‘All roads lead to Charleston’: Tony Clarke on the Low Country Jazz Festival and its unique mission

The origins of the Low Country Jazz Festival are very different than just about any jazz festival you can name. The three-day event held on Labor Day weekend in Charleston, S.C. was originally founded in 2006 by Dr. Thaddeus John Bell and his late daughter Tanisha Bell as a fundraiser for the Bell Family Foundation which has a scholarship that they present to an African American student at the Medical University of South Carolina. “Dr. Bell, being one of the first African American graduates of that school, felt that there just weren’t enough African American physicians in the rural and underserved areas of the United States because there was a financial deficit,” Tony Clarke, the festival’s artistic director, explains. “Dr. Bell created the foundation to help eradicate health disparities in those underserved and African American communities.”

Bell later created the Closing the Gap organization in order to address not only the dearth of Black physicians but also the gap in health care for Black Americans. That organization is now the driving force behind the festival as both benefactor and beneficiary. This year’s festival takes place September 1-3 at the Charleston Gaillard Center and will feature headliners Jonathan Butler, Gregory Porter, Dave Koz & Friends, Maysa, Avery*Sunshine, Eric Darius and Candy Dulfer.

Clarke, who had a long career as an artist manager, tour manager and concert presenter, came aboard seven years ago after the death of Dr. Bell’s daughter. He says the festival has always programmed Smooth Jazz, but for the last few years he’s interjected something different. “When you start looking at the Jeffrey Osbornes or the Peabo Brysons back when I was not as gray, those were not Smooth Jazz artists,” he says. “Those were R& B artists and Smooth Jazz wasn’t Smooth Jazz. It was contemporary jazz, so all of these things have evolved. I program the festival for what I think would be the best opportunities for people to have a great time in a great city. I pride myself on liking a lot of things plus I go to other festivals.” He’s especially proud of the booking of Porter and Butler on Saturday night. “That’s a crazy night just for me, because both of those gentlemen are phenomenal vocalists, even though they come from two totally different worlds.”

The weekend kicks off on Friday with an event called the White Linen Party, in which everyone comes attired in white. “I had to insert the word ‘linen’ because when we started calling it the White Party, we got a number of emails and phone calls from people saying, ‘How dare you in this day and age have a White Party?’” Clarke says, laughing. “I’ve got to remember we’re in South Carolina. The box office was like, ‘Have you seen the flyer for this?’ You have to explain it. I saw pictures of a White Party last weekend in the Hamptons and they had a number of A-listers and I went, ‘Wow, I wish my White Party had those A listers.’ Well, we’ve got B-plus listers at our White Linen Party.”

Clarke turns more serious when he explains that White Linen Party is held at the recently opened African American Museum there in Charleston, a city infamous for its slave trade. “The first time I went I was brought to tears because of the story that 75% of the slaves that came into the United States entered onto the very spot where the African American Museum is built. It’s looks as if it’s built on stilts because the ground is so sacred. I invite anybody to come and just take a look and tour the facility, be a part of history.” Indeed the architecture and exhibits are truly inspirational, made more dramatic by its location near the original site of one of the largest slave auction blocks in America.

Of course, like any presenter of Smooth Jazz, Clarke gets some blowback from serious jazz fans about the programming. “After each festival, I get an email,” he explains. “I don’t know if it’s from the same guy, but the message is, ‘That’s not jazz. I bought a ticket and you don’t have jazz.’ And I’m just like, ‘Oh, okay.’ There was this one year I had Robert Glasper and the guy was like, ‘Robert Glasper, that’s not jazz.’ Or Peter White, that’s not jazz. Or who’s this Boney James? It’s really funny when you start talking about purists versus non purists. But I don’t think that people can say that we’re not giving the entire jazz community something to enjoy.”

For his part, Clarke points to two shows by two artists as his most memorable. “My greatest highlight was Jeffrey Osborne who I love. When I was a kid, I had a cousin get married, and the first dance song was “On the Wings of Love.” As a budding young man, I loved that song and I would make a cassette tape, hand it off to a prospective young lady and they would throw it back at me. When I met him and he was singing, it just brings back those memories of like, “Wow, that’s crazy that I’m standing on stage with one of my childhood idols.’”

Another special moment was a performance by saxophonist David Sanborn. “The first cassette tape that I got when I was able to buy a Walkman was David Sanborn,” he says. “It was Straight to the Heart and I played the daylights out of that, just over and over. Then at the festival he actually played ‘Smile,’ which was on that tape. I was standing on the side of the stage and I was like, ‘Wow, this is one of those moments when I remember where I was when I first heard that song and what I was doing.’ I think this has been my life’s journey to do what I do. It was kind of a full circle moment.”

But Clarke is all in on Dr. Bell’s mission to close the gap in health care. “When you begin to talk about things that are taboo now in rural and African American communities, like mental health, there’s not a lot of Black physicians who discuss mental health in rural areas. There was a study done in which Dr. Bell was a part of that talked about having people open up to people who look like them. When you’re talking about health care, if I’m an older Black man and I have an older Black man as a physician, I may be more apt to let him know I’ve got some other problems that I don’t want to just openly talk to anyone about.”

Clarke also sees a real connection between the mission and the music. “Health care and music go together because we find that people who go to concerts have a better way of life. Anybody taking a vacation, going to a festival, going places, and sitting and listening to music, no matter what genre you listen to, it’s relaxing.”

When asked what he would say to a jazz fan from the New York or Tri-State area who has never been to the festival, he turns on that old-fashioned Southern charm. “You live in New York. Get out. Get out now. Leave and come to enjoy Southern hospitality with a twist. It’s not the South that you think it is. There’s great cuisine, wonderful people, the traffic is not bad and there’s no yelling. It’s a phenomenal trip to take. Charleston is one of the most visited cities in the United States. About 80% of our attendees for the Low Country Jazz Festival come from at least four hours away from Charleston. It’s a destination. You know, all roads lead to Charleston. It’s a phenomenal place, so come for the music, come for the cuisine, come for the hospitality.” And to support an important cause.

Learn more about the Low Country Jazz Festival at their website here. You can learn more about the Closing the Gap in Health Care organization here.