Quite a 'Fête'

The streets of Pasadena will erupt with sound over a 12-hour stretch Saturday when more than 100 musical acts perform free for the public on six themed stages, inside area businesses and cultural institutions, at outdoor courtyards, in at least one alleyway and even aboard some city ARTS buses.

Dubbed Make Music Pasadena, the day’s events cover an array of musical genres as diverse as our corner of Greater Los Angeles — folk, Afrobeat, jazz, swing, world music, choral, roots rock and more, glued together by headliners with large local followings.

These include Kinky, an electronic alt-rock band that formed 10 years ago in Mexico but found a home here in LA, where one of their songs became the official anthem for the LA Galaxy Major League Soccer team.

Reaching only minutes away into LA’s Highland Park neighborhood, organizers have also booked Dengue Fever, who combine distinctly Southern California rock with feminine Cambodian pop vocals.

And the indie-rock spectrum is covered through the dark, heavy tones of the Raveonettes, the arty sounds of Silver Lake’s Autolux, Eagle Rock’s ambitiously original Division Day and the bouncy beats of the Little Ones, who are embarking on a world tour in July to support their new album.

Now add local singer-songwriter Jesca Hoop, French-Chinese-American chanteuse Jessica Fichot, the bagpiping Pasadena Scots, members of norteño/techno-fusionists Nortec Collective, and you start to get the idea: There’s a lot to hear, all of it different from everything else. 

The festival’s truly eclectic nature is half the point of doing it, said Kershona Mayo, one of several organizers of Make Music Pasadena, which has involved the planning efforts of nearly a dozen community groups.

“It’s a great opportunity to bring the community together, to showcase what an amazing music scene there is in Los Angeles. Diversity and community are what we want to highlight, and everyone is encouraged to participate,” said Mayo, marketing and events director for the Old Pasadena Management District.

By “everyone,” she also means you. If you can sing, play or even whistle, you’re welcome to find an out-of-the-way spot on the street; just perform acoustically, as the city requires a permit to plug in.
Although this will be the first Make Music Pasadena event, its eclectic, inclusive nature was shaped by the model of many similar festivals that have happened around the globe, beginning in Paris more than 25 years ago.

That was just a few years before Veronique Maheas, vice president of Alliance Française Pasadena, came to town.

“I was in France in 1982 when they had the first ever Fête de la Musique. It was a huge success … different from your typical music festival in the sense that everybody is invited to come and perform,” recalled Maheas. “It took off in Paris and very soon it spread all over France, and the smallest villages would have it. And after that, it spread to the rest of the world. It’s been in over 100 countries.”

Luckily for Pasadena, Maheas told a similar story to One Colorado marketing maestro Robin Falk last fall while the two were admiring French artist Daniel Buren’s “A Colored Square in the Sky” art installation there.

“I knew exactly whom we should be talking with to make it happen,” said Faulk, who, as Maheas approached the French consulate and France Los Angeles Exchange, began assembling a coalition of organizers that includes the Pasadena Arts Council, Playhouse District Association, Old Pasadena Management District, Armory Center for the Arts, the Levitt Pavilions Free Music Across America program, the Pasadena Convention and Visitors Bureau and his own One Colorado.

The Mortimer Levitt Foundation was just “blown away” by the proposal, said Liz Hirsch Levitt, vice president of development for Levitt Pavilions, which are located around the country. The Levitt Pavilion in Memorial Park is hosting jazz performances from 3 to 10 p.m. during Make Music Pasadena.

Pasadena is the first city in Southern California to host a Fête de la Musique event, validating Mayor Bill Bogaard’s recent description of Pasadena as “the Paris of the Pacific” (see page 5). Events are also promoted globally under the name Faites de la Musique (meaning “Make Music,” hence the name Make Music Pasadena).

Only four years after its invention, Fête de la Musique events had spread to some 40 countries, yet somehow didn’t make it to the United States
until last year.

Berkeley native Aaron Friedman, a composer and saxophonist who combatted irritating sounds as founder of Silent Majority Citizens Against Car Alarms, brought the festival to New York after seeing it in Paris in 2006.

“It was like being on the set of a musical comedy … an occasion for people to interact with each other in public spaces, dance floors and social gatherings in a positive way,” he said during a recent telephone interview. “It wasn’t professional musicians being showcased by their record labels.”
Although she was unfamiliar with the global phenomenon, it was this non-commercial nature of Fête de la Musique events that attracted Autolux drummer Carla Azar to Saturday’s happening in Pasadena. “I thought it was really unusual to have a concert where kids don’t have to pay,” she said.

On the other hand, Pepe Mogt (aka Fussible) of the Tijuana-based Nortec Collective had not only heard about the Fête de la Musique phenomenon, he’s lived one, having performed in Paris with a bandmate in 2004. “Lots of fun!” he said of that show, sponsored by the local Mexican embassy.
The 2007 Big Apple event featured 560 free performances throughout all five burroughs, said Friedman, and this year 760 are scheduled, including an 80-band punk-rock concert staged at Governors Island National Monument — far enough from the southern tip of Manhattan Island that the bands can play as loud as they want.

On the West Coast, the Laurel Village Association in Oakland will be holding its third annual Fête de la Musique this month, although this is the first time the comparatively modest event will be officially recognized by the French Ministry of Culture.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea, a great concept that offers music of all kinds and for people of all ages,” said France Los Angeles Exchange Executive Director Elisabeth Fourney, who attended the Fête de la Musique in Paris last year.

She’s helping to bring a little bit of the Paris experience back to Pasadena, having arranged
for a performance by LA-based French singer Adele Jacques and an electronic deejay set from Antipop of the band Telepopmusik in the One Colorado Courtyard.

Fourney is also introducing the Crown City to the Plastiscines (also known in the US as the Plasticines), a popular female rock group in France that performed at the Coachella music festival earlier this year and has appeared in a photo spread in The New York Times.

Guitarist Marine Neuilly has attended several Fête de la Musique events in and around Paris, playing in two. “It’s going to be the first time we won’t be in Paris to celebrate it,” she said, “so we guess we’ll have a lot of fun in Pasadena!”  

Make Music Pasadena events run from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday. Visit makemusicpasadena.org for performance schedules. Free ARTS bus rides are on Route 10 only. For details call (626) 744-4055 or visit www.cityofpasadena.net/trans/transit/trans_arts.asp.

Cover illustration by Erik Cyree www.behance.net/cyree