Remembering businesswoman, philanthropist Gretchen Valade
(CBS DETROIT) – Detroit's Jazz community is mourning the death of Gretchen Valade, who passed away last week at the age of 97.
The Carhartt heiress was a prominent arts supporter and philanthropist who founded Mack Avenue Records and kept the Detroit Jazz Festival alive.
"I came to call her the 'Angel of Jazz' many years ago because she has this purity of vision, purity of dream," Chris Collins, Professor Director of Jazz Studies and Valade Endowed Chair in Jazz at Wayne State University, said.
In doing so, Valade turned the dreams of countless artists into reality.
Sharing her success to ensure there was a thriving Jazz community in metro Detroit.
"What she's about is breaking down barriers so that people can participate in these things. Everyone is invited to the party," Collins said.
One of those parties, the Detroit Jazz Festival, that Valade rescued more than a decade ago.
She established a foundation with a $10 million endowment to keep the largest free Jazz festival in North America alive.
In recent years Valade donated $9.5 million to Wayne State University for a new Jazz center that will bear her name.
"It will put a footprint of Jazz right on Cass Avenue in a facility that is more than a club, but not quite as huge as the festival where we have 1000s of people just in that right spot," Collins told CBS News Detroit.
Valade brought Jazz to her neck of the woods, Grosse Pointe Farms, when she opened the Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe in 2008.
Collins points out Valade was so thoughtful of the artists that performed at the club that when she learned that the green room in the original space wasn't adequate enough, she ended up buying the building next door and built them a new one.
Valade's contributions won't soon be forgotten.
"The reason she said she did was to make the world a better place to enhance Detroit to enhance the Jazz scene to provide artists and patrons with a special experience and just up the game around the world of the Detroit Jazz scene," Collins said.
