The Los Angeles Independent Jazz Community Unites at Can't Cancel Jazz

Walking down a dead-end street in one of the not-so-nice-looking areas of Downtown Los Angeles, a metal shutter door that would otherwise assimilate into the industrial surroundings opens to reveal hundreds of people watching jazz singer, songwriter, producer, and educator Annabelle Freedman lead four vocalists as they sing in a round over a smooth, soulful beat.

Freedman is one of eight artists who performed at an event titled Can’t Cancel Jazz on Thursday, August 13, in a DIY event space called Slowjamz Gallery.

As the name suggests, the event came about when the LA Jazz Festival abruptly canceled. Upon the distressing news, the city’s jazz community immediately sprang into action, putting together this gathering in 48 hours.

“In times like this you see the superpower of community,” says Gengis Don, real name Lyndon Harewood, one of the organizers of Can’t Cancel Jazz. “Sometimes we need a flame under us to get us to do something like this. Otherwise we’ll be dragging our feet. Pressure either busts pipes or makes diamonds. It made a diamond here with this.”

Overall, the event sold around 150 tickets. With all the artists splitting the revenue, they each went home with close to $250, which certainly provided some respite after losing out on their performance fees from the festival.

And those fees were considerable, at least for Freedman. She wouldn’t be back in Los Angeles if it weren’t for the LA Jazz Festival. She recently relocated to Japan, but when the festival offered her $1,000 to play two shows throughout the citywide event lasting August 7-23, she booked a round-trip ticket home.

With that income and her bandmates performing with her for free (she wasn’t cool with it, but they insisted), the trip would be worth it. Worth it for her, but she was more excited about supporting the community of musicians and fans throughout the city, as well as local businesses and vendors that would benefit from increased foot traffic brought on by the festival.

Other than the major closing weekend on Dockweiler Beach with John Legend and Janelle Monáe headlining, the festival schedule featured two series of free jazz events. Jazz in the Park would bring daytime music to local parks around greater LA. Jazz After Dark would offer evening shows at restaurants and other hotspots. The total amounted to dozens of different performances that would have attendees visiting oft-overlooked cultural centers in the area.

It was an ambitious move, but one to which Freedman was excited to contribute…then on Monday, August 3, artists started receiving emails about every event in the schedule being “postponed” besides the closing weekend. Soon after, that Thursday, August 6, word spread that the entire festival was canceled. No official statement from the festival has been made as of this writing.

Freedman was rehearsing for her sets when she heard the news, but when I speak to her about it before her set at Can’t Cancel Jazz, her thoughts remain with the community first.

“We have jazz every day in LA. Less than us needing a whole month of jazz, the community needs and deserves the funding that was promised,” Freedman says. “My heart is with all the different retailers, chefs, people who bought perishables to supply goods, the artists, and the whole ecosystem.”

Yet, after everything got shut down, the whole ecosystem proved its mettle at Can’t Cancel Jazz. When it was clear the main festival wasn’t happening, Harewood’s thought was to do something about it.

“When it got canceled, everyone was really sad, and people were complaining about it. I’m more of a do-er. I’ll complain about something, but I’ll still do it,” Harewood says with a laugh.

He wasn’t the only one who wanted to do something. Tída Norasingh, who runs Jiji’s Jazz Club, and Cass Flower, manager, event producer, and climate activist, were game as well. 48 hours later, Slowjamz provided their gallery as a venue, a handful of vendors were ready to sell their goods, and artists were booked by word of mouth. Harewood didn’t even know Freedman before the night of.

“Jazz is inherently improvising,” Freedman says. “This speaks more to the essence and heart of jazz than any festival sponsored by Airbnb.”