England's Disgrace
Hopefully, the new England Jazz Policy produced in November 1996, will end the disgrace that England's true music culture has been rejected by governments since WWII, as KJR has been invited to make its pitch for Traditional jazz.
In 1996, the Arts Council of England committed £623 million of Lottery money to arts groups, giving half
(£314m (approx)) of it to just 12 outfits as shown below:
The Royal Opera House, £78.5m; Lowry Centre, £41.1m; Royal Albert Hall, £20.0m; British Film Institute, £15.0m; Stoke-on-Trent, £14.9m; The Royal National Theatre, £31.6m; Sadlers Wells Ballet, £30.0m; The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art £22.8m; Milton Keynes Arts, £19.7m; The Royal Court Theatre £15.8m
and Walsal Museum; £15.8m, (£305 million) and not a penny has been given to:
England's true musical culture, Traditional jazz.
It's highly offensive.
Furthermore, why did the Lowry Centre receive a further £15.7m from the Millennium Commission and the
British Museum, £12.1m and £30.0m from Heritage and Millennium respectively?
Why not from the 1996 national purse?
A glimmer of hope is that the National (jazz) Sound Archive will get a good home in the British Museum.
ARTS 4 EVERYONE
This is an Arts Council of England (ACE) scheme: It really is a misnomer.
a) Designed for groups and small professional outfits only - Up to £5,000 (Express) and;
b) to help existing arts groups - £500 to £500,000 (Main)
KJR submitted an application under (a) aimed primarily at youth, which was rejected because it volunteered to sponsor an additional £800 sum over the £500 sum required in the rules. As ACE was adverse to our contribution, we asked that our application be discarded and subsequently made provisions for it in
The Traditional Jazz Jazzitoria Ltd main application of £500,000.
THE COLD SHOULDER
Camelot is on course to collect its target of £9billion from the mainly poor for the UK National Lottery,
and not a penny has yet gone to England's true musical culture,
Traditional jazz, since the Lottery start three years ago.
How long is this procrastination by the Arts Council of England (ACE) to go on
before it decides to support its Jazz Policy produced in November last year ?
Stage 0ne
ACE has now sent an assessor/advisor to look into our application and we await the result of his recommendations. Fingers crossed !
Stage Two
As expected, the ACE cold shoulder letter has arrived - action pending.
Stage Three
We wrote on the 5th of December 1997, being extremely disappointed that once again our application had been rejected and asked it not unreasonable to seek answers to various questions which we put.
An encouraging reply (alas! like so many of the others) on the 8th December was received, this time, from the ACE Music Director, advising that contact with the London Arts Board (LAB) may prove helpful in telling us where we are going wrong in filling up the ACE forms.
The Jazzitoria will act upon this advice, but points out, that every year since the LAB was formed,
the KJR annual application for the support of England's true musical culture - Traditional jazz, has been rejected, and that the Jazzitoria has already paid for, and attended an LAB course to teach us how to fill in their forms.Question:- Was the course useless, or are we thick-headed?
In the list of 80 succesful ACE applicants (this round) with awards totalling approx £9 million, (bearing in mind that £4 billion total lottery money has now been handed out) the majority have had local government connections, including Idi Amin 1972 group throw-out type music, which seems all too dada to me, as to how England places Asian culture more important in preference over England's true musical culture, and wonder whether the ACE policy is currying favour to them, or are they in the eyes of ACE, better form fillers than we are.
Something is wrong - somewhere.
England, in producing a jazz policy document, which features Traditional jazz, should provide the resources to implement it - it is that simple. In awarding the Royal Opera House £millions of lottery money, when it was £millions in debt, with no adequate financial controls (no monthly balance sheets) which subsequently a House of Commons report called for it to be dissolved, I am more than displeased that ACE thinks we are incapable of producing a sound budget. The Jazzitoria is solvent but dormant, having been formed to meet the ACE lottery money hand-out rules. Perhaps one reason for the rejection of Traditional jazz can be found in the web page England Slaps Australia in the Face ! accessed from the KJR Home Page.
An ACE form filling caprice, is the wrong formula on which to base England's arts policy.
Over the years, KJR has revealed for the world to see, that governments, with their hands-off approach to ACE, have left England open to being accused of bending over backwards to adhere to the ACE racist policy in making its point to do so, by positively discriminating against its own true musical culture - Traditional jazz.
England's Disgrace.
Ian King
11th of December 1997
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