On April 6, 2011, the National Academy Of Recording Arts And Sciences introduced a “restructuring" of The Grammy Awards, eliminating 31 categories. This unexpected downsizing stole recognition from a number of genres, including Latin Jazz, contemporary jazz, classical music, Hawaiian music, and more. The storm had been brewing for a while, as the popular music industry fumed over Herbie Hancock's 2010 Record Of The Year award and Esperanza Spalding's 2011 Best New Artist award. These honors went to skilled jazz musicians at the expense of widely known pop artists such as Kanye West and Justin Bieber, a fact that glowed with promise for the future of art music. The pop music industry saw this as an attack though, and Steve Stoute, employee of Hip Hop mogul Jay Z, took out a full-page ad in the New York Times insulting NARAS for becoming “out of touch." Tensions escalated, secret meetings were held, and soon, 31 categories disappeared from the Grammy Awards. Unfortunately, this decision happened behind closed doors, and the announcement shocked a large number of musicians.
The elimination of the 31 Grammy categories sends a number of derogatory messages about music on so many levels. With multiple ethnic musics being cut from the awards, NARAS made an extremely racially insensitive move. It sends a set of questionable aesthetics out into the general public, declaring these culturally rich musics as irrelevant. The move seemed to feed the desires of major record labels, who were seeking even more attention for big pop stars in a shrinking market that is increasingly difficult to manipulate. The “restructuring" took any sort of opportunity away from independent labels, moving the power towards big budgets. The value behind artistry and years of intensive practice seemed to fade, as art music was pushed aside in favor of the shiny appeal of pop music. Despite a polished promotional speech around the changes, visible layers of damaging messages sat exposed below the surface.
The enormity of the impact from these eliminations can simply be overwhelming, but fortunately we have insightful musicians like Bobby Sanabria to share the facts. In collaboration with musicians like John Santos and Sandy Cressman, Sanabria has been spearheading the movement to reinstate all 31 categories and restore meaning to the Grammy Awards. On Sunday May 22, 2011, Sanabria led a press conference in New York, where he called for the return of the categories and the removal of NARAS president Neil Portnow. These were not just empty words, but demands based upon fact. In the first piece of an interview on the Grammy situation, Sanabria talks about the reaction of the greater jazz world, the current state of the Grammys, and some bad moves by Portnow. ———- BOBBY SANABRIA: When Herbie won the award, he said something like, “I don't what's happening, but there seems to be a change . . . and I like it." He was referring to the fact that people in the membership were really caring about good music. I never stopped to think that there would be blowback. When Esperanza (Spalding) won for Best New Artist, Steve Stoute took that one page ad out in the New York Times criticizing the Grammys—that ad cost $40,000. He also works for Jay Z. I thought to myself, “Oh man, here it comes, this is the blowback." When April 6th happened, it was a combination of shock and laughter. I knew something was going to happen, and that was it.
We have a great chance with this issue to bring integrity back to The Grammys and unite the jazz community. It's been a bit disappointing—no one has come forward except for Carlos Santana.
LATIN JAZZ CORNER: I was really surprised that some of the larger names in jazz hadn't said something.
BS: Especially Herbie and Chick (Corea) who both started their careers with Mongo Santamaria. I've tried to get Wynton to make a statement, he's aware of everything. On the day of the April 11th Grammy meeting in New York, we had communicated. I asked him to come, but he couldn't make it. He asked me to keep him informed, and I have. I figured people like Bono or Sting would say something . . .especially Bono, who's always talking about civil rights. Make no mistake about it; this is a civil rights issue. Most of the categories cut were ethnic categories, which was shocking to me.
LJC: What do you see as the next step if NARAS doesn't turn things around—would you encourage people to drop their memberships or protest at the event?
