Hell’s Kitchen music festival finds a new venue

By Veronica Zaragovia

Until recently, they had the rhythm—but not the kitchen.

All the musicians had already been booked for the annual Rhythm in the Kitchen Music Festival on March 27–29, but until last week they had no place to showcase their talents. The event’s three organizers, all of whom sit on the board of the Hell’s Kitchen Cultural Center, knew they had to find a venue, and fast.

So Abby London-Crawford, 61, William Hooker, 61, and Bob Kalin, 53, gathered at the center on West 57th Street to discuss their frantic search for a location.

“We’re a community-based group, and we want to tap the talent in the area,” London-Crawford said. “We just want to keep on going and keep it up.”

Since 2006, the Rhythm in the Kitchen Music Festival has showcased the music of Hell’s Kitchen’s own, who play everything from jazz to electronica to Latin styles. Metro Baptist Church on West 40th Street had hosted the festival twice, providing sound acoustics and an intimate setting. But this year the church declined, leaving the organizers in a bind.

Tiffany Tripplett, associate pastor at Metro Baptist, explained that the church recently changed insurance policies. Because the new one does not cover outside events, the space could not host any non-church-related shows.

Kalin said Metro Baptist’s senior pastor, David Waugh, recently retired, leaving the church more focused on social missions than cultural events. Metro Baptist is also presently searching for a new senior pastor, according to its Website.

Kalin, however, has never doubted that the show would go on. As of late last week, the musicians planned to play at the Church for All Nations at 417 West 57th Street, between Ninth and 10th Avenues, and the event is expected to draw between 50 to 100 listeners each night.

“It’s about time someone was doing something like this in Hell’s Kitchen,” Kalin said about the neighborhood that broadly extends from 34th to 59th Sts., between Eighth Ave. and the Hudson River. “This neighborhood has, we figure, 2,000 musicians.”

Some musicians get such good exposure from the festival that they are recruited to join other performers’ bands.

“We’re like the farm team, in a way,” Kalin said.

No one works for free, though, with solo players earning $150 and groups making $300.

“It makes me very happy that they are being treated well, as artists should be,” London-Crawford said. “It’s always a goal of ours to make sure the talent is respected and appreciated.”

The group has funded this year’s festival, as well as the past two, with a $25,000 grant from the Clinton Seed Fund, which supports, among other things, affordable housing in the Clinton neighborhood. They also raised another $6,000 via a donation from another board member’s employer, Tokyo Marine.

“We try to run as lean an operation as we can so that the money goes to the musicians,” Kalin said.

On Thursday the festival will run from 8 to 10 p.m., and 8 to midnight on Friday and Saturday. Each set lasts 45 minutes, and this year there will be two 25-minute performances interspersed to make it “varied on the ear,” London-Crawford noted.

Ellery Eskelin, 48, a saxophonist who lives on West 43rd Street, is among the festival’s performers. He played in 2006 after Hooker, one of the festival organizers, invited him and will return again this year.

For Eskelin, the festival is important because many of the venues for the varied musical stylings are located downtown or in Brooklyn.

“In New York, many neighborhoods are subject to gentrification and corporatization,” he said. “You can feel disconnected to the cultural aspects of life here.”

Getting people connected was tough back in 2006, when the festival first started and Kalin hung as many as 7,000 flyers by himself. Now he and his cohorts advertise through a Website, e-mail lists, word of mouth and Columbia University radio station WKCR.

Among the crowd attracted to the festival has been Robert Neuwirth, 49, a writer and former Hell’s Kitchen resident, who said he was astounded by how many avant-garde jazz musicians live in the community. Hell’s Kitchen held an identity shaped by community groups and non-profit organizations, he said, and “there were never hints that the neighborhood had a cultural identity. It was swamped by the neighborhood right next to it: Broadway.”

Neuwirth lauded the festival for bringing global music to Hell’s Kitchen. He called the neighborhood one of the “last bastions where people can hold on to reasonably priced apartments,” and pointed to the awareness raised over the neighborhood’s “cultural richness.”

Michael Marcus, 55, who plays the b-flat clarinet, agreed. Most artists in Hell’s Kitchen won’t get to perform at events like the Newport Jazz Festival or in clubs like the famous Birdland in midtown, so this offers a chance for exposure, he said. In the 1940s and 1950s, Marcus added, jazz had a strong presence in midtown. But now it may back to stay. Last year, Marcus played for what he described as a large, enthusiastic crowd at the Rhythm in the Kitchen Music Festival showcase.

“There was a spiritual vibe,” he said, “and I hope it grows to be another important festival in New York City.”

The Rhythm in the Kitchen Music Festival takes place March 27–29 at Church for All Nations, 417 West 57th Street (between Ninth and 10th Avenues). Tickets for each night, available at the door, are $15 for adults, and $12 for children, students and seniors. Three-evening passes can be purchased for $35.