When Juilliard jazz vocal graduate student Ava Preston lightheartedly pitched a “takeover of jazz in Manhattan” as a final class project last spring, she didn’t think of it as anything more than a “wild idea”. After all, the stakes were low: no matter what she came up with, bringing the project to life was not a requirement of the course.
Yet, what began as a fleeting thought many months ago has transpired into what she is now envisioning to make a semi-regular event– a desire shared among now countless New York City pedestrians who witnessed her dream come to life.
On Saturday, October 18, twelve small ensembles composed of over fifty jazz students and alumni from seven colleges, including William Paterson University, performed from the hours of 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. between Broad Street and West 125th street in Manhattan as part of “Sidewalk Swing”, an event organized solely by Preston.
After winning a $3,500 grant through Juilliard, Ava has spent dozens of hours since July getting her once-unachievable concept off the ground, having started by reaching out to peers who could perform in the large-scale event. From there, she worked closely with police departments to obtain permits to ensure a seamless experience for all participants. As a final step of preparation, Preston also contacted NBC New York, who featured her on a short news segment two days prior to the event.
In addition to echoing the slogan of the Sidewalk Swing mission to “[bring] jazz and joy to every corner,” Preston shared that another motivator to get the project off the ground was to “get jazz students across different university campuses together, which does not happen often enough.”
Two hours prior to the main event, Preston and her assistants were stationed on West 66th Street to provide group bandleaders with their permits, T-shirts, posters, rented generators, and snacks before they were sent off to their designated areas around Manhattan. Ava’s own agenda for the day consisted of visiting six out of the twelve groups with a videographer to film the young performers, who had great experiences to share from the rare opportunity.
“I kind of expected it to be pretty casual, to just play for ourselves and if people stopped to listen, then they did. But it was so much fun. There were a lot of kids that came by and a lot of adults too, who stayed for a long time to listen. There was even a man who listened at the beginning and came back for our third set, that he was enjoying the music so much he needed to come back,” recounts Eli Leder, a sophomore jazz bassist at William Paterson who formed a quartet stationed on 4th Ave for Sidewalk Swing. Leder, a native of Ohio like Preston, has known Ava for a number of years and served as the contact point between her and more William Paterson students becoming involved in the event.
At Lincoln Square, jazz program senior and bassist Evan Wohlrabe led another group of current and former William Paterson students. Upon our arrival and although stationed on a busy street corner, people of all ages paused to enjoy the music, two of whom requested popular jazz standards “Caravan” and “Take Five”. The group welcomed the interactivity with the audience.
Stationed in Jackson Square Park, another group of students from various music schools had a unique audience of people who were pausing to rest on benches, and here, noticeably everyone in the quaint park was reacting to the music in some way. Speaking with a couple who were happily enjoying the music provided insight into the effect the event had on audiences.
“One of the best things about this is sitting here and watching other people’s faces light up when they walk in, and you can tell they are discovering music like this for the first time,” shared a man named Ned. His husband, John, plays guitar and appreciated the advanced musicality of the group.
“I loved the acoustic trio. The bebop guitarist was terrific, and I enjoyed ‘Body and Soul’ and the other jazz standards. The drummer and acoustic bassist are very good too. I didn’t know they were only students,” John said.
After all performances concluded at 4pm, the musicians came back to West 66th Street to return their equipment to Ava and briefly discuss their experiences. All of them expressed a desire to be a part of it again, just as she had hoped– and is hoping to pull together again one day.
“Seeing the reactions of both the musicians and the people on the street who were just listening was so overwhelmingly positive. Next time I would just plan farther in advance, and have more management– oh, and go bigger, obviously,” Preston said in reflection on the day.
Almost a week after the day of the event, the excitement and media response to Sidewalk Swing is far from over. It may not be long until jazz is heard around unassuming parts of the city yet again.
