New Midwest Jazz Collective tour makes stop in Indy, aims to bring more artists to the region

A new Midwest collaboration between venues aims to create a more economically viable tour route here and bring more national jazz artists to the region. The Midwest Jazz Collective tour launched this month, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and it makes its inaugural tour stop at The Jazz Kitchen in South Broad Ripple this weekend.

Founding member Kyle Knoke said he was inspired by the success of a Central Wisconsin collaboration he co-founded, the Jazz Coterie.

“We have the same desires in sharing the music of touring artists, but are always up against the financial challenges of being able to to make the booking happen,” Knoke said. “Working together again, I think that whole price point scenario and expense scenario shifts into the realm of something being possible.”

The collective started with emails and calls to clubs in Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota.

Owner of The Jazz Kitchen David Allee was in one of those calls.

“I mean, it’s a no brainer,” Allee said. “We want to bring more and more artists into the area.”

Allee said the collaboration helps everyone financially and also allows the sharing of ideas and resources to promote performances. 

“To have a little extra help from everybody making that happen, certainly is a plus, and it’s great for the artists too, because they can get a consistent amount of work,” he said. “It’s also maybe a beneficial thing for us to be able to leverage the fees.”

The roughly three week tour keeps travel time between clubs between two to four hours. The string of venues together, with short drives between each show, is similar to tours in Europe. It is also similar to the way touring was historically done in the U.S.

“Back in the day there was a lot more artists like piling in the car, you know, putting the drums in the back seat and going from town to town,” reflects trumpeter and singer Benny Benack III. He is the Midwest Jazz Collective’s first artist to do the route.

“But the reality of the economics of everything, it just really became, you know, not feasible,” Benack said.

He also described how even well known musicians can struggle to break even on a tour.

“It comes out where the artists are saying, ‘well, we’re lucky to break even, you know, if we need to sell out every show just to cover our expenses.’”

He said the partnership between venues helps reduce potential financial losses, as clubs have shows on week nights that might otherwise be difficult to book. The tour also includes educational workshops, including one at Butler University, with the touring artist.

“So not only do we come to the students and go into the schools and do a workshop, but also I'm encouraging a lot of the students to then come to the gigs and sit in,” said Benack.

Midwest Jazz Collective founding member and organizer Kyle Knoke said he hopes to learn from the inaugural tour what works and what might need adjusting.

“I am actually planning on taking the tour with the band,” Kanoke said. “It sounds a little crazy, but I would like to, first hand, be able to meet these presenters and these club owners and take kind of a real time temperature on everybody’s spirit with this collective idea.”

Kanoke said he sees the collective putting together a tour once a quarter.

For Indianapolis local jazz musician Rob Dixon, he hopes to see future collaboration with other jazz organizations and possibly have Midwest artists perform the tour route.

“I’ve always strived for, like, to have a lot of Indianapolis artists just be involved more in the national scene,” Dixon said. “I’m just really on that, supporting, you know, getting Indianapolis more involved in traveling and touring.”

The Midwest Jazz Collective is in Indianapolis this weekend with Benny Benack III quartet performing at The Jazz Kitchen Saturday and Benack teaching a masterclass at Butler University Sunday.

The tour runs through April 10 and ends in Chicago.

Contact WFYI All Things Considered newscaster and reporter Samantha Horton at shorton@wfyi.org.