It wasn’t bad enough that Tuesday night’s Kennedy Center Honors garnered the lowest TV ratings in the history of the show.
Now it turns out that there was no Christmas Eve jazz show, as planned. The evening was canceled at the last minute as the performers refused to go ahead with it.
Famed jazz musician Chuck Redd backed out of the annual jazz jam last week as soon as he heard about Donald Trump slapping his name on the building. The jazz jam, which was free to the public, had a 20 year history with the Kennedy Center.
Redd told the AP: “When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert.”
Richard Grenell, who’s supposed to be running the complex under Trump, has botched every event there since he took over last February. Ticket sales have plummeted and many artists have canceled shows.
The clincher came this afternoon when ratings for Tuesday night’s show were released. Despite tossing in country music and bizarre inductees who didn’t deserve the honor, Grenell managed to oversee a disaster. No one watched even though there was little competition.
Redd is a drummer and vibraphone player who has toured with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Ray Brown.
Next up: Friday afternoon and night, a non union road tour of “Spamalot” will resume performances. So far, it’s a mostly empty house for the matinee and evening shows, with theater patrons staying away in droves. The show’s key song is “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” But Grenell has been a miserable failure. Now with the name change, no one will set foot in the nation’s key arts institution.
Here’s a look at Redd’s Kennedy Center jazz show from several years ago:
