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The Syracuse Jazz Fest is one step closer to returning to Clinton Square this summer for the first time in over 20 years. Onondaga County Legislators allocated $125,000 for the festival at their meeting on March 1, matching the amount Syracuse Common Council promised last month.

Jazz Fest has been held at Onondaga Community College since it left downtown in 2000, but it has not been held at all since 2017. The two funding pledges account for half of the festival’s estimated $500,000 cost, which means it’s about three-quarters funded, according to organizer Frank Malfitano. He has asked for the last quarter of funding from the state, and he hopes to find out whether they received the funding by the end of the month.

The festival isn’t completely finalized yet, Malfitano said, but he and his team of 10 people are busy organizing what they can as they work to gather the last of the money needed to put on the show. Malfitano said he’s talking with city officials about securing Clinton Square for a one-stage festival June 24-26.

“We had 10 great years downtown in the ‘90s from 1991 to 2000. And it was amazing,” he said. “It was everybody’s feeling that this would be of tremendous benefit to the city. I think that a lot of people will come downtown and a lot of people will take advantage of what downtown has to offer.”

The county and city funding measures faced some pushback from officials and some members of the public who wanted money more equally spread out to other arts festivals and projects. The county measure passed 16-1 with Legislator Mary Kuhn in opposition. Kuhn said she believes that the festival won’t have the economic impact needed to justify the expenditure and is being planned too last-minute.

“We’re still recovering from a pandemic,” Kuhn said. “It’s last-minute. I don’t know who’s going to be performing. I don’t know how you get a big name that can be advertised to fill hotel rooms when it’s March and this is happening in June. So it’s kind of a nostalgic thing, it seems to me.”

However, Malfitano is confident that a good show can still be put on, even with a shorter timeline than he would like.

“If we start on April 1 can we still put on a show that’s happening at the end of June? We absolutely can,” he said. “Our team is in place, the same people that have been producing the show for years and years are all still here. Planning is an ongoing conversation.”

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Malfitano said he has gotten interest from artists and managers about playing the festival but is still waiting on the last piece of funding before booking them. The festival’s estimated budget of $500,000 also makes finding artists more difficult as good acts are getting more expensive, Malfitano said.

Comparable jazz festivals usually have budgets starting at $1 million, according to an unpublished analysis by the Syracuse Jazz Fest. The Rochester International Jazz Festival, for example, has a $2 million budget with $1 million set aside to book artists alone. The Freihofer’s Jazz Festival in Saratoga has a $1 million budget with $400,000 allocated for artists, according to the analysis.

Peter Svoboda, who owned CNY Artists in the Shoppingtown Mall until its closure, spoke against the county measure at the legislature meeting. He said that money spent on the festival wouldn’t have much impact.

“I feel about Jazz Fest the same way I feel about giving everyone in Onondaga County free pizza next Tuesday,” Svoboda said. “Everyone will feel good about it for a day but there will be no long-term effect. And many people believe as I do that the money could be better spent somewhere else.”

The county funding is coming from room occupancy tax revenues, which are collected on hotel room bookings in the county. It made sense to use tourism-generated money to fund a tourism event, Legislator Julie Abbott said.

City funding is coming from a federal stimulus package and was passed alongside another $250,000 set aside for other arts festivals and events in the city. Kuhn said she plans to propose a resolution at the county level to match that $250,000 expenditure as well.

While she’s a big fan of the Jazz Fest, Kuhn said she would rather have funding go towards the struggling arts venues which had to close their doors during the worst of the pandemic and instead have a larger, more planned out Jazz Fest in 2023.

“Let’s bring people back to downtown, but what benefit is it other than saying Jazz Fest is back? I don’t know,” Kuhn said. “If we had another year that Frank was really working on it … let’s line up someone big. Let’s fill the hotel beds. This is too fast, and I don’t think it’s going to have the effect that it’s supposed to have. We are still coming back, but we’re not there.”

The festival has brought massive names to Syracuse since its inception in 1982, including Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Dave Brubeck and Dizzy Gillespie. Malfitano said he thinks that history, in addition to the isolating pandemic, is driving the enthusiasm behind this year’s festival.

“It’s part nostalgic because all the festivals downtown were so great. Downtown was alive, businesses were doing really really well. We want to turn back the clock and do it all over again,” he said. “People have missed Jazz Fest and because of COVID I think the anticipation factor is even greater. People have been waiting for its return, so that’s why we’re fighting so hard.”

Published on March 8, 2022 at 12:51 am

Contact Nick: nickrobertson@dailyorange.com | @NickRobertsonSU