by Marty Khan

Mr. Khan is the Director of Outward Visions, an arts service organization with a twenty-year history of success in curating, developing and touring highly innovative and collaborative works. Mr. Khan has also managed and produced recordings for The Art Ensemble of Chicago, the World Saxophone Quartet, George Russell and Sonny Fortune.

Well now, back by popular demand! I guess people need some Truth in their lives. Other folks just melt down at the first whiff of it. No takers on my offer to take on any three of the biz honchos, but a least I didn’t have to field any lame e-mails from them either.

A couple of notes before I start.

I overlooked the significance of the date that the last piece ran -- the 31st anniversary of the departure of that most perfect messenger of Creation - John Coltrane.

Secondly, I’ve tried to respond by e-mail to everyone who contacted me regarding the previous diatribe. For those of you who’ve tried to contact me by phone and may have been put off by our request that you call at a specific time -- sorry to be so rigid, but it’s the only way I can accommodate everyone without burying myself. Attitudes like mine don’t result in my sharing in the plunder, so I work hard for my living and I’m on the phones for hours every day. It’s tough enough fitting in the time for your calls, but if I have to pay for it as well.....

Last time I mentioned how the attitude of the recording biz has begun to affect the entire business of jazz -- in touring, radio, etc. Let’s dig a little deeper into that.

The disappearance of the middle range gig reflects the disappearance of the middle class so effectively manipulated through Reaganomics (or the Devour Up, Trickle Down Theory). Somehow this notion connected with the capacity for greed that exists in most of us. The incredible increase in the wealth of the upper 5% has to come from somewhere. It’s not like the Treasury just circulates more money to cover the windfall profits. It’s simply a redistribution of wealth -- a pyramid scheme in essence.

The rich get richer, the middle class gets drained and the poor, already drained, get the blame. It’s all the fault of the homeless and children having children.

Well the same thing has happened in jazz touring. Where do you think the money for the $25,000 gig comes from? Budgets for jazz programming are not increasing, the money is just being redistributed. The $25,000 gig replaces five $5000 gigs and the sponsor saves the production costs on four shows. Now expand that concept over a couple of hundred presenters and measure the loss. And who are the losers? The musicians and the real audiences who are having the art form stolen from them just so a few greedy scumbags can have a little more pie. And greed’s a hell of a drug. The more you get, the more you want. Now I’m no Bolshevik, but enough is enough already!

BIG * MORE * NUMBERS * UNITS * FOUNDATIONS * LINCOLN CENTER * MASSIVE FUNDING * NETWORKS * PULITZERS * AWARDS CEREMONIES * FEUDING FESTIVALS.

Somehow the business folks, the presenters and the hangers on have become the stars. The labels and facilities and clubs are what's marketed. "Jazz: The Great American Art Form" is the Product. It would all be so perfect - if only it wasn’t for those fucking musicians.

Oh, there’s the chosen few who get rammed down the throats of an uninformed public and disinterested "Fine Arts" sponsors, most of whom would rather do one jazz concert for $25,000. And there’s a few of the GREATS receiving these fees, but usually only if they’re playing music that is considerably less urgent than they played in the past.

The music is suffering potentially irreparable damage. Young emerging musicians are not looking up to the Pantheon of the past or the few surviving masters because their attention has been diverted. How can Georgio Armani have more impact than George Russell on young musicians?

And the manner in which they look up to these "roll models" is not for inspiration or out of awe-inspired admiration. But, instead, jealousy and scorn: "If that guy can make all that money and get all that fame and awards and so forth, why can’t I? He ain’t that good." Hardly the devastating impact of hearing Trane, is it?

Now I don’t like to attack musicians, but everybody has to take their part of the blame.

Young musicians always should be recorded, but not at the expense of those they should be looking up to. This is why so many younger musicians show no respect for the elders (along with their embarrassment of admitting the truth - and even the most arrogant of the young "masters" know the truth when they’re along with their instrument. The music never lies -- only those around it.

Can you imagine if, while young Trane, Miles, Max, George Russell, Sonny Rollins, etc. were recording in the 50s that Duke, Hawkins, Webster, etc. wouldn’t. That when Ornette, Wayne, McCoy, Jackie McLean and Lee Morgan were being recorded in the 60s, that Miles, Trane, Monk, etc. wouldn’t? Ludicrous.

No musician could be expected to turn down big $$$, fame, etc., but everyone should not be deluded into thinking it will happen to them. If you think it will, I suggest buying a lottery ticket, you’ll have better odds. These few musicians who are chosen are part of a well orchestrated manipulation and are simply diversions from the Truth.

They are victims themselves - as they buy into their own promotional rhetoric and confuse their manufactured success with musical maturity and artistic achievement. They co-opt themselves into being shills for the puppeteers who pull their strings to make them dance.

Panels, awards committees and fine arts sponsors simply echo this corporate slight of hand by rubber stamping the charade because it involves music which has been forced upon them by a type of political correctness and they really couldn’t care less about the art form. The few that know the music are defining their own choices based on an attempt to satisfy their funders and POTENTIAL audiences by giving them the few names everyone recognizes. A vicious cycle that can only be broken with a concerted and pragmatic effort on the part of the victims -- the musicians who cannot work and the audiences who have been deprived of the urgency, creativity and innovation that had been the guiding forces of the music.

To maintain this charade the existing artists who have been innovators and the potential forgers of the future jazz tradition are given little or no opportunity to let their music and audiences grow. Other than places like "Sewing Sweatshops" where the need for "exposure" allows placebo counterculture type promoters the opportunity to inflate their pockets and their egos at the expense of the truly dedicated, while all they’re really trying to do is to replace older, now unhip, self-proclaimed saviors of the music.

Now I could be entertaining here and tell a story or take a jab, or even an uppercut, at easy targets like Lincoln Center or the Knitting Factory (two sides of the same coin) to continue to drive home the same point - that the manner in which virtually every aspect of the jazz industry functions absolutely sucks and should be dealt with in a completely different manner.

You cannot change it and the more you learn about how it actually works, the less interested the jazz business is in dealing with you. Not many businesses really function that way. Can you imagine an NBA team avoiding players because of their basketball savvy?

So here are your choices:

Try to know nothing and hope that the strength of your music or blind-ass luck will carry you;

Or, learn everything you can about the business and carve yourself a place using reason, honesty and the proper use of appropriated tools (strategic planning, simple corporate structures, pragmatic fundraising, etc.)

I am just one of a group of dedicated and fed-up professionals who are devoting themselves to overcoming the enormous obstacles that confront today’s musicians, both young and old.

Next week I’ll write about two new business components under development that are intended to counteract these unfortunate conditions.