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CURRENT EVENTS

Washing Away the Dust of Grand Rapids with Jazz

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BY :: HEIDI STUKKIE
PHOTOGRAPHY :: TIM MOTLEY

Jazz musician Art Blakey once said, “Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life.”

If true, then the dust has just been washed away from the lives of several thousand people in Grand Rapids.

Audrey Sundstrom, the Founder and Chair of the inaugural GRandJazzFest, shared this quote in the event’s program guide and based on her passion for jazz, there is definitely no dust in her life.

Sundstrom and her husband, Greg, frequently attend jazz festivals around the state. After repeatedly telling her husband she wanted a festival here in Grand Rapids, he finally told her, “If you want it here, you might just have to start it yourself.”

So she did.

And if the success of Grand Rapids’ first-ever jazz festival is the deciding factor on whether or not there will be a second GRandJazzFest, you might want to block out the third Saturday of August 2013 now.

With an overwhelmingly positive response from a crowd of thousands, the six musical acts and everyone else involved, the event is considered a huge success.

As West Michigan Jazz Society Board Member John Miller put it, “This could be the start of something big.”

Sundstrom originally approached the West Michigan Jazz Society (WMJS) and asked for suggestions on local jazz musicians. They became the nonprofit fiduciary for the event, which helped GRandJazzFest get off the ground.

“The West Michigan Jazz Society played an important part by giving GRandJazzFest credibility as a jazz event,” Sundstrom says.

Early support by DTE, the presenting sponsor, and from the Downtown Development Authority kicked the event into further motion. Soon, Sundstrom started her own nonprofit, GR and Jazz, with friends and fellow jazz aficionados, Desiree Foster and Patti Flood, and then asked Molly Klimas of IntentPR to come on board to help with publicity for the event. Before the event, many more sponsors and friends got involved to ensure its success.

Sundstrom’s vision for GRandJazzFest was modeled after the River Raisin Jazz Festival in Monroe. She wanted to offer a variety of jazz genres such as big band, contemporary, traditional and Latin jazz and make it free so anyone could attend.

“I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel,” she said.

The August 18 event at Rosa Parks Circle began shortly after noon with one of West Michigan’s premier jazz ensembles, The Grand Rapids Jazz Orchestra, who has played traditional, swing and big band favorites for more than 35 years, including playing the first and third Sunday of each month at Founder’s Brewery. Dressed in matching blue shirts, the Orchestra kicked off the festival with upbeat big band music including a few sax solos.

Vocalist Edye Evans Hyde, the 2011 WMJS Musician of the Year, has been singing locally and around the world for more than 30 years. She joined the Grand Rapids Jazz Orchestra on stage and, in between songs, thanked the crowd for voting for her in the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. Evans Hyde entered the online contest a few days before the August 15 deadline at the encouragement of her son, Evan Hyde, who told her, “You can’t win if you don’t try.”

Her songs immediately went from the bottom of 800 or so entries to 14 th, 19th and 23rd place. Now that her version of What Is This Thing Called Love is in the top 15, Evans Hyde has a chance to compete live on October 21 and win up to $5,000. Based on the enthusiastic rounds of applause she received after each song, the people of Grand Rapids are rooting for her to win.

Next up, GRandJazzFest offered lively contemporary jazz performed by Walt Gutowski and the Bridge Street Band. Vocalist Michelle Covington accompanied the group and sang songs such as “Smooth Operator” and more.

Covington said Grand Rapids has been longing for something like GRandJazzFest and she believes it’s good for our community. The people at Rosa Parks Circle impressed her, too.

“It’s a very responsive crowd,” she said. “They’re showing the love.”

A friend of Covington’s, Monica Scott, agreed and added, “The crowd is diverse and reflective of the community. Jazz does that.”

And a diverse crowd, it was. People of all ages, races and socioeconomic status filled the open air space. Some brought chairs while others sat on the steps or bleachers. Many people brought picnic food, books and toys to entertain the kids. A couple people brought their dogs to enjoy the jazz.

Fred Bivins, a.k.a. “Mr. Festival”, his wife Gina, Jim Winslow, Lynn Mapes and Jane Muller sat on the shady outdoor patio of the Grand Rapids Art Museum during the concert.

“We’re talking about history and listening to jazz,” Bivins said.

