Last month, at the Jazz Times Convention, or, as it’s known among the cognoscente, five hundred artists in search of a record deal, there were as many opinions about the state of jazz as they were attendees.  Several themes, however, were played over and over.

"Not enough jazz clubs," moaned the booking agent.

"No jazz on the radio," decried the young musician in search of an audience.

"CDs aren’t selling," lamented a bleary-eyed record company executive.

"There’s so much product out there, it’s impossible to break through," complained an unsigned artist.

Is jazz is really in such bad shape, or is it the jazz industry that’s lost its footing and run amok? 

That phrase, the jazz industry, or jazz business, is an oxymoron at best; at worst, a hex on inventiveness.  I’ve never been very comfortable with the amalgam of art and commerce, which in this country, seems to be a necessary evil.  Most artists aren’t businessmen (isn’t it hard enough to create?), and the capitalists in our midst rarely comprehend art except as a commodity. Just listen to the musical Frankensteins spawned by the amalgamation of jazz and big business, on the Smooth Jazz stations worldwide (our apologies to a certain Mr. G., whose curly locks surely bear no malice).

The creator and merchant have been coexisting apprehensively for more than a century in jazz and it’s not a pretty picture.

On the high end, multinational conglomerates control the major jazz labels and with merger fever rampant, their numbers diminish daily.  Just last week, the latest move in this chess game of power and greed revealed that Keebler is merging with Polygram and Warner Bros.  The resulting label has been dubbed, Poly-Warner-Kracker. 

On the low end, some musicians are still scuffling for sideman gigs at $20 a night, with many working day jobs, just to make ends meet.

Like the rest of America, there are two classes, the wealthy, and the rest of us.  It should be no surprise, by now, that a number of businessmen have profited mightily from jazz.  They’re at the top of the heap, with their yachts and French villas, riding in their limos from the record company office in Manhattan to their stately pleasure domes.

I may be over dramatizing the situation a bit, not much though, but it’s painfully obvious that the present situation just doesn’t work.  What I want to know is, how much are these big companies really doing for the music? 

When they want to devote their energies to jazz, they can get big coverage.  Columbia went all out for the new "Bitches Brew" box (highly recommended), and its producers did hundreds of interviews.  With the press blitz in full force, Seventeen Magazine even included the Miles box on it's "Xmas Gifts for Dad" list. 

But this is rare, most of the time, the jazz wings of the conglomerates have to settle for breadcrumbs. EMI, which seems to be in trouble, owns Blue Note Records.  No matter what our friends at Blue Note do, their hands are tied by the voodoo-ists who sit in judgment of the bottom line. 

The MBAs are looking for a quick turnover of their investment.  If a CD is released and doesn’t sell 10,000 copies out of the gate, it’s jack shit.  Wayne Shorter’s Blue Note debut, JuJu, only sold 800 copies the first year, but over the last thirty, has solds tens of thousands.  This music is eternal, not some fad.  Those in the catbird seat of power want their money quickly, hence their fascination with the Hansons and Marilyn Manson.

A recent report in Billboard magazine on the Seagram's/Polygram merger said that Verve will be merged into GRP Records soon after the first of the year. Tommy LiPuma, the avuncular head of GRP, will run the combined company.  Further speculation reports that Impulse will be de-activated and run only as a reissue label. Impulse artists who aren't dropped will move to Verve. Verve sub-labels Forecast, i.e. music, and Antilles will be shut down. Many artists from both companies will be dropped and many jobs will be lost.