Case—The National Jazz Hall of Fame
Cornelis A. de Kluyver, J. Giuliano, J. Milford, and B. Cauthen
Mr. Robert Rutland, founder of the National Jazz Hall of Fame, poured himself another drink as he listened to some old jazz recordings and thought about the decisions facing him. Established about one year ago, the National Jazz Hall of Fame (NJHF) had achieved moderate success locally but had not yet attracted national recognition. Mr. Rutland wondered how much support existed nationally, what services the NJHF should provide and for whom, and what the NJHF should charge for those services. He also thought about other jazzhalls of fame and their implications for the NHJF. Although he had engaged an independent consultant to find some answers, the questions still lingered.
Jazz
The word “jazz,” according to Dr. David Pharies, a linguistics scholar at the University of Florida, originally meant copulation, but later identified a certain type of music. Amid the march of funeral bands, jazz music began in New Orleans in the early 1900s by combining Black spirituals, African rhythms, and Cajun music; Dixieland jazz became the sound of New Orleans. Jazz traveled from New Orleans, a major trade center, on river boats and ships and reached St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, Chicago, and New York. Musicians in these cities developed local styles of jazz, all of which remained highly improvisational, personal, and rhythmically complex. Over the years, different sounds emerged—swing, big band, be bop, fusion, and others—indicating the fluidity and diversity of jazz. Jazz artists developed their own styles and competed with one another for recognition of their musical ability and compositions. Such diversity denied jazz a simple definition, and opinions still differed sharply on what exactly jazz was. It was difficult, however, to dispute Louis Armstrong’s statement that “if you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.”
Origins of the National Jazz Hall of Fame
Mr. Rutland, a history professor at the University of Virginia, which is in Charlottesville, discovered that renovation plans for the city’s historic district excluded the Paramount Theatre, a local landmark. The Paramount was constructed in the 1930s and used as a performance center and later as a movie theatre. It was closed in the 1970s and now was in danger of becoming dilapidated. Alarmed by the apparent lack of interest in saving the Paramount, Mr. Rutland began to look for opportunities to restore and eventually use the theatre. The most attractive option to him was to establish a jazz hall of fame that would use the theatre as a museum and performance center; this would capitalize on the theatre’s name, because the Paramount Theatre in New York City was a prominent jazz hall during the 1930s and 1940s. Mr. Rutland mentioned his idea—saving the theatre by establishing a jazz hall of fame—to several friends in Charlottesville. They shared his enthusiasm, and together they incorporated the National Jazz Hall of Fame and formed the board of directors in early 1983. A few prominent jazz musicians, such as Benny Goodman and Chick Corea, joined the NJHF National Advisory Board. The purpose of the NJHF was to establish and maintain a museum, archives, and concert center in Charlottesville to sponsor jazz festivals, workshops, and scholarships, and to promote other activities remembering great jazz artists, serving jazz enthusiasts, and educating the public on the importance of jazz in American culture and history.
The First Year’s Efforts
Immediately after incorporation, the directors began their search for funds to save the Paramount and to establish the NJHF, and soon encountered two difficulties. Philanthropic organizations refused to make grants because no one on the board of directors had experience in a project like the NJHF. In addition, government agencies such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities considered only organizations in operation for at least two years. However, some small contributions came from jazzenthusiasts who had read stories about the NJHF in Billboard, a music industry magazine, and in the Charlottesville and Richmond newspapers.
By mid-1983, the board of directors discovered that to save the Paramount at least $600,000 would be needed, a sum too large for them to consider. They decided, however, that out of their love for jazz they would continue to work to establish the NJHF in Charlottesville.
Despite these setbacks, Mr. Rutland and the other directors believed that the first year’s activities showed promise. The NJHF sponsored three concerts at local high schools. The concerts featured such jazz greats as Maxine Sullivan, Buddy Rich, and Jon Hendricks and Company, and each concert attracted more than 500 people. Although the NJHF lost some money on each concert, the directors thought that the concerts succeeded in publicizing and promoting the NJHF. In addition, a fund-raiser at a Charlottesville country club brought $2,000 to the NJHF, and Mr. Rutland started the NJHF newsletter. The collection of objects for the museum was enlarged, and Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were posthumously inducted into the NJHF. At the end of the first year, enthusiasm among board members was still high, and they believed that the NJHF could survive indefinitely, albeit on a small scale.
