Jeff Albert's blog and podcast home
One of the beauties of the internet, and posting full show archives, is that your show can be reviewed by writers whose expense accounts likely won’t cover cab fare from Hartford to New Orleans. I got a nice email from Richard Kamins, who writes about music for the Hartford Courant, letting me know that he had reviewed the JAQ show at Open Ears, via the mp3 archive. Pretty cool, eh?
To make it even cooler, it is a great review. Click the link below and scroll down to read it.
Time Out Chicago: Changing of the avant-garde
Time Out Chicago ran this nice article on the Chicago free jazz scene in general and Umbrella Music in particular, in advance of the Umbrella Music Festival this week. The article is a good layman’s introduction to that scene and a bit of its history.
Those guys have all been great to me whenever I have been in Chicago. The Lucky 7s have played most of their venues, and their organization serves as a loose model, and solid inspiration for the Open Ears Music Series that starts here in New Orleans next week.
I enjoy reading the blogs of other musicians. Part of the reason for blogging is the self expression, but a big part is also fan/customer relations. In this “why should I buy what I can download for free” world, one theory about maintaining sales is to develop relationships (or perceived relationships) with your audience. If people like you or connect with you on an extra musical level, they are more likely to support the business aspect of your art, at least in theory.
I like reading The Bad Plus’ blog, Do the Math. I own their CD “These Are The Vistas” and have enjoyed listening to it, but I never got on the “buy every new CD” track with them. This video from this post made me go directly to iTunes and buy “Prog.”
It is similar to my old cruise ship buffet theory that as long as I ate an apple along with the 7 chocolate eclairs that it was all cool.
I started this a few days ago, but it never got posted because I was server juggling…
Craft Economy – Toronto band staples CC-licensed CDs to phone poles – Boing Boing
This BB post stirred up some thoughts I was already dwelling on tonight.
These guys (maybe gals) are giving away CDs like handbills. The sole purpose of these CDs is to get people to come plunk down $10 (or whatever it is) to hear their live show. For some time now, people have been saying that recordings are not the money makers, they are just promotion for the live shows, which is where the money is in the new music business.
This leads to my question, (which ties in with the Tom Hull line “Ayler Records has gone almost totally to download products — evidently complete with a do-it-yourself kit for their elegant artwork. I like the label a lot, but have trouble seeing what they’re doing as real.”
Do we need something to hold in our hands to give reality to the sound in our ears?
If music has no cost, does it still have value?
Why is the music from a free download or handmade CDR not given the respect that the music from a nicely done digipak is? I think it is similar to the reason that a man in a clean suit and starched shirt is generally treated differently than a man in dirty jeans and a t-shirt. I understand that part of human nature, but it doesn’t mean that the yard guy is not as good a human as the banker. There are times when the yard guy is a better human than the banker, and the same holds true for music that is humbly presented, versus music that is slickly packaged. I don’t have the answers, I am just putting the thoughts out there. Comments welcome.
iPhone owners can now buy ringtones for 99 cents, with some pain | Tech news blog – CNET News.com
I had pretty much given up on blogging the stupidity of the RIAA and the way record companies treat customers, and the futility of DRM. Not that I feel any differently now, I just tired of writing about it. However, I have to get this off my chest.
I am an Apple guy. My main computer is a MacBook, and the desktop that the rest of the family uses is my older G5 Power Mac. I have an iPod (old, 3G, no video, no pictures, not even in color, but it holds 37.4 GB of good music). I read tech and Apple specific blogs and the like. I don’t have an iPhone. If someone gave me one, I’d use it, but I can’t see paying even $400 for a low capacity iPod, that gets email but doesn’t sync that with my computer, and wants to MAKE ME PAY A DOLLAR TO HAVE A SONG THAT I ALREADY BOUGHT PLAY WHENEVER I GET A PHONE CALL!!!!
The iPhone is a music player. You should be able to play songs that you have purchased whenever you like, even if that is the moment that you receive a call. To be asked to pay ANOTHER dollar for that right is ludicrous.
