Keeping Jazz Alive... and New

To call 23-year-old Adam Schatz’s commute to work a commute at all is misleading.

In truth, Schatz does not even have to leave his Bed-Stuy bedroom to operate his non-profit Search and Restore.

A saxophonist by trade, Schatz founded Search and Restore in 2007 to help develop a sustainable audience for "new jazz," what he describes as a contemporary style of jazz marked by an in-your-face attitude, liberal doses of improvisation and the scrambling of traditional jazz elements with other genres.

“With new jazz, everything is happening in front of you and it's never going to happen again,” Mr. Schatz explained, as he uploaded video from June’s Undead Jazzfest, a multi-borough festival that Search and Restore has helped produce and promoted for the past two years.

“What makes new jazz unique is that it's beyond genre. It’s an attitude.”

Search and Restore found its roots while Mr. Schatz was a student at New York University for jazz performance. In 2008, after booking a successful jazz series at the Knitting Factory, Mr. Schatz moved to Bed-Stuy and began promoting for Brooklyn venues such as Bed-Stuy’s Jazz 966 and Crown Height’s Franklin Park.

Since then, Mr. Schatz has worked with a slew of musicians (from jazz legends like Oliver Lake, to newcomers like Ari Hoenig) and throughout 2011, Search and Restore will be filming two hundred new jazz concerts and posting them along with artists' bios online.

“The goal is to make the live jazz experience accessible; to integrate everything into one space and build a dynamic home for new jazz online,” Mr. Schatz explained.

Funded by a $75,000 kickstarter.com campaign, Mr. Schatz admits that the project is too big to tackle alone. Fortunately, he has found a great deal of support from the new jazz community, as several New York based musicians have volunteered to help him record the live performances.

“Often, my apartment feels like an office. There are always people filing in and out with new footage,” said Schatz. But cramped-quarters aside, working from home does have its advantages.

“Because I work from home, I get to do everything with my own touch.” 

And although Mr. Schatz sees building a community for new jazz as an ongoing venture – perhaps one with no definitive end – he does think that progress is being made.

“Through web statistics and show turnout, there are tangible ways to measure whether or not our mission is being achieved. But in the end, what I am really trying to do is stimulate a personal engagement with the music.”