But a Hall of Fame in Charlottesville …
Mr. Rutland believed that a hall of fame could succeed in Charlottesville, though other cities might at first seem more appropriate. More than 500,000 tourists annually were attracted to Charlottesville (1980 population: 40,000) to visit Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello, James Monroe’s home at Ash Lawn, and the Rotunda and the Lawn of the University of Virginia, where total enrollment was 16,000. Mr. Jefferson designed the Rotunda and the buildings on the Lawn and supervised their construction. The Virginia Office of Tourism promoted these national landmarks as well as the city’s two convention centers. In addition, 13 million people lived within a three-hour drive ofCharlottesville. If Charlottesville seemed illogical for a hall of fame, Mr. Rutland reasoned, so did Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Canton, Ohio, location of the Professional Football Hall of Fame. He thought that successful jazz festivals in such different places as New-port, Rhode Island, and French Lick, Indiana, showed that location was relatively unimportant for jazz. Moreover, a Charlottesville radio station recently switched to a music format called “Memory Lane,” which featured classics by Frank Sinatra, Patti Page, the Mills Brothers, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and numerous others. The station played much jazz, and won the loyalty of many jazz enthusiasts in the Charlottesville area. The success of “Memory Lane” indicated to Mr. Rutland that the Charlottesville community could provide the NJHF with a base of interest and loyalty. Most important, Mr. Rutland believed that he and his friends possessed the commitment necessary to make a jazz hall of fame succeed.
… And Halls of Fame in Other Cities?
Although no national organization operated successfully, several local groups claimed to be the Jazz Hall of Fame, as Billboard magazinereported.
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Billboard 4/28/84
HALL OF FAME IN HARLEM
by Sam Sutherland and Peter Keepnews
CBS Records and the Harlem YMCA have joined forces to establish a Jazz Hall of Fame. The first induction ceremony will take place on May 14 at Avery Fisher Hall, combined with a concert featuring such artists as Ramsey Lewis, Hubert Laws, Ron Carter, and an all-star Latin Jazz ensemble. Proceeds from the concert will benefit the Harlem YMCA.
Who will the initial inductees be, and how will they be chosen? What’s being described in the official literature as “a prestigious group of jazz editorialists, critics, producers, and respected connoisseurs” (and, also, incidentally, musicians—among those on the panel are Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Cab Calloway, Max Roach and the ubiquitous Dr. Billy Taylor) will do the actual selecting, but nominations are being solicited from the general public. Jazz lovers are invited to submit the names of six artists, three living and three dead, to: The Harlem YMCA Jazz Hall of Fame, New York, NY 10030. Deadline for nominations is May 1.
Billboard, 5/19/84
ONE, TWO, MANY HALLS OF FAME?
by Sam Sutherland and Peter Keepnews
Monday night marks the official launch of the Harlem YMCA Jazz Hall of Fame (Billboard, April 28), a project in which CBS Records is closely involved. The Hall’s first inductees are being unveiled at an Avery Fisher Hall concert that also includes performances by, among others, Sarah Vaughan and Branford Marsalis.
The project is being touted as the first jazz hall of fame, a statement that discounts a number of similar projects in the past that never quite reached fruition. But first or not, the good people of CBS and the Harlem YMCA are apparently in for some competition.
According to a new publication known as JAMA, the Jazz Listeners/Musicians Newsletter, Dizzy Gillespie—who also is a member of the Harlem YMCA Jazz Hall of Fame committee—”promised in Kansas City, Mo. to ask musicians for help in establishing an International Jazz Hall of Fame” in that city. The newsletter quotes Gillespie, whom it describes as “honorary chairman of the proposed hall,” as vowing to ask “those musicians who were inspired by jazz”—among them Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones and Paul McCartney (?)—to contribute financially to the Kansas City project, which, as envisioned by the great trumpeter, would also include a jazz museum, classrooms and performance areas.
