On Tuesday, Nov. 12, Charles Fishman – known far and wide by friends and intimates alike simply as “Charlie” – passed on to the next realm to join the ancestors at age 82, depriving humanity of yet another true jazz champion. Not a big guy in the strictly physical sense, Charlie was a wiry-built man with a trim, white beard and a distinctive smile that achieved its highest wattage when jazz music was the subject — particularly when talk inevitably turned to modern jazz pioneer Dizzy Gillespie, whom Charlie had managed from 1985 until Gillespie stopped performing in the early 1990s.
But Charlie Fishman’s music legacy far exceeded that managerial touchstone.
Born in Brooklyn on Feb. 23, 1942, Charlie soon moved with his family to Ardsley, N.Y., where he spent many of his teenage years. Matriculating at New York University, he majored in business, and continued with his classical piano training — studies that served him well later in life, when Dizzy called upon Charlie to write some theme music for his 1990 soundtrack to the film The Winter in Lisbon.
Shortly after graduating from NYU, Fishman began to spread the gospel of jazz worldwide, eventually opening up the Django jazz club in Jerusalem, which he operated from 1970 to 1973. While living in Jerusalem, Fishman also founded the Kinneret Foundation, an arts-presenting organization through which he forged international tours for music icons. The list of artists Charlie Fishman presented and produced during his lifetime is staggering, including such NEA Jazz Masters as Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Jon Hendricks, James Moody, Wayne Shorter, Randy Weston, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Dianne Reeves. Never one to hew to stylistic barriers, Charlie’s presenting and production profile also engaged such jazz-adjacent artists as B.B. King, Miriam Makeba, Gilberto Gil, Paul Simon and Tito Puente.
Fishman also worked to bring jazz to the small screen, producing such broadcasts as Dizzy Gillespie & The United Nation Orchestra: Live at Royal Festival Hall (for BBC/International; subsequently released on CD and reissued in 2021 as a Japanese pressing) and the PBS specials Wolf Trap Celebrates Dizzy Gillespie; Stan Getz: Israel Odyssey; Celebrating a Jazz Master: Thelonious Sphere Monk. The Monk broadcast was among several productions Charlie captained for the Thelonious Monk Institute.
Proving himself an adherent of Duke Ellington’s “beyond category” philosophy, Charlie’s television production included what he would likely count as one of his crowning glories, the 1978 ABC production The Stars Salute Israel at 30, engaging a veritable galaxy of stars and celebrities crossing stylistic genres, including Zubin Mehta conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic, plus Barbra Streisand, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Paul Newman, Ben Vereen, Barry Manilow, Henry Fonda, Bernadette Peters, Henry Winkler and Joanne Woodward.
Fishman also made contributions as a record producer. In addition to Dizzy’s The Winter in Lisbon, and the United Nation Orchestra (which, per Dizzy and Fishman’s vision, brought together artists from disparate global origins), Charlie also contributed to such other Gillespiana recordings as Bird Songs, To Diz With Love and To Bird With Love (three which sprang from a celebratory Gillespie stint at the Blue Note in New York). Fishman also produced tenor saxophonist and United Nation Orchestra alum David Sanchez’s 1996 release Street Scenes, as well as local D.C. supergroup Soul Con Timba’s Live at Bohemian Caverns.
It was Bohemian Caverns – the now-much-lamented, longtime U Street jazz monument – which would eventually become one of the original hubs for Charlie Fishman’s greatest gift to the D.C. community: the now 20-year-old DC Jazz Festival (where I have had the pleasure of serving as artistic director since 2015).
The story behind the founding of the DC Jazz Festival is one of those serendipitous moments that will live on in D.C. arts community lore — a story best told by Charlie Fisman’s loving wife, Stephanie Peters, who recounted their memorable evening at a D.C. restaurant. “It was Charlie and my second or third date,” she said, explaining that it was at a critical career juncture for them both. “I was working on becoming partner at the law firm Squire Patton Boggs, and we both were talking about next career steps. He was representing David Sanchez and [aspiring vocalist] Sunny Sumter at the time but had a vision for three things — but the most important was to create the DC Jazz Festival.”
“[Charlie] took out a paper napkin at the restaurant,” Stephanie said. “And with a blue pen he started jotting down how he envisioned the DC Jazz Festival would become great. His plan included presenting jazz in every neighborhood, a jazz education program, and as many free concerts as possible so everyone could have access to this music. He believed very strongly that children and individuals from every economic background should have the opportunity to see and hear live jazz,” Peters continued. “After being Dizzy’s personal manager for the last 13 years of [Dizzy’s] life and helping start jazz festivals all over the world, it was unfathomable to him that Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital of the country that created this amazing music, did not have a jazz festival. So our relationship became a marriage, and we focused on what we call our daughter, the DC Jazz Festival, eventually welcoming our son Moses to our jazz world as well.”
Thus, the festival was born. Originally called the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, after D.C.’s favorite son, the annual gathering changed its name after receiving pressure from the Ellington estate to do so. Having celebrated its 20th anniversary this past summer, the DC Jazz Festival has become an institution, bringing some of the top names in music from across the country for a weekend-long celebration of jazz and culture.
Sunny Sumter, who evolved to serve as the CEO of the festival, had this to say upon the passing of Charlie Fishman: “Charlie’s perseverance, alongside his wife Stephanie’s unwavering support and partnership, were the driving force behind the founding of the DC Jazz Festival. Together they built a world-class celebration of jazz that will continue to inspire and unite communities for generations.”
My own final memory of Charlie Fishman was the look of great delight and deep satisfaction on his face as he sat looking on as young saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin, who alongside special guest James Morrison opened the 20th anniversary DC Jazz Festival last Aug. 28, in a grand festival opening night celebration at the Embassy of Australia. Charlie Fishman lives on in the unfolding legacy of the DC Jazz Festival.
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