Before I begin, a note of caution. The following discourse applies
primarily to the major and some mid-size jazz record labels which are, for
the most part, cogs in the wheels of
immense, multinational conglomerates. The world of jazz includes literally
hundreds of record labels, but there's a fistful of these power brokers who
are still holding most of
the sales, marketing and distribution chips in this high stakes game of art
and big business. For now.
Everything is subject to change. Life is constant change. And the rate of
change is quickening. This very medium, the internet, is going to be the
agent of change for the entire jazz business in the next decade, for the
planet as well. More about that another time. But for now, fasten your seat
belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
Is the success of the jazz industry based on the failure of its product?
The notion of cut-outs, reissues, repackaging, flat-rate licensing, how
does it really work?
Somebody in the jazz business is making money. There are a few select
musicians making six figures plus. In a way, this reflects the present
configuration of America, there's a class of very wealthy people, and then,
the rest of us, thanks to the legacy of Ronald Reagan. Remember the middle
class?
Herbie Hancock reportedly made four million dollars last year. And Wynton
Marsalis is certainly a millionaire. It's almost as if the labels set it up
this way, to make it seem
like it is possible to make big money as a musician. The jazz record
business takes its cue from the lottery system in America. People think
they can become millionaires by
buying a $1 ticket and Jazz musicians dream of becoming stars when they
sign with the right label. It's the American way.
In reality, most of the musicians I know survive by traveling incessantly.
They're gypsies, roaming the planet. Week after week, month after month,
it's on the road or
out of the bank, no choice.
These big labels, they've been at it a long time now. They've been in
business for decades. You hear them crying the blues at regular intervals,
our product just isn't
moving. This music isn't selling. But they're still there, those big
companies, raking in the profits. Otherwise, they wouldn't be in this
business.
How do they do it? It's a very complex web of deception.
I become suspicious when I see the old Atlantic Jazz releases now coming
out on Rhino, which is half owned by WEA (Warner Bros), Atlantic's parent
label. Why can't they just release these recordings on Atlantic? The label
could easily hire Joel Dorn and start up an exciting Atlantic Jazz reissue
program.
Could the reason they come out on Rhino be because the company balances its
money on the distribution end as opposed to the label end? That way, the
profits still come into the WEA treasure chests. When the beancounters at
the corporation look at their P&L statements, the company is in the black,
handsomely. So what if a bunch of artists get
sodomized in the process. They can certainly be replaced, after all,
there's no shortage of jazz musicians, is there?
Corporate diversification within the Jazz business allows profits to be
broken down into a number of parts. Add to this revolting witches brew the
refusal of certain labels,
including one major label that might surprise you, to provide royalty
statements, or accurate sales counts. That offers the potential for some
major corporate tomfoolery
and at who's expense? The artist.
The constant cutting out and reissuing of product is a game of manipulation
to keep the power and profit in the hands of the individuals who run the
jazz record business. This
is a business that operates with an astonishing imbalance of economics. A
business where the executives and people who work for the record companies
make substantially more money than the artists.
Transfer this concept to sportsÂ…can you imagine everybody who works in the
back office of the Chicago Bulls making more than the athletes on the court?
Another facet of the business I find circumspect is the nature of the
personal relationship between executive and artist. Here, the executive
always seems to make
the artist feel that they're lucky to have this powerful white man in their
corner. The "I love your music and I'm really going to help you" spiel.
The truth is that the executive is not really in the artist's corner. It's
all part of a phony stroking of the musician's fragile egos that goes on
this business, constantly. How many artists have been told, "your music is
so important that it must be documented." Then they sign to the label,
release a few CDs, which probably get lost in the shuffle (the label
decided to concentrate their marketing budgets on another artist, or
perhaps a corporate shuffle, a change in executives) and then the artist
gets dropped. The
promises evaporate and the product is quickly cut from the catalog. What
documentation?
There are executives at major labels making in excess of six figures
yearly. These record company offices are running on huge budgets. The money
spent on the day to day to operation of these enterprises is staggering.
Forget about the padded expense account with limos and gourmet food, let's
talk about the space, the real estate. The money spent on rentals alone
could finance countless sessions and well planned and
executed sales and marketing efforts. But that's not the point. It's really
about ego. The size of one's office and those power lunches at five star
restaurants.
Like our pal Gordon Gecko told his stockholders in the film "Wall Street,"
greed is good. Hey, it's the American way.
Well, my friends, unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The
Berlin Wall may have been around for decades, but eventually it collapsed.
And so will the corrupt, deceitful, obsequious system that has been at
the core of the jazz record business for more than half a century. The
final days are upon us.
