Team: John Carnwath, Annick Odom, Alan Brown
South Arts’ Jazz Road program is an artist-centric touring and residency grants program to spread jazz throughout the country, strengthen work opportunities and compensation for jazz artists, and bolster deeper engagement between jazz musicians, presenters and communities.
WolfBrown was selected to conduct an evaluation of the Jazz Road program to inform future program refinements with data and analysis to improve outcomes, and to assess the program’s impact on funded artists’ careers and on the wider jazz ecology. The research will: (a) assess the program’s impact to inform the decision whether or not to continue the program beyond the pilot phase (and to secure funding for a possible continuation before the pilot expires); (b) inform incremental program adjustments (or, potentially, a larger redesign after the pilot phase is completed); and (c) present a concrete plan for managing data collection and analysis beyond the pilot stage of the program if the program is continued.