Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Grants $3.5M to South Arts to Launch "Jazz Road"
The foundation’s Arts Program is funding South Arts, based in Atlanta, Ga., to launch Jazz Road, a national program designed to expand jazz artists’ touring to a wide range of communities. This landmark re-granting program, once launched, will be the nation’s most extensive jazz touring support system. Through Jazz Road, all six of the country’s Regional Arts Organizations (RAOs) will collaborate long term on formal programming for the first time in their histories, forging a national network that enables jazz musicians to tour to the widest possible cross-section of communities, as well as maximize existing resources outside major urban areas. The effort will be led by South Arts, the RAO that represents the geographic region where jazz was born. South Arts serves Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana,Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
“While artists across the country are collaborating and re-creating the tradition of jazz in unprecedented ways, the field faces a serious challenge in the lack of national support mechanisms from which other disciplines benefit,” said Maurine Knighton, program director for
the arts at DDCF...