Nearby, Grand Rapids resident and “big jazz fan” Steve Paulsen shared a table with his cousin Dave Corbitt and wife Heather who came all the way from Belleville, Illinois to attend the GRandJazzFest.

When Grupo Ayé took the stage next, the band energized the crowd with their dynamic Latin jazz and Afro-Cuban sounds. The music inspired many to dance in the middle of Rosa Parks Circle and show off sassy merengue and salsa moves. The rest of the guests couldn’t help but move to the rhythmic beat.

Grupo Ayé’s vibrant beat and Spanish vocals is not what most people think of when they think of jazz.

Terry Johnston, a local photographer who was there shooting for the Downtown Alliance, admits to having eclectic tastes but didn’t think he liked jazz until he attended GRandJazzFest and heard what he described as “inner city funky jazz.”

Another new fan of jazz is a pink-haired, 19-year-old girl named Alix Grabow. Hanging out behind the stage, she said her father played the piano so she especially liked the keyboard solos.

“This is fun,” she said. “We always hang out downtown but we’ve never heard jazz here before. Some of it you can even dance to.”

Next on the GRandJazzFest stage was The Steve Hilger Jazz Quintet featuring many standard jazz songs with instrument solos throughout the set. That appealed to local photographer Chris Wilson who liked how everyone in the band got to show off his talent for a bit.

Lowell resident and jazz fan Barry Harding was equally impressed with the Steve Hilger Jazz Quintet.

“Any time you can hear Lee Morgan’s ‘The Sidewinder’ it’s got to be good.”

Steve Talaga not only played the keyboards for The Steve Hilger Jazz Quintet, but also for The Grand Rapids Jazz Orchestra and Grupo Ayé during GRandJazzFest. This former WMJS Musician of the Year thought the event was “incredible.”

Randy Marsh, who played a few spirited harmonica solos during the set and the drums, organizes the Sunday night Jazz Jam at Hopcat each week, where experienced jazz musicians join in and perform a song or two with the rest of the group.

WMJS board member and ardent jazz fan Eddie Tadlock regularly attends the Hopcat Jazz Jam and other live jazz events around town. He thinks GRandJazzFest offers a good opportunity to showcase our local jazz musicians.

“People don’t realize the great talent that’s here,” he said. “These guys have played all over the country and the world.”

Tadlock’s friend, Elsa Fierens, grew up in Denmark and says she first became a jazz fan because her cousin, Erik Moseholm, is a well-known jazz musician there. She, too, hung around and enjoyed GRandJazzFest for most of the day because, as she says, “Music and people really make my life worth living.”

The second to the last set of GRandJazzFest featured Phil Denny, a young, animated saxophonist who radiates “sax appeal.” His first CD “Crossover” came out July 26 and it’s already making waves on the contemporary urban jazz scene.

Lansing residents Henderson and Gwen Bodiford and Robert Hurd and Diane McMillan are what you might call Phil Denny groupies. These two couples have followed him around the state to hear him perform. The women in the group have been listening to him since he was in the band at Everett High School where they both worked as assistant principals.

McMillan said the former homecoming king was “a very good student and very sweet and polite.”

The couples, who attend many other jazz festivals, came for the whole day and were impressed with GRandJazzFest.

“This is a quality line up from top to bottom,” said Hurd.

Saturday was the first time Phil Denny ever played in Grand Rapids and he was so taken by the response he received, he left the stage and played his saxophone in the middle of the audience for a bit. That roused the crowd even more, especially the women who were already gushing over the handsome musician.

Backstage, Denny applauded Sundstrom for her efforts with GRandJazzFest.

“It’s a great idea that came to fruition,” he said. “She has great passion and selected a good diversity of music for the first show.”

Throughout the day, Sundstrom walked around in her bright yellow GRandJazzFest t-shirt sporting an infectious smile on her face.

“What’s not to be happy about?” Sundstrom said at one point. “It’s a beautiful day, people are here and the music is good.”

Three other women were also smiling all afternoon. Sisters Mickey Parker, Ann Powell and Carol Allen, who were brought up on jazz, set up their chairs in a shady spot on the grass in the early afternoon. They didn’t plan on spending the rest of the day at GRandJazzFest, but they were still in the same location during the last set––laughing, grooving and having a very good time.

