Ed Sarkesian

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Ed Sarkesian (born August 1, 1917 , † January 9, 2007 ) was an American club owner, concert promoter and music manager who ran the nightclub Rouge Lounge in Detroit and the national tour series Jazz for Moderns in the 1950s .

Rouge Lounge

The Rouge Lounge (1937 S. Schaefer Road, in the square between West Jefferson Avenue and S. Fort Street) in the River Rouge district of Detroit, which has been operated as a nightclub by Tom and Ed Sarkesian since 1952 , was about 15 km outside of the industrial center of the city ; it was a combination of a jazz club and a bowling alley ; According to the Detroit music historians Bjorn and Gallert, it was one of the well-known venues for modern jazz in Detroit in the 1950s. In 1953, the club's operators had been given a license to let in African-American audiences. Performing musicians included Detroit musicians like the guitarist Kenny Burrell and his Four Sharps (1954/55) at the Monday jam sessions and the pianist Barry Harris initially as a soloist, 1956/57 with his quartet. In 1953 the young John Coltrane played there as a member of the band of Johnny Hodges .

In Rouge Lounge nationally known musicians such as occurred Serge Chaloff , Chet Baker , Terry Gibbs / Terry Pollard , the Dave Brubeck Quartet , Gerry Mulligan , Dizzy Gillespie , Stan Getz , Bud Powell , Carmen McRae , the Clifford Brown / Max Roach Quintet, JJ Johnson , Sonny Stitt and the Australian Jazz Quintet . According to Martin T. Williams in Jazz in Its Time , the club gave emerging local musicians an opportunity to work with guest stars; so Barry Harris played there with Lee Konitz or Lester Young . For a short time there were also radio broadcasts from the Rouge ; In 1954, the WXYZ station broadcast a half-hour Jazz at the Rouge program. In 1957 Ed Sarkesian gave management of the club to Peter and Augie Evangelista, who ran it for another year before it closed for economic reasons.

Activities as tour organizer and manager

In 1958 and 1959, Sarkesian organized four-week tours covering the USA under the motto Jazz for Moderns , in which musicians such as Sonny Rollins , Maynard Ferguson , Anne Marie Moss , Chico Hamilton and Eric Dolphy were involved and Leonard Feather was hired as a conference. In 1959, Sarkesian also tried his hand at festival organizing and initiated the American Jazz Festival in Detroit, where local groups played jazz greats such as Duke Ellington , Dave Brubeck , Ahmad Jamal , Thelonious Monk , Max Roach, Jack Teagarden and Maynard Ferguson. Despite benevolent reviews in the national jazz press - for example by Ira Gitler - it was only possible to hold this festival in Detroit for another year. With George Wein and Al Grossman, Sarkesian founded a national association in 1960 in order to coordinate and better promote the activities of several organizers. In the same year he was co-producer of the Newport Jazz Festival . The unrest surrounding the Newport Jazz Festival made plans to establish further jazz festivals very difficult, and Wein withdrew from this joint Production and Management Association in 1961 .

In the 1960s, Sarkesian turned together with Grossman, of the vocal trio Peter, Paul and Mary the young and soon Bob Dylan , who managed folk music to. So he organized the tours of the Kingston Trio through the Midwest.

Sarkesian died in the first week of January 2007.

literature

  • Lars Bjorn and Jim Gallert: Before Motown - A History of Detroit Jazz 1920-1960 . University of Michigan Press, 2001.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ today S. Schaefer Highway; At the former location of the club there is now a gas station.
  2. ↑ Lewis Porter , Chris DeVito, David Wild, Yasuhiro Fujioka, Wolf Schmaler: The John Coltrane Reference , p. 22
  3. ↑ Vladimir Simosko: Serge Chaloff: A Musical Biography and Discography , p. 88
  4. ↑ James Gavin: Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker , 2011, p. 89
  5. ↑ a b Bjorn / Gallert, p. 119.
  6. ↑ Martin T. Williams: Jazz in Its Time , p. 82
  7. ^ The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz , edited by Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler .
  8. ↑ But there were also less satisfied musicians like Cal Tjader , who telegraphed to his wife on October 4, 1955 after his guest performance: The [River Lounge] is kind of a drag, ... I'm sure [the owner] hasn ' t done much advertising - and its way out of Detroit - about 10 miles right near the industrial section . Quoted from: Cal Tjader: The Life and Recordings of the Man Who Revolutionized Latin Jazz
  9. ↑ Peter Niklas Wilson Sonny Rollins: the Definitive Musical Guide 2001, p. 19
  10. ^ Leslie Gourse Louis' Children: American Jazz Singers 2001, p. 170
  11. ↑ Vladimir Simosko, Barry Tepperman Eric Dolphy: A Musical Biography and Discography Washington 1974, p. 42
  12. ^ Leonard Feather The Jazz Years: Earwitness to an Era 1987, p. 278
  13. ↑ Imprint Team on Jazz Promotion , Billboard March 14, 1960
  14. ^ Newport Jazz Blowout Moves to Theme Park , Billboard Aug. 8, 1960
  15. ↑ G. Wein with Nate Chinen Myself Among Others: A Life in Music 2009, pp. 207, 318
  16. ↑ http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/85961/90831.html?1168722566
  17. ^ William J. Bush Greenback Dollar: The Incredible Rise of The Kingston Trio, p. 125
personal data
SURNAME Sarkesian, Ed
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sarkesian, Eddie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American music manager and promoter
DATE OF BIRTH August 1, 1917
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 2007