Is there room for two Jazz Halls of Fame? Do the people involved in the New York city project know about the Kansas City project, and vice versa? (Obviously Gillespie does, but does anyone else?) Remember the New York Jazz Museum? Remember the plaques in the sidewalk on 52nd Street (another CBS Records brainchild)?
The notion of commemorating the contributions of the great jazz musicians is a noble one. It would be a shame to see the energies of the jazz community get diverted into too many different endeavors for accomplishing the same admirable goal—which, unfortunately, is what has tended to happen in the past.
Billboard, 5/26/84
Also noted: the first inductees in the Harlem YMCA Jazz Hall of Fame (Billboard, May 19) have been announced. The posthumous inductees are, to nobody’s great surprise, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, and—a slight surprise, perhaps—Mary Lou Williams. The living honorees are Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald and Art Blakey.
***
The New York Jazz museum (which the 5/19/84 article referred to) was established in the early 1970s but quickly ran out of money and was closed a few years later. In the early 1960s, a jazz museum was established in New Orleans and because of insufficient funds, all that remained was the Louis Armstrong Memorial Park, the site of an outdoor jazz festival each summer. Tulane and Rutgers universities each possessed extensive ar chives containing thousands of phonograph records, tape recordings, posters, books, magazines, journals, and other historic pieces and memorabilia. Neither university, however, considered its archives a hall of fame.
Other Halls of Fame
The more prominent halls of fame in the U.S. were the Baseball, the Professional Football, the College Football, and the Country Music Hall of Fame. These and many other halls of fame were primarily concerned with preserving history by collecting and displaying memorabilia, compiling records, and inducting new members annually.
Mr. Rutland visited most of the other halls of fame and learned that they were usually established by a significant contribution from an enthusiast. In the case of the Country Music Hall of Fame, some country music stars agreed to make a special recording of country hits and to donate the royalties to the organization.
Mr. Rutland was especially interested in The Country Music Hall of Fame because of similarities between country music and jazz. Country music, like jazz, had a rich cultural history in America, and neither type of music was the most popular in the U.S.
The Country Music Hall of Fame (CMHF) was established in 1967 in Nashville after a cooperative fundraising effort involving the city, artists, and sponsors. By 1976, the CMHF included a museum, an archives, a library, and a gift shop. More than one-half million people visited the CMHF in 1983, partly because of the nearby Grand Ole Opry, the premier concert hall for country music where the Grand Ole Opry cable radio broadcasts originated. Of the CMHF’s $2.1 million annual budget, 85 percent came from admissions, 10 percent from sales at the gift shop and by mail, and 5 percent from donations. In the past two years, the CMHF had formed the Friends of Country Music, now more than 2,000 people who donated $25 each per year and who received a country music newsletter every three months and discounts on CMHF merchandise.
The National Association of Jazz Educators
Mr. Rutland was uncertain how much and what type of support he could get from the National Association of Jazz Educators. This organization, with 5,000 members, primarily coordinated and promoted jazz education programs.
Performance programs were normally offered through music departments. Most high schools and colleges had bands that played a variety of jazz arrangements as part of their repertoire. Band conductors usually had a music degree from a major university and belonged to the National Association of Jazz Educators.
Most of the jazz appreciation courses offered in schools throughout the U.S. treated jazz as a popular art form, as a barometer of society, rather than as a subject of interest in itself. Some educators believed that jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington should be honored not as jazz musicians, but as composers like George Gershwin and Richard Rogers. Indeed, a prominent jazz historian told Mr. Rutland that jazz might benefit more from breaking down this distinction between jazz artists and composers than from reinforcing it.
