Jazz In The Blues: Sa Pobla's festival

No great surprise then. All that jazz in Sa Pobla since 1995 may be no more jazz. Sa Pobla has been the venue for John Scofield, Charlie Haden, Dave Holland, Billy Cobham, Joe Lovano, McCoy Tyner, Kenny Garrett and many others. If you put them all on the one bill, then you would send jazz lovers into jazz-lover heaven.

These names may not mean anything to you, which is understandable. Jazz, like other genres, is its own world. Not everyone likes it, just as not everyone likes classical music, country music, rap or whatever. But jazz, in a Sa Pobla setting, has become a feature of Mallorca's summer circuit, a cultural oasis in a town that benefits only marginally from tourism, a means of generating interest and business and of bringing jazz, and not insubstantial names from the world of jazz, to an audience that would probably never be exposed to them.

This year's festival looks to be all but doomed. Funding from the regional government and from the Council of Mallorca has disappeared, as it has disappeared from other arts events. Sa Pobla town hall can't afford to pick up the tab, as it is bust, just like other town halls.

The town hall has had to introduce small charges for more traditional occasions that previously were free, such as for the post-Easter pilgrimage of the "poblers" to Crestatx. In January, the DJs and other music at the Sant Antoni celebrations, the grandest on the island, required financing from local businesses. The town hall knows that events like the jazz festival are beneficial, but even this knowledge does not allow it to stretch to the forty grand that it typically costs to stage the festival.

Forty grand, on the face of it, doesn't sound like a lot of money. But when, as a town hall, you are millions in the red, it is. Financing to rescue the jazz festival is going to have to come from the private sector, and the first port of private call is on those same local businesses - bars, restaurants, etc. - that came to the aid of the Sant Antoni party. Is it too much to ask these businesses to fund a second event? It may be.

The jazz festival has always been something of an oddity in that it has brought international names to a small town in northern Mallorca and not charged anyone for the privilege of watching them. An obvious solution, you would think, would be to charge. Obvious, but whether it would work is another matter. Were the public willing to pay, whether similar numbers of people who have typically packed themselves into Sa Pobla's Plaça Major would come would probably be doubtful. And it would also be doubtful if a suitable venue could be found; you couldn't charge for people to go into the Plaça Major.

The concerts having been free has always been with a view to create business, so maybe the local restaurants should dip into their pockets. As ever, it would be interesting to know just how beneficial the benefits have amounted to in the past. Would they justify a demand being made on local businesses to foot the bill?

If the festival fails to go ahead, it would be another nail in the coffin for Mallorca's general cultural scene. Putting a value on this culture is difficult, as the "good thing" of culture shouldn't require a price tag. Unfortunately, however, culture can only be provided, or seems to only be capable of being provided, when there is plenty of money knocking around. There has, therefore, to be a price tag, one that has been absent for years in Mallorca.

As with other aspects of the island's arts culture, such as the orchestra or the Pollensa Music Festival, claims of direct benefits in terms of tourism are virtually impossible to identify. The jazz festival has typically occurred over a three to four-week period with one concert per week. People don't come for the festival, or if they do, their numbers must surely be very small. It's the same with the orchestra and the Pollensa festival; they are added attractions rather than being central to tourism.

Nevertheless, it is the critical mass that in combination they represent that is important. It is important in presenting a civility and a diversity. None of these cultural manifestations are truly representative of an alternative to sun-and-beach tourism, but it is irrelevant whether they are or not. Culture is an intangible of societal well-being. You don't want to lose it, but once you do lose it, it's hard to get it back, especially if governments question its economic benefits.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.