Ars Nova turns a jazzy 10

Ars Nova Workshop, this city's adventurous nonprofit jazz and experimental music booking institution, commemorates its 10th anniversary this season. It's a big birthday. But curator/executive director Mark Christman didn't have to do anything special - just keep the music coming.

Since its first show with saxophonist Chris Speed's Yeah NO in 2000, Ars Nova has brought more than 400 innovators in jazz, old and new, to play events at local spaces such as International House and the Philadelphia Art Alliance.

"I've done whatever's necessary to make Ars Nova a healthy, valued entity supporting challenging work," says Christman, 33.

Appearances by serious composers and jazz lions such as Anthony Braxton, Archie Shepp, Pauline Oliveros, and John Zorn have made Ars Nova a much-loved resource for jazz aficionados.

"Ars Nova's shows with trumpeter Bill Dixon and pianist Paul Bley were remarkable," says Village Voice jazz critic and Philadelphia native Francis Davis of those choice gigs. "They're artists you'd never hope to see unless you went to Manhattan. And they don't play New York City that much, either."

Matt Merewitz of Fully Altered Media, which promotes Ars Nova shows, says Christman "brought Cecil Taylor to town for the first time in over 20 years and made a concerted effort to showcase Philly's rich avant-garde heritage," elders such as Rashied Ali, young cats such as Shot x Shot and Matt Davis.

Christman's biggest get is Saturday's booking of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, at International House. The band, which made its first recording in 1969, has long been at the jazz pinnacle and doesn't play together often.

"I came to Ars Nova when Mark brought my quartet to Philly and felt right at home," says longtime Ensemble saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell. "An Art Ensemble show was a no-brainer. Everything just had to fall into place."

Since its start, the Ensemble has embraced once-seemingly conflicting elements of new European music (a la Karlheinz Stockhausen) and African traditionalism within a bold brand of free jazz, and made it sing.

"They're the ultimate," Christman agrees, noting that the Art Ensemble - early members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) - hadn't played Philadelphia since the Peco Energy Jazz Festival of 1996. "They've had a valuable impact on improvised music. Their body of work is unparalleled. We haven't had the capacity until recently to present them. We wanted to make sure we did it properly."

Christman, a West Philadelphia native and communications manager at the University City District, started Ars Nova in 2000 out of the ashes of Sweetnighter, a jazz booking organization run by Craig Baylor. "Sweetnighter's end and the introduction of Ars Nova Workshop merged," Christman claims. "Our partnership in those first years was instrumental in establishing momentum for Ars Nova."

Christman did this out of his own pocket. The guitar-playing young entrepreneur (he was 23) was a fan of Manhattan's downtown scene, AACM, and Europe's improvised music. He wanted to hear and see this adventuresome art in Philadelphia.

"I've been determined to live a professional life that's fulfilling and fun, even if it doesn't bring great financial rewards," Christman says with a laugh. "In those first years, I invested my own money. That is, I reached deep into my very shallow pockets to support my vision, since no one else was in a position to do so."

He ruefully adds, "Let's just say there was credit-card debt incurred."

That first Ars Nova show opened at Plays & Players Theatre - to an audience of 40 - and continued a weekly series there with new-jazz giants such as Matthew Shipp and William Parker.

Critic Davis reminds that in jazz one man can make a difference. Between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s, Gino Barnhart of Foxhole at St. Mary's Church, Rick Luftglass at Haverford College, Spencer Weston at the African American Museum of Philadelphia, and Ludwig Van Trikt at the Painted Bride acted alone to bring improvised music to their respective venues.

"That's endemic to jazz," Davis says with a chuckle. "One guy puts their money where their mouth is."

With his mission - to create respectful opportunities for marginalized, rigorous artistic practices and to give work a space that artists and audiences can own - Christman incorporated Ars Nova and became tax-exempt in 2004. Funding came from the likes of Chamber Music America and the Doris Duke Foundation.

"I'm not sure there is a viable for-profit model that can be applied without significantly compromising that mission I set for Ars Nova," Christman says. "We're nowhere near where I envision us going."

One soon-to-be-realized vision is an Ars Nova label with an archival recordings project funded, in part, through grants received from the Pew and Presser foundations.

Starting in spring, CDs from Ars Nova shows - the group Spanish Fly playing the works of Lester Bowie (a founder of the Art Ensemble of Chicago); Coltrane collaborator John Tchicai paired with Xiu Xiu's Ches Smith; and the first and only meeting of the Sun Ra Arkestra's Marshall Allen and South African drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo - are on the release schedule. The CD series makes sense, says Christman, since "Ars Nova is in the business of presenting unique and peculiar performances and collaborations in front of live audiences."

Christman is optimistic about Ars Nova's future. He pledges "to continue to elevate the value and profile of these musicians and their work." After an estimated 500 events attended by approximately 25,000, that's a goal worth meeting.

Information: 215-895-6555,

www.arsnovaworkshop.org/events

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