“This is such a release on life; a way to get away from stress,” said Powell.

GRandJazzFest headliner and guitarist Tim Bowman closed out the night with a stunning and memorable performance, just as one would expect from an internationally acclaimed performer.

His hour and 15 minute set included his two number one singles “Summer Groove” and “Sweet Sundays” and the receptive, energized crowd rewarded him with loud cheering.

Bowman described his music as “groove and melodies” and then with a wink and a dazzling smile, he added, “and fun.”

This contemporary jazz guitarist has produced six CDs and was named as Billboard’s 2009 Top 10 Smooth Jazz Artist of the Year. He also received the Best Guitarist of 2010 award at the International Jazz Festival in Dubai.

Even though Bowman only lives a few hours away in Detroit, he hasn’t been to Grand Rapids in 20 years and acted surprised by the size of city and the audience.

“It’s grown a lot,” he said. “And there are lots of people here!”

GRandJazzFest ended on a high note with a completely packed Rosa Parks Circle. The crowd energy throughout the day was positive, but especially during the last few hours, when nearly everyone was smiling, dancing and getting into the groove.

WMJS board member Darryl Hofstra summed up the end of the inaugural GRandJazzFest the best by saying, “The night is cool, but the jazz is hot.”

Hot indeed… Smoking hot.

Sundstrom was still smiling the next morning and thrilled with the festival’s results.

“It turned out to be everything I had hoped for,” she said. “I am grateful to all of the sponsors, the staff, the volunteers, the musicians and everyone who came out.”

Sundstrom had the vision for GRandJazzFest, but insists, “The event wouldn’t have been what it was without everyone’s help and so many people deserve a lot of credit.”

Thank you Audrey Sundstrom and your talented team for bringing GRandJazzFest to Grand Rapids. Please “wash away our dust” again next year.

To learn more about GRandJazzFest, visit their website: http://www.GRandJazzFest.org
LIKE them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GRandJazzFest

CURRENT EVENTS, INTERVIEWS, the Art Talk

“Mr. Festival” Fred Bivins: “This is what makes life worth living — art”

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BY :: TERRI FINCH HAMILTON
PHOTOGRAPHY :: TERRY JOHNSTON

There’s a giant gorilla staring at Fred Bivins from one side and a creepy creature with horns closing in from another.

Head for the flower garden, Fred! No, wait — the beach!

When you’re surrounded by 354 pieces of art, you can change your scenery with a quick dash.

Bivins, 62, is in his element amid the Festival of the Arts Regional Arts Exhibition, a part of Festival that has been in his care for 38 years.

But it’s never been quite like this — with stacks of old newspapers laying around.

The annual exhibition of cool art opened Friday in the former Grand Rapids Press headquarters on Michigan Street NW downtown. The building was purchased in January by Michigan State University for its College of Human Medicine and is mostly empty, although a smattering of employees still work there.

When Bivins started looking for venues, his usual spots — the old art museum, the new art museum — weren’t available.

Somebody mentioned the former Press building. He took a walk through, and when he got to the cavernous deserted mail room, formerly used to sort and stuff inserts in newspapers before delivery, “I said, ‘This is it!’” he recalls. “This is what I want.”

But it’s been a challenge. He had to install display walls down the middle, paint the place, rig lighting. He’s been toiling to get the space ready since the beginning of May.

Now it’s an 8,000-square-foot art gallery, in an unlikely spot.

“Isn’t it great?” Bivins beams. “It’s a cliché urban, trendy, hip industrial space that everybody loves for art these days.”

Bivins knows Festival draws people to art who might not seek it otherwise, and he loves that.

Last year, when the exhibition was at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, “the most common statement I heard was ‘This is the first time I’ve been in this building,’” he says.

What a shame, he notes.

“Once you get a roof over your head, and air and food, you’ve got sustenance,” he says. “But do you really have life? This is what makes life worth living — art.

“Oh, I guess there are other things,” he muses. “But I don’t go boating.”

He laughs. He cracks himself up a lot.

“The more people are exposed to art, the better they feel about life,” Bivins says. “Everybody who comes in here will find something they like. Everybody who comes in here will see something and get inspired. They might say, ‘I can do that.’ Everybody has it within them to be creative in some way.”

