to give $10 million toward completion of Jazz
at Lincoln Center's new home on Columbus Circle.
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The gift is crucial to the $128 million project, which will be a centerpiece
of the new AOL Time Warner headquarters building, because the project is
facing higher construction costs and the withdrawal of several pledges that
were made in flusher economic times.
.
In return for the $10 million commitment, which leaves the project $32
million short of its goal, Jazz at Lincoln Center will name one of its three
performance venues, a 140-seat club-like space, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola.
.
"I feel a profound sense of relief," Wynton Marsalis, the artistic director,
said of the gift.
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Jazz at Lincoln Center was reporting that its building project was short $33
million a year ago, but Lisa Schiff, the organization's chairwoman, said the
total cost of the project had increased from $115 million since then because
of factors like delays in the development of the AOL Time Warner building,
upgrades to the design and additional security measures included after the
terrorist attacks. "Some of the numbers might not have been as solid as we
thought," she said. "When you build anything, the costs shift."
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Schiff also said several commitments had failed to be fulfilled. "There are
some gifts that were pledged to us that would have put us over," she said.
"Some of it has become a little shaky. I'm going back out on the road now."
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The new complex, designed by Rafael Vinoly and scheduled to open in the
autumn of 2004, has additional features that Jazz at Lincoln Center is
hoping to name for generous donors: a $10 million lobby area and a $5
million recording and broadcast studio.
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Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola will be one of three main performance spaces within
the Frederick P. Rose Hall, including the 1,100- to 1,230-seat Rose Theater,
which, in addition to jazz, can also accommodate opera, dance, theater, film
and orchestral performances, and the Allen Room, a 300- to 600-seat
performance space with a glass wall 50 feet (15-meters) high overlooking
Central Park.
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Club Coca-Cola, the most intimate of the three settings, which was named
after Dizzy Gillespie, will be used for smaller concerts and special events
for young people, like student musicians' nights.
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"It's going to be a late-night room," Marsalis said. "Piano trios, a
piano-bar-type situation." During the day the space will be used for the
organization's education programs.
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So far Jazz has received $5.86 million of $25.8 million pledged by the city.
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While large grants continue to be scarce among other arts organizations, the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced a $14 million
grant to National Public Radio as part of a series of gifts to cultural and
international affairs groups.
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Most of the Coca-Cola gift - $8 million - will go toward the building's
construction, the rest toward programming.
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In the past some nonprofit cultural groups have been concerned about the
potential for corporate money to influence artistic choices. When the
Roundabout Theater Company named its new stage on 42d Street the American
Airlines Theater, for example, some questioned whether the airline would
have any say in the theater's programming. But Marsalis said Coca-Cola's
gift came with no strings attached. The company said the affiliation with
Jazz at Lincoln Center made sense for its brand.
.
"If you think about jazz and the Coca-Cola Co., each has a dual
personality," said Charles Fruit, senior vice president for worldwide media
and alliances at the company. "Each is uniquely American. At the same time,
wherever you go around the world, the public views it is as their music or
their beverage. We saw that interesting parallel between our brand and
jazz."
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Naming the club after Gillespie was an easy decision, executives of Jazz at
Lincoln Center said. "He's the musician who most embodied what our music is
about in the modern era," Marsalis said. "He was a humanitarian. He
encouraged musicians. He was a great dancer. He was always dealing with jazz
music holistically, trying to incorporate other aspects of music like
humor."
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The Coca-Cola gift is also a strong endorsement for an organization that has
worked to overcome some management turmoil.
.
Rob Gibson, Jazz at Lincoln Center's founding director and executive
producer, was ousted in 2000 after 10 years of guiding it from a department
of Lincoln Center to a full-fledged constituent organization and preparing
it to move into a new home.
.
In August 2001 Bruce MacCombie, dean of the School for the Arts at Boston
University, was named executive director.
.
Five months later, Schiff, a record executive who served on the board, was
named to replace R. Theodore Ammon as chairman after he was murdered in his
home in East Hampton, New York. In March 2002, Hughlyn Fierce, a banker who
had served as the board treasurer, was named to the new post of president
and chief executive.
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Despite the tough economic times, Marsalis said he was confident that Jazz
at Lincoln Center could reach its fund-raising goal.
.
"We still have a ways to go, but we've come a long way," he said. "I have my
eyes open. We all do." NEW YORK Against a backdrop of generally shrinking
donations to arts groups, the Coca-Cola Co. has agreed to give $10 million
toward completion of Jazz at Lincoln Center's new home on Columbus Circle.
.
The gift is crucial to the $128 million project, which will be a centerpiece
of the new AOL Time Warner headquarters building, because the project is
facing higher construction costs and the withdrawal of several pledges that
were made in flusher economic times.
.
In return for the $10 million commitment, which leaves the project $32
million short of its goal, Jazz at Lincoln Center will name one of its three
performance venues, a 140-seat club-like space, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola.
.
"I feel a profound sense of relief," Wynton Marsalis, the artistic director,
said of the gift.