FOR KYLE KNOKE, the idea of a collective of Midwestern jazz clubs, musicians, and other purveyors seemed quite simple, given the region’s long love affair with the genre.
“Everybody pretty much has had exactly the same hope and dream,” says the Wisconsin native. “It’s just either no one was insane enough or no one had the tenacity to try to pull it off.”
But with his love for jazz music and connections within the jazz community in his back pocket, Knoke says he began to dream up the Midwest Jazz Collective.
“I learned very early on that for a small club to be able to bring in a nationally touring act, you needed to be pretty creative about booking,” explains Knoke, who has served as the program director of a monthly jazz concert series known as Jazz Coterie in Central Wisconsin for the past five years. “We have 15 to 16 exclusively dedicated jazz clubs in the Midwest. So, I started thinking what would happen if we all worked together far enough in advance to actually make the Midwest kind of like a tour destination, like Europe?”
And that’s exactly what MJC is launching on March 22, when jazz vocalist and trumpeter Benny Benack III begins a three-week tour for MJC’s first collaborative tour. Indianapolis’ very own The Jazz Kitchen serves as one of the stops on the tour, hosting the Benny Benack III Quartet on March 29.
“Well, I have to say it took a lot of knocking,” says Knoke with a slight laugh at the collective’s lineup of more than a dozen jazz clubs across the Midwest. “As soon as I got through to [The Jazz Kitchen owner] David Allee, of course, he thought it was a great idea. I feel like a jazz club is such a unique part of the whole jazz experience—that kind of intimacy.”
But it certainly isn’t easy getting big artists into these small venues.
“It can be very difficult to bring in jazz artists for a one-off show, which is why it often works best for a performing arts center that has a thousand seats and the budgets to be able to manage that,” continues Knoke. “The Jazz Kitchen obviously has the muscle to be able to bring people in for one-offs, but they certainly appreciate and understand the advantages for an artist to come and make the most of landing in the Midwest.”
MJC’s educational component makes it even more valuable, with many of the touring artists taking small detours in university classrooms across the Midwest to share their knowledge and talent with students.
“People consider [jazz music] to be a great American art form,” says Knoke. “So, we have a handful of universities that are participating and have coordinated workshops or master classes along the route, including Butler University.”
While Knoke says he is determined to take MJC’s growth one day at a time, how much the movement means to him personally can’t be underestimated.
“In all of my life’s different stages, it has been inextricable from jazz,” concludes Knoke. “It was just kind of always a part of my being.”
