Is there some trouble at Coda?

[Hoppy T. Frog]

The last two issues have been really late. I didn't get November/December until yesterday (with a postmark of December 19 so it's not all their fault--but if it wasn't sent til then it's rather odd they included all sorts of Christmas gift promotions). I know there is new ownership, but I wonder if there aren't some deeper problems to cause such massive delays.

[Nate Dorward]

Good question. The mag is actually in better shape than it has been for a long while, with a new publisher (Mark Barnes) who is getting behind it in a way that Warwick Publishing never did. The Sep/Oct delay was caused by a shift of printing facilities, I gather, & this seems to have compounded the lateness of the Nov/Dec issue. I haven't the faintest how they plan to get back on track by this point, which seems to me urgent--it leaves subscribers scratching their heads when issues are consistently 2 months late. -- Not that it was very on-time before--I recall that Stuart Broomer had to play catchup at one point by doing a double Nov/Dec/Jan/Feb issue!

Anyway, the new one looks good--the main features are on Satoko Fujii & Gerald Wilson, so a bit of a focus on big bands.

[Hoppy T. Frog]

  Nate Dorward said:

Good question. The mag is actually in better shape than it has been for a long while, with a new publisher (Mark Barnes) who is getting behind it in a way that Warwick Publishing never did. The Sep/Oct delay was caused by a shift of printing facilities, I gather, & this seems to have compounded the lateness of the Nov/Dec issue. I haven't the faintest how they plan to get back on track by this point, which seems to me urgent--it leaves subscribers scratching their heads when issues are consistently 2 months late. -- Not that it was very on-time before--I recall that Stuart Broomer had to play catchup at one point by doing a double Nov/Dec/Jan/Feb issue!

Anyway, the new one looks good--the main features are on Satoko Fujii & Gerald Wilson, so a bit of a focus on big bands.

Thanks. The magazine does look good, but I always wish that there was more content, but from the old back issues I buy off ebay I gather it has always been a bit on the thin side.

[Nate Dorward]

The pagecount hasn't changed for years; though I think that there was still much more wordcount per issue in the Norris/Smith days because they concentrated on packing in a lot of material without many visuals or ads (in fact, in the backissues I was consulting a few weeks back at the library, I recall virtually no ads in the early 1990s issues, aside from the classifieds at the back). That said, when I last talked to him, Mark Barnes did say that they were contemplating an increased pagecount in the future. Fingers crossed.

[Hoppy T. Frog]

Uhh, again, wazzup with Coda? There has been no issue since November 2008 (although a December issue is shown on the website as "forthcoming"). Nate? (You still around?)

[Hoppy T. Frog]

Up. The Google, it show nothing...

[Nate Dorward]

No idea, I'm afraid. I'll write Andrew Scott & see what he says. I did send in a top-ten for 2008, though I have not contributed reviews for a long while.

[fasstrack]

Rucsh used to have a record company out of the same building. Once I sent a demo, trying to get a date. He sent back an opinion, and not a good one. Said the bassist took more chances than me, and since I had the 'chops' why not? (I take chances all the time, and have not much chops)

I replied by sending him a Q-tip....

[Chuck Nessa]

  fasstrack said:

Rucsh used to have a record company out of the same building. Once I sent a demo, trying to get a date. He sent back an opinion, and not a good one. Said the bassist took more chances than me, and since I had the 'chops' why not? (I take chances all the time, and have not much chops)

I replied by sending him a Q-tip....

Big confusion here. Cadence is the Rusch operation and Coda was originally operated by John Norris and Bill Smith. Their label is called Sackville.

Back to the woodshed.

[Ted O'Reilly]

  Chuck Nessa said:

  fasstrack said:

Rucsh used to have a record company out of the same building. Once I sent a demo, trying to get a date. He sent back an opinion, and not a good one. Said the bassist took more chances than me, and since I had the 'chops' why not? (I take chances all the time, and have not much chops)

I replied by sending him a Q-tip....