I paid $40 for my cell phone, and whenever I get a call, I hear Ornette. Mingus for text messages, and Sun Ra for voice mail. No extra charge, just a little tech savvy required.
I’ve been trying to mentally sort though issues dealing with modern musical distribution to fringe markets for several years now. And more recently the cost issues involved with promoting new CDs. Tom Hull comments on both issues in his recent Jazz prospecting post.
Jazz Prospecting (CG #14, Part 13) – Tom Hull
It would be so much easier to create and market music with niche audiences (call it art music or creative music or weird crap or whatever else you please) if we could dispense with the burdensome expense of manufacturing physical product. Downloads are cheap and easy to make, which may be why many critics don’t take them seriously.
Tom Hull:
Ayler Records has gone almost totally to download products — evidently complete with a do-it-yourself kit for their elegant artwork. I like the label a lot, but have trouble seeing what they’re doing as real.
I imagine that the same holds true for short run CDRs, and one off hand made packaging. The establishment has trouble accepting it as real. The packaging means so much to the initial perception that we never get to the music, which may be excellent…or not.
Since I did a few reviews on this blog, I have been getting promo copies of CDs from various sources. I often wonder about the expense of this, and I now understand why so many writers listen to so little of what is sent to them. It can be overwhelming, and some of it is real crap. Some of it is also really good, and I know there is a great CD laying on my desk somewhere, and I’ll never hear it because for whatever reason, it didn’t get my attention at the right time.
Hull speaks to some of these issues as he explains his “advance” flag:
One more note: I’ve decided to flag as “[advance]” every record I have to review in some condition significantly different from the form a paying customer would expect. Some of these really meant just to give writers a head start on deadlines, and sometimes in due course I do get finished copies — Blue Note, in particular, is very good about this. (Thirsty Ear used to be, but hasn’t been lately.) Others are specially manufactured promo editions — Cryptogramophone and Palmetto do slick but thin sleeves with no doc; Clean Feed has a weird wallet-like thing. Some send discs with no packaging (Smalls has started doing this). Sometimes I get a CDR and maybe a thermal print of the cover art, nothing more than a homemade bootleg. There are good economic reasons for all this corner-cutting, but I still find them annoying and dispiriting — enough so that I’ve broken down and griped about them every now and then. Hopefully the flag will save some of that while still keeping everyone honest. The whole system is intrinsically flawed: critics should be able to review real products, but can’t afford to; labels can’t afford to indulge every would-be critic, and don’t want to, resulting in a system that is by turns unreasonably skinflintish and unreasonably generous.
Read this line again, he nails it:
The whole system is intrinsically flawed: critics should be able to review real products, but can’t afford to; labels can’t afford to indulge every would-be critic, and don’t want to, resulting in a system that is by turns unreasonably skinflintish and unreasonably generous.
I don’t know the answers either, but it would be great if we could make adventurous music that could get a serious listen from those that wield the ink, without having to drop more money than the CD is likely to make on manufacturing a cool package.
BTW, Hull revisited Farragut later in that column. It still gets B+, and a pretty honest review.
RIAA Sues 16 C.U. Students | The Cornell Daily Sun
Another student who received a settlement letter and avoided further litigation by paying the settlement fee voiced her frustration with the RIAA’s recent actions.
“I think this country has gotten completely out of control with personal property rights,” she said. “Music, art and literature should be about sharing an experience with as many people as possible. I think that real artists and inventors should be content to know that their music is so widely appreciated and admired. It has also been shown that music downloading and sampling has helped the music industry because people are able to test and try music before buying it. Music sharing is hardly a serious crime.”
Ok, I think that the RIAA’s approach to this is ridiculous. It does no one any good, except for the lawyers. The biggest problem however is that it leads to this sort of thinking. Again:
I think that real artists and inventors should be content to know that their music is so widely appreciated and admired.
When she grows up and becomes and architect, I want her to design a house for me so that I can tell her that a real architect should be content to know how much my family and I appreciate and love and admire the great house that she designed for us.
