Nice Premium: Happy to have taken over the management of this new edition of the Nice Jazz Festival for 60 years of Jazz?
Gérard Drouot: I am very happy to have taken over the direction of this festival, it was a bit of a challenge. I program a lot of jazz artists on tour throughout France and having artists like Diana Krall, Leonard Cohen, Return To Forever in my touring catalog, I wanted to bring them to Nice as I was taking over this festival and try to create a synergy. It’s not about me; it’s the artists and the audience who make everything happen here.
NP: You wanted to bring jazz back to the jazz festival, is your mission accomplished?
GD: I don’t know if I wanted to bring it back to jazz, I wanted the programming to be unbalanced in a way—I thought it was probably interesting before, with very good artists, but I felt there was no longer enough soul, and especially that jazz had been sidelined. So I made sure that about two-thirds of the program consisted of jazz, 65% jazz artists and 35% others, including French, international, and other genres…
NP: The feedback from both the public and artists is mostly very positive, but there are still some criticisms, notably from Viviane Sicnasi, the former director, who criticizes the ticket prices. This is a complaint we’ve heard a bit following up. What do you have to say in response?
GD: You know, the ticket prices are two euros more expensive than last season. I have nothing to say in response, we have three price ranges, the first is from 9 to 31 € and the most expensive is from 11 to 51 € for prestige evenings like Leonard Cohen. I’m producing Leonard Cohen in France and ticket prices will be from 95 to 161 € and by the way, I’m not even advertising since his three concerts at the Olympia are already sold out. I think that if we make a real comparison, he came to sing in Nice for a third of the price of what he earns in cities like Paris or London. It’s always too expensive, if you will, when someone is asked, is it expensive? Isn’t a liter of gasoline too expensive today? When compared, I believe we are within a price range that has been decided by the City of Nice, which remains quite reasonable. There are 233 people who trusted me, who followed my programming to purchase the 8-day pass. 233 is three and a half times more than what the previous delegate had with this pass. With this pass sold at 185 €, each concert doesn’t even cost 25 €. I don’t think the prices are that exorbitant, even though I acknowledge that it’s always too expensive.
NP: What is your report today?
GD: The financial report isn’t out yet, but I think the festival won’t be in deficit; we should reach balance or even have a slight profit, which hasn’t happened in a long time since the company with the previous delegation had to file for bankruptcy and is in liquidation. Not even Michel Leeb before managed to make a comeback, even though he did an excellent job, as did Ms. Sicnasi, who also did an excellent job. After all, it’s an alchemy that has to work between the artists. As programmers, we’re not much, the reality relies on the public’s desire to meet certain artists and the artists’ willingness to perform here. It’s true that being the French tour manager of Ms. Diana Krall or Leonard Cohen, Georges Benson, gives me more ease to convince them to come to Nice, but it’s not necessarily out of economic choices because I got most under fair financial conditions, sometimes even lower than what they demand elsewhere, which would have made their appearance impossible, because we’re not in the context of U2 in the Stade Charles Erhman, if you will.
NP: We’re talking about 35,000 paid entries, do you confirm this?
GD: Yes, that’s about right. According to the numbers communicated to me by the city of Nice, the festival in its most recent editions was slightly below 30,000 paid entries, so we will exceed by 20% the figures achieved in the most recent years, and of course, I’m not counting the invitations, because there still are guests, so we will very much exceed 40,000 entries.
NP: A bit more of a personal report, do you have a favorite, an artist to highlight from this week?
GD: You’re going to make me contradict myself; my favorite would obviously be an artist like Leonard Cohen who wasn’t the most jazz-oriented of the artists I presented, even though many of his pieces are jazzy. But what can I say about this immense talent who performed two concerts in France this summer, including one in Nice. I’m proud to have brought him to Nice and thrilled for the people of Nice and the Côte d’Azur residents that they got to hear him perform on Tuesday night; there were over 8000 people in front of the garden stage. And this despite the visibility issues on that same stage, but as long as we don’t uproot the olive trees—and I don’t wish that, we will always have visibility issues.
NP: A final, more difficult exercise, I’m going to ask you to project yourself based on this report, from this first week. What could you change, improve, or even keep for the next festival, next year?
GD: We are going to de-brief next week with all the participants, with the city and my associates in September. I already have a lot of ideas, I’ve roamed a lot on this festival, I’ve read that people saw me at almost all the concerts, I go on stages, backstage, listen to the artists in the loges, ask them their feelings, their impressions and I indeed have ideas for improvements for next year, but I’ll leave that as a surprise for you.
conducted by Flore Brongniart
