Walker West Music Academy taking over Selby Avenue JazzFest

For anyone who wondered about Selby Avenue JazzFest’s future with the retirement of founder and director Mychael Wright the folks at Walker West Music Academy made a promise Tuesday: We got this.

Braxton Haulcy, the music school’s executive director, and Wright announced that the venerable music school is assuming control of the festival in its 23rd year. Wright will continue as a consultant for at least two years, the men said.

Haulcy promised that Walker West’s increased responsibilities will include putting more of its students and instructors on the festival’s main stage as performers.

“Our focus will be on local artists, and that includes our faculty and students gaining even more experience as performers,” Haulcy said. “This is a community festival, and we want even more of the focus to be on community musicians.”

Wright said the move by Walker will do two things: It ensures the festival continues its role as a Selby Avenue community catalyst, and it reduces some of the costs for transporting and housing national music headliners. Even though Walker West intends to focus more on local jazz acts, Wright said, it has the ability to line up a wider range of Twin Cities music acts than Wright could do on his own.

JazzFest 2024 will be Sept. 14.

Haulcy said the festival faces higher costs from the city for security and insurance, but for now they aren’t prohibitive. He is setting aside about $20,000 for security, a considerable part of the festival’s $130,000 budget.

“JazzFest is going to happen, regardless,” Haulcy said.

Wright and his wife, Stephanie, started JazzFest as a way to draw people to their new coffee shop, Golden Thyme, at the corner of Selby and Milton. It now attracts upwards of 20,000 people to what had been a sleepy part of St. Paul’s old Rondo neighborhood. Last year, the Wrights sold Golden Thyme to the Rondo Community Land Trust and it is now being run as an incubator for restaurateurs and food vendors who are Black, Indigenous and other people of color.