If a miracle does not prevent it, the Milano Jazz Club, one of the few venues with a stable jazz program in Barcelona, ??will close its doors on September 28, after two decades of programming music in the city center, swallowed up by high rents of this area.
Against this backdrop, and with the desire to avoid similar cases in the future, the Barcelona City Council yesterday approved a proposal to create a monitoring team in collaboration with the programming team of the Milano room, the Associació of Jazz and Modern Music Musicians of Catalonia (AMJM) and the Association of Concert Halls of Catalonia (Asacc). The agreement, presented by Barcelona en Comú, had the support of all the groups, except Vox. The motion envisages different measures, such as updating the sound map of live music venues, creating a new urban figure to protect the emblematic cultural venues of the city and asking the Generalitat that live music venues are no longer considered ” musical recreational activities” to “musical cultural activities”, a single word that hides inside the big change demanded by the sector: to assume that all live music, without surnames, is culture.
The closing of the Milano room was announced in August, after months of unsuccessful negotiations with the property to reach a financial agreement to renew the lease, which expires at the end of September. “It’s not viable to open anything, not even with money”, lamented Guim Cifré, programmer of the room, following the administrative difficulties that have been encountered in continuing the programming. “If you have a young team that wants to open the room, they should help.”
They have against them urban planning pressure, the difficulties in obtaining a license and the neighborhood’s rejection of the opening of new bars. “Most of the spaces where live music is played are considered nighttime entertainment”, laments Lluís Torrents, president of the Asacc, and this means that they are threatened by many factors”, such as speculation, plans for uses which do not allow the opening of new rooms and neighborhood pressure due to the inconveniences that may occur in the street”.
“It is a constant opening and closing of premises, there is no continuity”, adds Guillem Arnedo, president of the AMJM. “It’s not just a Barcelona thing, it happens all over Catalonia and all over the State”, he points out, and recalls the closings of venues such as the Hot Blues in Igualada and the Keyboard in Reus, as well as the fragile situation of the Sunset from Girona.
“Education is greatly enhanced, but if we don’t enhance live performances, the possibility of accessing music in dignified conditions for the musicians and in sustainable conditions for the venues, what will we do with the students?”.
