Jazz St. Louis executive director Gene Dobbs Bradford gracefully made his way around the Jazz at the Bistro on Friday night, shaking a dozen hands.
Fashionably-dressed men and women gushed about the club’s new renovation, which took four short months to complete and cost $8 million between the building purchases and remodel.
“I love this place,” Bradford said. “It’s the facility that St. Louis deserves.”
In 1995, Bradford joined the nonprofit dedicated to advancing the art of jazz through live performance, education and outreach. He looks back at those days and laughs.
“When I started, it was two employees, me and Tuck Rainwater,” he said. “My office was so small. If I wanted to get up and go have lunch, Tuck had to get up and go out of the office too so that I could get by.”
Becoming executive director in February 1999, he is credited with building the organization’s contributed and earned income from $375,000 to $1.8 million today.
On Nov. 7, Bradford will receive the Nonprofit Executive of the Year Award at the St. Louis American Foundation’s 15th Annual Salute to Excellence in Business Awards & Networking Luncheon. The event will be held Friday, November 14 at the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis, with a networking reception at 11 a.m. and luncheon program at noon.
The renovation included the purchase of its building at 3536 Washington Ave. and another next door, a renovated performance space, an education center and a jazz lounge. The jazz club expanded its seating capacity from 150 to 220, and almost every seat in the house is a good one, he said. All together, it’s now called the Harold and Dorothy Steward Center for Jazz, named after the parents of a major donor. David Steward, founder and chairman of World Wide Technology and a well-established supporter of Jazz St. Louis. This October, the jazz center debuted with a performance by Wynton Marsalis.
However, on top of bringing amazing artists to St. Louis, Bradford believes the nonprofit makes its biggest impact through its work with young people.
Every musician who performs in the Jazz at the Bistro concert series also goes out to local schools and holds workshops, master classes and other events. And through its programs, Jazz St. Louis introduces hundreds of thousands of young people to jazz, he said.
“That’s been the thing that is having the most impact long-term,” he said. “We want to make sure the next generation of jazz musicians have opportunities. It is very easy to let one’s heritage slip away.”
In his own life, Bradford had some influential teachers in high school and college. He grew up in Columbia, Maryland – the first “planned community” created by developer James Rouse. Rouse’s design aimed to eliminate racial, economic and religious segregation.
“So you had going to the same high school people who were in the low-income housing all the way up to deluxe mansions,” Bradford said.
There was a church in town called the Interfaith Center. It was a big facility where a number of different churches would hold their services.
“The idea is whatever religion you are, you are going to come to this space to workshop, within your own congregation,” he said. “Every now and then, there’d be potlucks where all the congregations would get together and eat casseroles.”
It was the type of place where children had incredible opportunities to explore their interests, he said. His teacher at Wilde Lake High School, Lewis Dutrow, inspired him to pursue music, and Dutrow continues to teach there.
“I hope that’s the type of influence we’re having,” Bradford said.
Dutrow helped Bradford find a teacher at the Eastman School of Music, where he was a double bass major. That teacher, professor of double bass James VanDemark, encouraged him to pursue his interests in music management.
“Before I got to the point where I was going to be accomplished enough to be a great jazz bassist, I had already decided that I liked putting shows on more than I liked performing in them,” he said.
However, he still enjoys performing harmonica with his band, the Gene Dobbs Bradford Blues Experience.
“The arts aren’t just something nice, they’re a necessity,” he said. “It’s what every culture holds up as the thing that’s really greatest about them. The thing that lasts, the thing that allows us to reach out from our own situation in time, is the arts.”
The 15th Annual Salute to Excellence in Business Awards & Networking Luncheon will be held Friday, November 14 at the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis, networking reception at 11 a.m., luncheon program at noon. Tickets are $100 for VIP/Preferred seating, $75 for general admission. Call 314-533-8000 or visit www.stlamerican.com for more information or to purchase tickets.