The National Survey
To get some of the answers to his many questions, Mr. Rutland engaged an independent consultant who conducted two surveys; the first was a national survey and the second a tourist survey. For the national survey, the consultant designed a questionnaire to gauge the respondent’s level of interest in both jazz and the concept of a National Jazz Hall of Fame, and to determine the respondent’s demographics. A sample size of 1,300 was used and the mailing covered the entire continental United States. The mailing list, obtained from the Smith-sonian Institution in Washington, DC, contained names and addresses of people who had purchased the “Classic JazzRecord Collection,” as advertised in Smithsonian magazine. Of the 1,300 questionnaires, 440 were sent to Virginia residents and 860 to residents of other states in order to provide both statewide and national data. Of the questionnaires that went to other states, the majority was targeted toward major cities and apportioned according to the interest level for jazz in each city as indicated by the circulation statistics of Downbeat, a jazz magazine. Of the 860 questionnaires sent to the other states, 88 were sent to residents of Chicago, 88 to Detroit, 83 to New York City, 60 to San Francisco, 56 to Philadelphia, 56 to Washington, DC, 52 to Los Angeles, 46 to Charlotte, 46 to Miami, 45 to Dallas, 42 to Atlanta, 42 to Houston, 30 to Denver, 28 to Kansas City, 28 to New Orleans, 28 to St. Louis, 27 to Boston, and 15 to Seattle. Of the 1,300 questionnaires, 165, or 12.7 percent, were returned.
As shown in Exhibit 1, 79 percent of the respondents were 35 years of age or older, 73 percent were male, and the majority were well-educated, professionals, and had an annual income of more than $50,000. Of interest also was that 75 percent of the respondents contributed $200 or more per year to different non-profit organizations. Since the sample included a large number of record buyers of age 50 or older, the consultant weighted the survey results with age data obtained from the Recording Industry Association of America to make the survey results representative of all jazz-record buyers.
| Demographics | Percentage of Respondents | Percentage of All Record Buyers[*] | Census Data[**] |
| Age—35+ | 79 | 37 | 43 |
| Sex—Male | 73 | 82 | 49 |
| Education—Grad.+ | 54 | 24[***] | 31 |
| Job—Professional | 57 | 26 | 22 |
| Income—$50,000+ | 50 | 23 | 7 |
| Non-profit Contr. $200/year+ | 75 | ||
| [*]Source: Consumer Purchasing of Records and Pre-recorded Tapes in the U.S., 1970–1983, Recording Industry Association ofAmerica.
[**]Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1982. [***]Source: Simmons Market Research Bureau, 1982. |
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Exhibit 1: Survey Results—Demographics of Respondents
The survey also showed in Exhibit 2 that swing was the most popular form of jazz, followed by Dixieland, and then more traditional forms of jazz, from which the consultant concluded that a nostalgic emphasis should gather support from jazz enthusiasts of all ages, and that later, the National Jazz Hall of Fame could promote more contemporary forms of jazz.
| Type of Interest | Percentage of Respondents Answering with a 4 or 5 Rating | Weighted Percentage of Respondents Answering with a 4 or 5 Rating |
| General Interest in Music | 62 | 71 |
| Dixieland | 62 | 70 |
| Swing | 87 | 81 |
| Traditional | 63 | 66 |
| Improvisational | 41 | 48 |
| Jazz Rock | 25 | 47 |
| Fusion | 15 | 9 |
| Pop Jazz | 27 | 53 |
| Classical | 68 | 73 |
Exhibit 2: Survey Results—Preferences for Different Styles of Jazz
As for services, the survey suggested in Exhibit 3 that respondents most wanted a performance center or concert hall. A museum and seminars were also popular choices. The consultant was surprised by the strong interest in information about jazz recordings because the average respondent did not buy many records. A newsletter was rated relatively unimportant by most respondents. Most gratifying for Mr. Rutland was that respondents on average were willing to contribute between $20.00 and $30.00 per year to the National Jazz Hall ofFame, with a weighted average contribution of $23.40.
| Service | Percentage of Respondents Answering with a 4 or 5 Rating | Weighted Percentage of Respondents Answeringwith a 4 or 5 Rating |
| Performance Center | 70 | 83 |
| Concert Hall | 66 | 79 |
| Artist Seminars | 50 | 62 |
| Nightclub | 52 | 57 |
| Museum | 57 | 57 |
| Tourist Center | 42 | 48 |
| Audio-Visual Exhibitions | 57 | 55 |
| Shrine | 55 | 52 |
| Educational Programs | 48 | 51 |
| Record Information | 71 | 69 |
| History Seminars | 38 | 54 |
| Member Workshops | 25 | 34 |
| Lounge | 37 | 45 |
| Financial Support: | ||
| at $10.00/year | 17 | 13 |
| at $20.00/year | 30 | 26 |
| at $30.00/year | ||
| Number ofContributors | 62 | 64 |
Exhibit 3: Survey Results—Preferences for Services Offered
The Tourist Survey
In addition to conducting the National Survey, the consultant developed a questionnaire and interviewed approximately 100 tourists to the Charlottesville area at the Western Virginia Visitors Center near Monticello. About 140,000 tourists stopped at the center annually to collect information on attractions nearby and through-out the state. The respondents came from all areas of the country, and most were traveling for more than one day. Almost 70 percent said they like jazz, mostly Dixieland and big band, and more than 60 percent indicated they would visit a Jazz Hall of Fame. The average admission they suggested was $3.50 per person.
