The No Jazz Clear Channel

That does not surprise me at all, Clear Channel has been buying up everything and event and venue in the live performance industry that has been or is successful, including all the major live music promotion companies and festivals around the world.

Their programming of this years Jazz & Heritage festival is a perfect example of what this article says and it is not an April Fools joke unfortunately.

They have one of the headliners this year as The Steve Miller Band a pop rock act from the 70's that I used to book, they have absolutely nothing to do with Jazz or New Orleans heritage at all, even though Mr. Miller is and can be an excellent Blues Guitarist whenever he wants to be, which is very rare. To have him ( now a fat old guy singing turnon pop songs to teenagers conjures up some pretty weird images), as does booking him on a festival like NOJ&H.

The Clear Channel folks claim that they want to present the music more Americans want to hear, which is BS they are presenting only the music that they play on their radio stations and force feed to the public, don't believe it try and get a song played on the radio or book your act on one of their shows. They own and are responsible for the Smooth Jazz Syndrome as well and a lot of the garbage they call Jazz that they are force feeding the ears of the baby boomers and yuppies of today who don't know any better because they have never been exposed to real Jazz.

It sucks big time folks, but it will indeed creates some interesting opportunities for the independent promoters to start presenting alternative festivals and concerts to attract all those folks they are ignoring with their marketing approach. This is not something new, MCA tried to do the same thing about 40 years ago, (Control the Record and olive Concert Business) It failed miserably and was also broken up by the FCC and they were prevented from monopolizing the industry by law.

History repeats itself folks, and here it is again forty years later trying to do just that.

Clear Channel is already experiencing some major backlash problems around the world with their operation methods and total greed corporate policies and it is only a matter of time before their empire will start to come apart at the seams as the good and talented people who they bought get tired of having everything they worked for years to build be destroyed by the Corporation mindset, which does not play well with Creative people, like musicians, arrangers, producers and promoters.


There day will come.