There has to be a balance point. Somewhere between the RIAA Nazi approach, and the idea that everything should be free, lies the rational space where the possibilities of the the internet to promote and evangelize good art don’t completely obliterate any revenue possibilities for the artists.
(Via Boing Boing.)
I just got the new Dave Douglas Quintet Live at The Jazz Standard 2 CD set. It is a collection of all of the tunes that have never been released on CD that are on the massive Live at The Jazz Standard week long gig download set. The cool part is that since I had already purchased the full week’s worth of downloads (which includes all of these tracks), they sent me the new CD version free. I didn’t have to ask or check a box or anything. These guys at Greenleaf Music get it. We should all pay attention too what they are doing. I think we are seeing the future of the good music business in these guys.
More good news…
When I was looking for a pic of the DD CD cover (which I didn’t find a suitable one), I stumbled across Available Jelly’s Bilbao Song, which is available for download purchase at Muicstem. I had read some reviews of the album and wanted to get it, but I was having trouble finding it in any of my usual outlets. The fact that on the Musicstem site the artist is listed as Michael Moore, instead of Available Jelly, might have had something to do with that. Anyway, I am listening to it as i type.
From Jason Patterson, who books Snug Harbor (New Orleans’ premier jazz room):
To all the Friends of Snug Harbor,
Owner George Brumat died yesterday peacefully in his sleep of an apparent
heart attack. This has been a huge shock to everyone associated with the
Snug but we know George would want us to keep on keeping on. So the business
will remain open even though there is a big hole in all our lives now
without his presence. If you want to make a testimonial of any length about
George, please e-mail it to Jason@snugjazz.com. We will announce
arraignments for funeral and memorial event as they are confirmed. Thanks
for your thoughts and prayers.Yours in overcoming adversity,
Jason
Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro
George was a great club owner. I know that is hard to believe that any club owner could be great, and I know that none of them are perfect, but George was the greatest I have ever dealt with. He always treated the musicians with respect. He listened to what we did. He gave the musicians financial guarantees. I always knew the minimum amount of money I would get when we worked for George. On good nights there was more than I expected in that little brown envelope, but there was never less, even if the club was near empty.
I remember when Snug reopened after Katrina. It was one of the first times I thought things might eventually be ok. I am sure George lost loads of money in those first months, but he was open, and still paying the bands, because that was what he could do to help the city. And it definitely helped lots of folks spirits. George was a class act, and I will miss him.
Settled In Shipping: Shattered dreams and shuttered doors
Montreal based musician/blogger David Ryshpan writes about the closing of an open minded Montreal performance space.
Unfortunately, the recent opposition to our request for the Salle de Spectacle permit by principally one local resident is causing our existence as a cultural centre to be called into question.
and
Noise complaints on St Laurent are fallacious, to me; if you have a place on St Laurent, you should know what that entails. Peace and quiet are to be found on many other streets in the city; The Main isn’t one of them.
It’s like deja vu all over again. It seems to me that the smaller more progressive musical venues are the ones that get shut down by this one noise complainer/permit shuffle because the small venues that book fringe music don’t have the cash to grease the system. The venue dilemma has been getting attention with the recent closing of Tonic in NY, and Marc Ribot’s very public stance on the subject. There has also been an interesting thread on the Chi-Improv mailing list dealing mostly with the qualities needed for a successful venue. One side says low rent is the highest priority, and the other side says cheap funky dives are demeaning to the artists and patrons. Both sides are right to some extent.
Many are supporting public funding of performance venues, and that would be cool, but even public support in the form of clear and stable permits and zoning would be enough to make it possible to run a non-mainstrem venue. The greatest injustice in all os this is that these venues can be allowed to operate (for years sometimes) with no problems, then when one person complains, the government says that the area is not zoned or permitted for that use, but that use has been allowed for long periods of time prior to the complaint. If it wasn’t legal before stupid Leo started complaining, why was it allowed to operate. It makes it look like our cities are selectively enforcing our laws, and that’s not good.