Big confusion here. Cadence is the Rusch operation and Coda was originally operated by John Norris and Bill Smith. Their label is called Sackville.

Back to the woodshed.

Actually, Sackville is exclusively Norris' label, and has been for about a decade. Bill Smith still does the graphic work, but Norris owns the imprint. (He should get up to the late 20th Century and get online, but he chooses not to. Fax is the most up-to-date technology he has embraced.)

[Chuck Nessa]

I know that but it was not relevant to the current discussion.

[Guest Bill Barton]

Up again

As a regular contributor for quite some time now I'm as much in the dark as anyone. And I'd really, really like to find out what's going on. I haven't seen my copy of the issue with the 2008 Top Tens yet and haven't received any response to an e-mail I sent weeks ago to Andrew Scott (it was sent to the CODA editor e-mail address that is on their masthead.) I used to have Andy's home e-addy but during the month-and-a-half period when I was PC-less my Hotmail account went dead-in-the-water. So around 300 music biz contacts built up over more than a decade disappeared - poof! - into digital limbo. Luckily I have a CSV file of the older ones, but some of the newer ones are really in limbo. Sigh...

[Hoppy T. Frog]

I have an update. I took things into my own hands and called the 888 toll-free number, and the man who answered the phone (Mark Fisher?) told me that a May/June issue was coming by the end of May, and that they would get back on schedule after that. I was more surprised that someone answered the phone--I was certain the magazine was defunct. We'll wait and see what happens. I'm not optimistic in this economy.

[Guest Bill Barton]

Thanks for the update, Happy! I'm - uh - happy And, like you, I'm looking at a "wait and see" attitude toward all of this.

[Nate Dorward]

I believe it was Mark Barnes you talked to, the mag's current owner. Hm, I think he would be wise to post something about the magazine's delay on its website.

[Ken Dryden]

I emailed Mark as well. It is probably related to the challenge of building a subscription base to be of sufficient size to attract advertisers. The previous owners had allowed it to fall to around 2000 or so.

[Ken Dryden]

I heard from the publisher today. Coda will continue as a bimonthly magazine, though it isn't clear when the next issue will be out. Also no word yet on the possible catch up of postponed issues.

[Guest Bill Barton]

Thanks, Ken.

[Guest Bill Barton]

I finally managed to get in touch with Mark via telephone today and had a relatively lengthy conversation. The postponed issues will eventually see the light of day. Mark didn't specify a timetable, but the magazine is definitely still in existence and in the process of restructuring a number of things. We just all need to be patient...

Edited May 15, 2009 by Bill Barton

[Enterprise Server]

I have copies of Coda that date back to the 1970's. Different magazine back then.......

Edited May 29, 2009 by Enterprise Server

[Hoppy T. Frog]

The website is dead. While I was in Montreal for Mutek earlier this year, I picked up a copy of La Scena Musicalewhich was not an adequate substituteby any means. I checked out the French jazz magazines (Jazz Hot and Jazz) there too, and found them surprisingly like Gallic Jazzwises--i.e., glossy-looking. But since I don't read French I couldn't tell you if their content was the same, although they didn't look like the dozen-page post-modern Marxian critical theory treatises on avant-garde figures I was hoping from the French.

[J.A.W.]

  Hoppy T. Frog said:

The website is dead.

No, it isn't.

CODA (with a message from Mark Barnes dated June 1, 2009)

Edited July 15, 2009 by J.A.W.

[Guest Bill Barton]

Thanks for clarifying that, J.A.W.

[Guest Bill Barton]

http://www.coda1958.com/index.php

Just curious... Two months down the road from this update have any subscribers seen a copy yet?

Edited August 4, 2009 by Bill Barton

[Ken Dryden]

I haven't heard anything else from the publisher or editor about future contributions since my chat with Mark a few months ago.

Edited August 5, 2009 by Ken Dryden