'World-class' $7.5-million jazz hub set for Wayne State

Brian McCollum | Detroit Free Press Pop Music Critic

As a lifelong lover of jazz and her hometown music scene, Gretchen Valade has always been quick to put her money where her heart is.

Now a $7.5-million gift from the Detroit philanthropist is set to be a transformative step for Wayne State University’s music program — while giving jazz music a high-profile stake in the city's blossoming Midtown district.

The Gretchen Valade Jazz Center, to be formally announced Monday, will be part of the university’s Hilberry Gateway complex, an already planned performing arts project along Cass Avenue. A fund-raising campaign for the $50-million effort is ongoing.

The Valade Center, envisioned by WSU officials as “a world-class jazz venue,” will occupy the existing Hilberry Theatre, a 51-year-old hall that will be converted into a music space with flexible seating capacity of up to 400.

Once operational — likely within several years — the venue will be a teeming jazz hub, hosting shows by touring artists, giving a platform to hometown players, and serving as a working space for WSU music students and faculty.

Valade’s contribution will immediately establish a $1.5-million endowed chair in jazz studies and a $1- million endowed jazz scholarship. Those recipients will oversee programming and other activities at the facility.

“This puts the focus right on one of the things we really pride ourselves on, which is having a strong performing arts program,” said university President M. Roy Wilson, who called Valade’s gift the biggest arts donation in Wayne State history.

As announced last year, a modernized Hilberry Theatre is planned down the block at Cass and Forest — on a plot that’s now a parking lot — as the new site for productions by WSU’s nationally regarded repertory company.

A construction timetable hasn’t been set, but the jazz center won’t open until the new theater is completed.

Valade, 90-year-old heiress to the Carhartt apparel fortune, has long backed her jazz passion with big dollars: She founded the Dirty Dog Jazz Café in Grosse Pointe and the Grammy-winning Mack Avenue Records, and her $15-million endowment for the Detroit Jazz Festival has been a financial bedrock for that event during the past decade.

“We have some of the greatest musicians around,” Valade said. “It’s great to be able to partner with Wayne State, and I’m hoping to get Detroit the attention it should have as far as jazz is concerned.”

The concept emerged from talks earlier this year between Valade and WSU officials about naming rights at the renovated venue. That grew into a commitment to a full-fledged jazz complex — a permanent anchor for the genre's storied Detroit legacy.

“That was music to my ears,” Valade said.

As described by those close to the project, the Valade Center will be unique among Detroit music venues: a jazz-focused space that enjoys the stability of a university setting to go with the high-powered funding of a philanthropist.

"This is two great cultural institutions coming together to celebrate this American art form, this Detroit art form," said Matt Seeger, dean of the Wayne State's College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts.

The Valade Center will also give WSU students the sort of large, acoustically sound performance space now lacking at the music school, Seeger said. The venue, which will be equipped with broadcast technology, is also expected to host dance performances, lectures and debates.

In the wider picture, the Valade Center looks poised to join a select group of prominent jazz institutions in the U.S. Planners will look for ideas and inspiration at sites ranging from Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York to Yoshi’s jazz club in San Francisco.

“As always with Gretchen, it’s a unique vision and set of resources coming together in a new way,” said Chris Collins, director of jazz studies at WSU and artistic director of the Detroit Jazz Festival.

Renovation details are still coming together, including seating plans and state-of-the-art acoustical work. In the meantime, Collins said, he and others will start networking with the wider jazz world, spreading word of the forthcoming center and preparing “to hit the ground running” once doors open.

"There will be a lot of energy to create connectivity around the country and the world,” he said. “When the jazz center officially opens, the global community will be aware of it.”

For Midtown proponents, the Valade Center and Hilberry Gateway project are the latest entrants in a robust cultural revival that includes the new Red Wings arena, Jack White's Third Man Records and restaurants such as Selden Standard. The jazz center is also part of the metro area's evolving live music scene, with new venues — HopCat, UFO Factory, West Riverfront Park — increasingly situated in central Detroit.

“The fact that this will involve an endowed chair, and dollars for student artists, puts it at a different level, especially with the kind of funding (Valade) is providing for this project,” said Sue Mosey, president of Midtown Detroit. “Wayne has a significant jazz program with a relationship to the jazz festival and other important activities in the city, and this ties all of that together in a really nice way.”

Officials envision the facility as a key part of a Detroit jazz fabric that includes the annual Labor Day weekend festival and spots such as Baker's Keyboard Lounge.

"The patrons of jazz are very, very committed," said WSU's Seeger. "They support jazz, they support live music, and I think they'll be coming down here to the Valade with great frequency. It'll be an exciting time."

While Wayne State will be the center's longtime steward, credit will forever belong to the "visionary angel" whose name will adorn the building, Collins said.

"It's an amazing thing for the department of music and Wayne State University, because of the importance of Gretchen Valade's name," he said. "Down the road, she's going to be remembered as one of the important figures in jazz music. And this gift speaks to that."