BS: We're kind of in a conundrum. I personally don't have anything against the Grammys; it's the administration that needs to be replaced. The Grammys do good things behind the scenes. The Grammys unfortunately have the worst public relations department in the world. They do all these good things, but nobody knows about them. They have MusicCares, which helps out homeless musicians or musicians down on their luck with medical bills and more. They have the Grammy Foundation that gives out numerous scholarships for students to continue their music studies on the college level. At the Manhattan School Of Music, we've benefited greatly from that; several of the musicians at the school are on scholarships from The Grammys. The Grammys give out grants for preserving old recordings—Boys Harbor received a grant from The Grammys to preserve all of their 78s digitally. These are some of the things that the Grammys are doing behind the scenes that are very positive. The general public doesn't know anything about that though. I would guess that most of the Grammy membership doesn't know. They're doing all these good things; they should let people know about it. That way they'd get more members.
The interesting thing is that the membership has dropped by 7,000 people. We had 28,000 members under the previous administration. It's down to 21,000 members now—that's an incredible decrease in membership. It's because of the lack of leadership in this current administration and the fact that The Grammys have become a joke under them. Especially amongst musicians that play jazz oriented music.
Portnow is interesting because he used to be the vice-president of West Coast operations for Jive Records. He had these ties to the Hip-Hop community. That's why the relationship with Steve Stoute is very disconcerting. In Rolling Stone, it came out a couple of weeks ago that Portnow and Stoute had a meeting to discuss diversity and how the Grammy could better serve the Hip Hop community. That's the most absurd thing that I've every heard. He cut out diversity when he cut out all these categories. Steve Stoute is the one that insulted the academy. When you insult the academy, like he did with that full-page ad in the New York Times, you insult us—the membership. Then he insulted Esperanza; how dare he do that. He insulted her for winning over Justin Bieber—how dare he do that. We, the membership voted for her.
People in the general public and the music community tend to forget that The Grammys are a peer-based reward. We—the members—vote for it. We voted for Esperanza—if anyone has a problem with her winning, it should be a problem with the membership. This guy goes ahead and insults the Academy, and insults us, and president Portnow does nothing! He should have had a press conference the next day saying, “How dare this guy insult the Academy and its membership. How dare he insult this talented artist who represents the best of what the Academy exudes." He should have taken the time as a teaching moment and tell all the Justin Bieber fans that were writing vulgar things on Esperanza's Wikipedia page to stop acting so immature. This is not American Idol; this is an award that was given to her by the 21,000 members of The Grammys. I'm sure that not everybody voted for her, but it was the majority.
I'm very adamant about that—he should have stepped up to the plate and said something. He would have shown that he has leadership and more people would have been interested in joining the Academy. It would have been a great recruiting tool. But he has no vision and no leadership. His ties to Steve Stoute are questionable. Anyone seeing this at face value has got to scratch their heads and think, “What's going on here?"
In addition, the Grammy offices were moved. They are not at the original location that they once were. He insisted on buying a new building to house the offices. Instead of leasing a new building, he bought one. Since the market crashed, the old building is empty and we're still paying rent on it. The rent is an exorbitant amount of money and the member dollars are gong towards it.
The fact that they cut these categories creates a cultural diversity issue. Cutting the categories virtually cuts the legs off all independent records labels and gives the major labels an unfair advantage in the awards. Then Portnow's public relationship with Stephen Stout . . . all these questions start adding up—what's going on here?
What happened to jazz, classic music, and Latin music at the Grammy telecast? It used to be part of the telecast under the previous administration. Now that there are more Latinos in the country than ever before, you don't see any Latin music at all. I remember when Linda Ronstadt came out in full mariachi regalia. She proudly announced to the world that she was a Mexican American; it must have sent white Americans into shock. I remember when Tito Puente and Celia Cruz were on The Grammys and I remember when jazz was part of The Grammys. But all that has been cut out.
LJC: What's your take on the Latin Grammys?
BS: It's very interesting, because the head of the Latin Grammys hasn't said anything. He's been very conveniently silent about this issue. That said, the Latin Grammy telecast on Univision has nearly twice the amount of viewers that the mainstream Grammys have. That's because it's broadcast throughout all of Latin America. If I were the heads of special projects at CBS, that basically control the telecast, I'd be looking at The Latin Grammys, thinking that I could get more money by catering to the Latino community in the United States and having some Latin music on The Grammys. The advertising rates would go way up.
