This weekend’s Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience will be the twenty-first year for the event. It’s also one of the festival’s largest lineups including veteran acts like Lenny Kravitz and No Doubt.
One band making its debut at the Labor Day Experience is a Colorado band. The Fray is a Denver-based band known for its 2005 hit, “Over My Head (Cable Car)”.
Joe King, guitarist and co-founder of the group says playing Colorado is special because of the band’s connection to the state.
“It’s turned out to be the ultimate music hometown," says King. "There’s such a pride when we play Colorado and hometown shows.
Joe says people were surprised when members of the band didn’t move to the major coastal cities after the band found success.
“So many people were asking ‘So when are you going to move to LA? When are you going to move to New York?’ We just said, ‘Why would we move? We’re from Denver. This is our spot.”
Other bands this year include Fitz and the Tantrums and Hozier. But attracting musicians has become increasingly difficult for Jazz Aspen Snowmass over the years. But...it hasn’t always been this way.
Jim Horowitz, president of Jazz Aspen Snowmass, recounts all of the people he’s met in his years running the organization. Taj Mahal,Tony Bennett, B.B. King...
Jim is a huge part of the Aspen music community. Each summer he brings some of the biggest names in the music scene, whether it’s the JAS June shows, the JAS Cafe or the Labor Day experience, which caters to a more pop and rock-centric audience.
But after all of the work of putting events together, he says it’s tough to see it go away so quickly.
“It always is over too fast," Horowitz says. "There’s so much work involved. Time, work and effort. Then it’s just ‘poof.’ Three days go by and it’s over. It’s the sadness of, ‘It’s gonna be a year before we are back in this place.”
For more than two decades, Horowitz and his staff have been choosing musicians from a top-secret list. There are about thirty groups listed. Some have been around forever. Some just recently reached the mainstream.
Jim says it’s hard to fill out a lineup that people, one: will come up to Snowmass to see, and two: can actually be put together.
Take Chicago, for example, who played at the music tent in June. It took fifteen years to get them here just because of scheduling conflicts.
“If it doesn’t pass muster, it doesn’t really matter to people," Horowitz says. "If they don’t love it, they’re not coming.”
But securing local bands isn’t any easier than booking other acts. Jim Horowitz of Jazz Aspen Snowmass says the entire industry has changed.
“The challenge is that there’s more opportunity for the artists," says Horowitz. "It seems like it’s threading a smaller and smaller needle hole.”
And as the old adage of supply and demand goes, fewer resources? Higher price. It’s like that in the music industry. Horowitz has had trouble finding artists that can fill his venues to capacity.
On top of that, people’s calendars have shifted. Not too long ago, kids went back to school after labor day. Now? Up to two weeks before.
Despite the challenges, he says artists never say ‘no’ because they don’t to be here. It’s a problem of logistics. They know it’s a quality operation, Horowitz says.
“Artists have heard, and agents hear that the artists are well taken care of, that the audience is great, the sound is good, the layout…”
Still, the festival is two decades strong and Horowitz has no intentions of stopping anytime soon. Especially if he gets to meet all of these amazing musicians.
