Author: Jeff Albert

calendarlive.com: One lone Grammy RSVP

One take on the intersection of the Grammy’s and jazz.

calendarlive.com: One lone Grammy RSVP

In the upper echelons of pop music, success is measured in millions of units sold and, it seems, tons of bling on display. Nominees in the album of the year category have total sales of nearly 15 million copies.

In Holman’s section of the Grammy program, sales totals seem to be short a few zeros — some 15,000 units combined for all five large jazz ensemble finalists, according to a Nielsen SoundScan tally of sales through retail outlets. Not surprisingly, the winning entry, Holland’s album, accounts for 12,000 of those scanned sales. The John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble’s “A Blessing” is at the low end of the SoundScan tally, with 100 copies.

The artists and their labels point out that their actual totals, supplemented by sales at gigs and through websites — and typically not tracked by SoundScan — is closer to 20,000. That’s still just a sliver of the 5.2 million copies Mariah Carey’s “The Emancipation of Mimi” has sold.

I am a member of NARAS, but I didn’t vote this year. The jazz categories were the only ones that I knew any of the music well enough to vote on, and even in those categories there were nominated recordings that I hadn’t heard.

Last year they did a cool thing by making all of the record of the year nominees available for free on iTunes to voting members. That made me comfortable voting in that category, because I had heard all of the records. This year they made more nominated music available, but they did it through yahoo! Music, which is PC only. I am a Mac user, and didn’t go through the extra trouble to get on a different machine to listen to the stuff. I ended up not voting. It seems to me like the percentage of Mac users among NARAS members is probably much higher than the general population.

Our music preferences are driven by the crowd as much as taste

Boing Boing: Our music preferences are driven by the crowd as much as taste

This ties in nicely with some of our recent discussion about why people buy or don’t buy music that has seemingly equal placement and presence.

I think this is the one place where magazine awards and poll placement can be helpful. It makes people think that other people like the stuff, so they are more likely to follow suit and like it themselves.

You have to be popular to get popular. As Brother Ray said, “you gotta have something, before you can get something, how do you get your first is still a mystery to me.” Apparently he had it figured out.

New York Philharmonic to Make Concerts Available for Digital Downloading – New York Times

New York Philharmonic to Make Concerts Available for Digital Downloading – New York Times

The fact that the NY Phil is entering the legal download world is cool, but the very exciting thing is the recording of new works.

Mr. Mehta also announced another recording deal, an arrangement with New World Records to release two CD’s a year of new works commissioned and played by the Philharmonic in their world premieres. Those recordings, too, will be available by download, said the orchestra’s spokesman, Eric Latzky.

If you want to download another recording of Mozart 40, that’s fine, but the fact that new works by living composers are getting recorded is the real excitement for me. That is the kind of development that can help the arts continue to thrive.

Wired News: Digital Music Biz Ain’t Booming

Wired News: Digital Music Biz Ain’t Booming

I’m what I call business-model sensitive. That is, if the way something is marketed or priced doesn’t appeal, I don’t buy it — unless I desperately want it. I prefer the price of a product to bear some relation both to the cost of producing it and its value to me.

It’s this same business-model sensitivity that causes me to forgo cable television. Why should I pay for unlimited access when I don’t watch more than an hour a day? It seems akin to paying for the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet when I just want coffee.

Some would call such behavior cheap. I take great offense at such character assassination, although it may be true.

Either way, for someone who is business-model sensitive (or cheap, if you must), the digital music industry doesn’t add up.

Here you have a product — recorded music — that costs very little to produce. Sure, you can spend a fortune on sound studios and videos. But even an amateurish recording of a live performance sounds OK. Nearly everyone knows some struggling band that has put out a decent-sounding release on a shoestring.

Once a recording exists, reproducing it costs next to nothing. Because most of us pay a flat monthly fee for internet access, there’s no extra cost to send or receive a music file. CDs are also cheap. A pack of blank ones sells for a few dollars.

Do people really think like this? If she is representative if the general public, it is no wonder that we have trouble getting people to buy music of any lasting interest. Maybe our education efforts should focus on helping people develop a perceived value for art, and maybe our artistic efforts should focus on non-disposable art.

Art, life, money, art…

If you have any interest in the intersection of the life of an artist, the business of art, and the simultaneous creation of art and a decent lifestyle, you must read this article: PopMatters | Columns | Will Layman | Jazz Today | Making the Music Play for You

Will Layman looks at these issues through musician Rudresh Mahanthappa and Pi Recordings owner, Seth Rosner.

“The first time my name showed up in the Downbeat Critic’s Poll,” Mahanthappa tells me (referring to the highly respected poll of top talent in the nation’s most august jazz publication), “I couldn’t afford to buy the magazine.”

Mahanthappa also provides an eye opening view of what the music business can do to people, and what can happen when one holds onto one’s love of music.

“The summer after my first year at Berklee, I got a cruise ship gig that was a big eye-opener. Almost every musician on the ship had forgotten the reason they started playing,” Mahanthappa tells me. “No one cared about music any more. They were just drinking, living the life on the ship. And I thought, if that’s what making a living as a musician is about, then I want no part of it.”

So, to be even a moderately aspiring jazz musician is to be a poster-child for struggling artists everywhere. You have to love what you’re doing and forget about the money. …

For the rest of us, the folks sitting around the hip little tables at the Jazz Standard (making out or just listening), Mahanthappa’s love of the music is palpable.

On Point : Mark Cuban: Hollywood’s Headache – Mark Cuban: Hollywood’s Headache

Mark Cuban was on WBUR’s On Point radio show today.

On Point : Mark Cuban: Hollywood’s Headache – Mark Cuban: Hollywood’s Headache

They talked mostly about his role in the new day/date release of the Soderbergh film Bubble.

I really liked his answers to the theater owner’s complaints about simulatneous format releases ruining theater business. He essentially said that if this ruins your business, then you aren’t doing your job. There were a few music industry references, and lots of good info and discussion on the role of technology and how it affects and will affect or media consumption habits.