The Consultant’s Recommendations
The consultant limited his recommendations to the results of the two surveys. As a result, the question of whether the efforts in other cities to establish a National Jazz Hall of Fame would make the Charlottesville project infeasible was still unresolved. In a private discussion, however, the consultant intimated that “if the other efforts are as clumsily undertaken as many of the previous attempts, you will have nothing to worry about.” He thought it was time that a professional approach was taken toward this project. Specifically, he made three recommendations:
- Launch a direct mail campaign to the 100,000 people on the Smithsonian jazz mailing list. The focus of the mailing should be an appeal by a jazz great such as Benny Goodman to become a Founding Sponsor of the National Jazz Hall of Fame. He estimated that the cost of the campaign would range between $25,000 and $30,000; however, with an average contribution of$25.00 per respondent, a response rate of only 2 percent would allow the National Jazz Hall of Fame to break even.
- Appoint a full-time executive director with any funds exceeding the cost of the mailing. The principal responsibilities of the executive director would be to organize and coordinate fundraising activities, to establish a performance center and museum, and to coordinate the collection of memorabilia and other artifacts.
- Promote the National Jazz Hall of Fame at strategic locations around Charlottesville to attract tourists and other visitors. The Western Virginia Visitors Center was a prime prospect in his view for this activity. He calculated that 50,000 tourists annually at $3.00 each would provide sufficient funds to operate and maintain the National Jazz Hall of Fame.
The consultant also identified what he considered the critical elements for his plan’s success. First, the National Jazz Hall of Fame should be professional in all of its services and communications to jazz enthusiasts. Second, the executive director should have prior experience in both fundraising and direct mail; he should have a commitment to and love for jazz, as well as administrative skill and creativity. Third, the National Jazz Hall of Fame should communicate frequently with Founding Sponsors to keep their interest and excitement alive. Finally, to ensure the enthusiastic cooperation of city officials, local merchants, and the Charlottesville community, he thought that more local prominence for the National Jazz Hall of Fame would prove indispensable.
The National Jazz Hall of Fame—Dream or Reality
As he paged through the consultant’s report, Mr. Rutland wondered what to make of the recommendations. While he was encouraged by a national base of support for his idea, he was unsure how the Board of Directors would react to the consultant’s proposals. With less than $2,500 in the bank, how would they get the necessary funds to implement the plan? Yet he knew he had to make some tough decisions, and quickly, if he wanted to make his dream a reality.
Questions
- What is the project Mr. Rutland is trying to manage? Has it stayed the same?
- Identify the various stakeholders in the project, including the competition.
- Of the skills mentioned in the chapter that a project manager needs, which are most important here? Why?
- What credibility does Mr. Rutland have? Is he a leader?
- What cultures are relevant to this project? Describe the project environment.
- What should Mr. Rutland do? Include the following issues:
- Budget: acquiring adequate resources
- philanthropic organizations
- governmental agencies
- donations
- memberships
- visitors
- Budget: expenditures (consider Paramount theatre)
- Performance: services/activities to offer
- Competition
- Schedule: deadlines, windows, milestones
- Budget: acquiring adequate resources
The following reading integrates two views about the requirements for good project managers. One view concerns the personal and managerial characteristics of PMs and their ability to lead a team, regardless of the project. The other view considers the critical problems in the project in question and the PM’s talents relative to these problems. A survey is first described and then the critical problems that projects face are identified from the survey responses. Next, the skills required of project managers, as indicated by the survey respondents, are detailed. Last, the skills are related back to the critical project problems for an integrated view of the requirements for a successful project manager.