Imagine if The Spanish Harlem Orchestra was on The Grammys or my big band or Arturo O'Farrill's big band—any great orchestra that's out there performing any type of Latin music. They could have El Gran Combo or a special segment on The Grammys that was a tribute to salsa. They could have Little Joey y La Familia or Los Tigres Del Norte. Imagine the ads the week before—Latinos would be talking about watching The Grammys. From a strictly business standpoint, it would be a smart move. But nobody at CBS has tried that. What's happening at CBS that they're not even noticing that?
The elimination of the 31 Grammy categories sends a number of derogatory messages about music on so many levels. With multiple ethnic musics being cut from the awards, NARAS made an extremely racially insensitive move. It sends a set of questionable aesthetics out into the general public, declaring these culturally rich musics as irrelevant. The move seemed to feed the desires of major record labels, who were seeking even more attention for big pop stars in a shrinking market that is increasingly difficult to manipulate. The “restructuring" took any sort of opportunity away from independent labels, moving the power towards big budgets. The value behind artistry and years of intensive practice seemed to fade, as art music was pushed aside in favor of the shiny appeal of pop music. Despite a polished promotional speech around the changes, visible layers of damaging messages sat exposed below the surface.
The enormity of the impact from these eliminations can simply be overwhelming, but fortunately we have insightful musicians like Bobby Sanabria to share the facts. In collaboration with musicians like John Santos and Sandy Cressman, Sanabria has been spearheading the movement to reinstate all 31 categories and restore meaning to the Grammy Awards. On Sunday May 22, 2011, Sanabria led a press conference in New York, where he called for the return of the categories and the removal of NARAS president Neil Portnow. These were not just empty words, but demands based upon fact. In the first piece of an interview on the Grammy situation, Sanabria talks about the reaction of the greater jazz world, the current state of the Grammys, and some bad moves by Portnow. ———- BOBBY SANABRIA: When Herbie won the award, he said something like, “I don't what's happening, but there seems to be a change . . . and I like it." He was referring to the fact that people in the membership were really caring about good music. I never stopped to think that there would be blowback. When Esperanza (Spalding) won for Best New Artist, Steve Stoute took that one page ad out in the New York Times criticizing the Grammys—that ad cost $40,000. He also works for Jay Z. I thought to myself, “Oh man, here it comes, this is the blowback." When April 6th happened, it was a combination of shock and laughter. I knew something was going to happen, and that was it.
We have a great chance with this issue to bring integrity back to The Grammys and unite the jazz community. It's been a bit disappointing—no one has come forward except for Carlos Santana.
LATIN JAZZ CORNER: I was really surprised that some of the larger names in jazz hadn't said something.
BS: Especially Herbie and Chick (Corea) who both started their careers with Mongo Santamaria. I've tried to get Wynton to make a statement, he's aware of everything. On the day of the April 11th Grammy meeting in New York, we had communicated. I asked him to come, but he couldn't make it. He asked me to keep him informed, and I have. I figured people like Bono or Sting would say something . . .especially Bono, who's always talking about civil rights. Make no mistake about it; this is a civil rights issue. Most of the categories cut were ethnic categories, which was shocking to me.
LJC: What do you see as the next step if NARAS doesn't turn things around—would you encourage people to drop their memberships or protest at the event?
BS: We're kind of in a conundrum. I personally don't have anything against the Grammys; it's the administration that needs to be replaced. The Grammys do good things behind the scenes. The Grammys unfortunately have the worst public relations department in the world. They do all these good things, but nobody knows about them. They have MusicCares, which helps out homeless musicians or musicians down on their luck with medical bills and more. They have the Grammy Foundation that gives out numerous scholarships for students to continue their music studies on the college level. At the Manhattan School Of Music, we've benefited greatly from that; several of the musicians at the school are on scholarships from The Grammys. The Grammys give out grants for preserving old recordings—Boys Harbor received a grant from The Grammys to preserve all of their 78s digitally. These are some of the things that the Grammys are doing behind the scenes that are very positive. The general public doesn't know anything about that though. I would guess that most of the Grammy membership doesn't know. They're doing all these good things; they should let people know about it. That way they'd get more members.