Bivins has it in a lot of ways.

He prints his own Christmas cards every year on a 1911 Chandler & Price letterpress.

He turns chunks of wood into exquisite high-end bowls that are famous. One is on the cover of a Godiva chocolate flier, filled with chocolates. Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell buys the bowls to give foreign dignitaries as gifts when he travels.

When Bivins talks about the process of making one, he’s a poet:

“Almost nothing can compare to the feeling of producing something that looks the way you want it to look,” he says. “Taking a chunk of log, putting it on the lathe and turning it into a bowl. The sound, the feel, the smell. The shavings in the air. The water coming out of the green wood.” He grins. “You get soaked.”

His artistry continues in the kitchen. Once a week he hosts a passel of friends for “spaghetti night,” but more than spaghetti happens there.

He makes vats of his special “Fredducine alfredo” to serve the crowd. Friends help him bake up chewy, crispy loaves of ciabatta bread, pizzas and calzones that go in and out of a huge commercial pizza oven he bought at an auction.

If the guests are really lucky, Bivins treats them to gooey caramel and pecan-studded rolls, affectionately called “Fred’s sweet-ass buns.”

The tables are covered with white paper, and bowls of crayons and markers are set out. Draw, please.

The camaraderie is as much sustenance to Bivins as the food. He loves people. His wife, Gina, public programs manager at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, likes to tell how everybody he meets becomes his new best friend.

It’s hard to get rid of Bivins, if you wanted to. After high school he landed a job at General Motors, then stayed there for 31 years, first in production, then as an electrician. He was a big union guy.

He’s been part of the fabric of Festival for decades. He’s worked food booths, printed Festival flags and serves on the Festival board, spending three years as its president.

He’s been emcee for opening ceremonies since 1985, each year wearing a shirt he makes out of that year’s Festival flags.

In 2008 he won the Spirit of Festival Award. In 1986 he was co-chair of the whole shebang.

This year, he loves it that his beloved art exhibition is in a sort of quirky place. He asked for bundles of newspapers to place around the room.

“I want to bring a sense of The Press into this room,” he says. The Press printed the exhibition program on newsprint for him, in broadsheet style, like a newspaper.

“It’s a collector’s item,” Bivins says.

He should know. He has a lot of stuff. He collects bricks. He has two from virtually every building in town that’s been torn down. He’s not above climbing fences to get them.

Bivins has a love affair going with his community. He recently hosted print making workshops where guests printed brown paper lunch bags for Kids Food Basket, the nonprofit that supplies nutritious sack suppers to 4,800 kids a day who struggle with hunger. Later he hosted a fund raiser for the charity.

He spent the last eight months on a committee organizing the 150th celebration of his alma mater, Central High School, which drew 1,200 people earlier this month.

He’s been craving the moment when the art exhibition doors open and the place turns from a quiet haven of art to a bustling venue buzzing with chatter.

“Once somebody sees something that inspires them, then it’s the run for the roses,” he says. “If I can be part of something that sparks that creativity, then my life has great value.”

He knows something about the value of life.

He was rushed to the emergency room one night back in 1996 for what he figured was a gall stone, but doctors found a tumor. They thought he had pancreatic cancer. Put your affairs in order, he was told. After a complicated surgery, they discovered the tumor was benign.

Then, three years later, at age 49, Bivins had an enlarged heart and elevated pulmonary pressure. He was told he may need a heart transplant. He might live five years.

He underwent extensive testing for two years but doctors couldn’t find the cause. Ultimately they tried a new drug. It worked.

Bivins had a recent check-up with his cardiologist.

“He said the best thing he could have said,” Bivins says. “He said, ‘Looks normal to me.’”

Bivins likes to say how almost dying twice has a way of making you want to be a good person. It’s given him a kind of wisdom that can catch you by surprise. He’ll suddenly say something like this:

“You never know when the eureka moment comes, but it’s obvious later in life that you had it,” he muses. “But you might not know it till it’s gone. When was the last time your kids crawled in bed with you? You don’t know it’s the last time until it’s gone.”

After Festival, Bivins will dive into ArtPrize, curating the entries displayed at the Women’s City Club.

You just can’t escape art, can you, Fred?

Bivins grins.

“Why would you want to?”