TheNorthOak Clif Music Festival center of gravity re-establishes ou r neighborhoodasa nexus

Step into the Kessler Theater any weekend, and the sound rarely will be the same. Experimental jazz might be on the bill one night, red dirt country the next and a singer/songwriter, blues musician or indie rock band on Saturday.

It’s a musical potluck, but it’s far from random. This feast is carefully crafted by talent buyer Jeff Liles and theater owner Edwin Cabaniss.

There’s timelessness to every act that plays. You won’t catch anything gimmicky or fly-by-night.

“The common denominator is that it’s American music,” Liles says. “The thing they all have in common is that they’re organic, traditional American art forms, the kind of stuff that comes from the heart.”

The Kessler is hosting the first North Oak Cliff Music Festival Nov. 2 as a way to showcase artists who have found a home away from home at the Kessler, as well as to spotlight musicians who call our neighborhood home.

The Bronco Bowl on Fort Worth Avenue brought some of the world’s best musicians to Oak Cliff before it closed in 2003. Whether Dallasites realize it, Liles says, our neighborhood has been the “center of gravity for live music and culture in North Texas” for a long time.

And our neighborhood’s live music scene started to blossom again with Barefoot at the Belmont, the former Brooklyn in Bishop Arts and dive bars offering music with makeshift stages and booming PA systems.

When nightlife started to decline in Deep Ellum some 10 years ago, many Texas artists lost interest in Dallas, Liles says. Many were never able to find another foothold here, he says. The Kessler has brought some of them back, including Carolyn Wonderland and Alejandro Escovedo, who are playing the festival.

“Those artists have really reconnected with their audiences in Dallas,” Liles says.

While the Kessler is our neighborhood’s musical powerhouse, music also is offered from The Foundry, The Texas Theatre, Ten Bells Tavern and other venues, almost nightly these days. And all these years after the heyday of Stevie Ray Vaughan and then Edie Brickell, exciting artists continue to emerge from our humble borough.

“There’s demand for a music festival in Oak Cliff,” Cabaniss says.

This first festival is modest, just one day, from noon-8 p.m., and features two stages, one indoors and one outside.

But Cabaniss reminds us that Austin City Limits Festival started out 10 years ago in much the same fashion. Now that festival hosts thousands of ticketholders for three days every autumn at Zilker Park.

Cabaniss thinks the North Oak Cliff Music Festival could be just as successful, in a venue such as Lake Cliff Park or Kidd Springs.

“The timing is right,” Cabaniss says. “People are in the mood to cross the river to see live entertainment.”