The interesting thing is that the membership has dropped by 7,000 people. We had 28,000 members under the previous administration. It's down to 21,000 members now—that's an incredible decrease in membership. It's because of the lack of leadership in this current administration and the fact that The Grammys have become a joke under them. Especially amongst musicians that play jazz oriented music.
Portnow is interesting because he used to be the vice-president of West Coast operations for Jive Records. He had these ties to the Hip-Hop community. That's why the relationship with Steve Stoute is very disconcerting. In Rolling Stone, it came out a couple of weeks ago that Portnow and Stoute had a meeting to discuss diversity and how the Grammy could better serve the Hip Hop community. That's the most absurd thing that I've every heard. He cut out diversity when he cut out all these categories. Steve Stoute is the one that insulted the academy. When you insult the academy, like he did with that full-page ad in the New York Times, you insult us—the membership. Then he insulted Esperanza; how dare he do that. He insulted her for winning over Justin Bieber—how dare he do that. We, the membership voted for her.
People in the general public and the music community tend to forget that The Grammys are a peer-based reward. We—the members—vote for it. We voted for Esperanza—if anyone has a problem with her winning, it should be a problem with the membership. This guy goes ahead and insults the Academy, and insults us, and president Portnow does nothing! He should have had a press conference the next day saying, “How dare this guy insult the Academy and its membership. How dare he insult this talented artist who represents the best of what the Academy exudes." He should have taken the time as a teaching moment and tell all the Justin Bieber fans that were writing vulgar things on Esperanza's Wikipedia page to stop acting so immature. This is not American Idol; this is an award that was given to her by the 21,000 members of The Grammys. I'm sure that not everybody voted for her, but it was the majority.
I'm very adamant about that—he should have stepped up to the plate and said something. He would have shown that he has leadership and more people would have been interested in joining the Academy. It would have been a great recruiting tool. But he has no vision and no leadership. His ties to Steve Stoute are questionable. Anyone seeing this at face value has got to scratch their heads and think, “What's going on here?"
In addition, the Grammy offices were moved. They are not at the original location that they once were. He insisted on buying a new building to house the offices. Instead of leasing a new building, he bought one. Since the market crashed, the old building is empty and we're still paying rent on it. The rent is an exorbitant amount of money and the member dollars are gong towards it.
The fact that they cut these categories creates a cultural diversity issue. Cutting the categories virtually cuts the legs off all independent records labels and gives the major labels an unfair advantage in the awards. Then Portnow's public relationship with Stephen Stout . . . all these questions start adding up—what's going on here?
What happened to jazz, classic music, and Latin music at the Grammy telecast? It used to be part of the telecast under the previous administration. Now that there are more Latinos in the country than ever before, you don't see any Latin music at all. I remember when Linda Ronstadt came out in full mariachi regalia. She proudly announced to the world that she was a Mexican American; it must have sent white Americans into shock. I remember when Tito Puente and Celia Cruz were on The Grammys and I remember when jazz was part of The Grammys. But all that has been cut out.
LJC: What's your take on the Latin Grammys?
BS: It's very interesting, because the head of the Latin Grammys hasn't said anything. He's been very conveniently silent about this issue. That said, the Latin Grammy telecast on Univision has nearly twice the amount of viewers that the mainstream Grammys have. That's because it's broadcast throughout all of Latin America. If I were the heads of special projects at CBS, that basically control the telecast, I'd be looking at The Latin Grammys, thinking that I could get more money by catering to the Latino community in the United States and having some Latin music on The Grammys. The advertising rates would go way up.
Imagine if The Spanish Harlem Orchestra was on The Grammys or my big band or Arturo O'Farrill's big band—any great orchestra that's out there performing any type of Latin music. They could have El Gran Combo or a special segment on The Grammys that was a tribute to salsa. They could have Little Joey y La Familia or Los Tigres Del Norte. Imagine the ads the week before—Latinos would be talking about watching The Grammys. From a strictly business standpoint, it would be a smart move. But nobody at CBS has tried that. What's happening at CBS that they're not even noticing that?
