Food for Thought

[Chuck Nessa]

I recently ran across a Facebook post by Musician/Educator Max Johnson and he gave permission to share it here.

I know I've been griping about the death of people buying music lately, but I just listened to an album of Earl "Fatha" Hines w/ Richard Davis and Elvin Jones, and it reminded me of the thousands of these recordings that make up the entire history of jazz (as well as the thousands of recordings that make up other musics). It also reminded me that without these documents, we wouldn't really get to see a clear picture of the music, the history, the culture, etc; and the influence that so many of these recordings have made cannot be stated. Recordings like "Out to Lunch", "Interstellar Space", or "Machine Gun" weren't hit records, and those artists were not playing to big audiences when they came out, but the staying power of this music (as well as SO much more) influenced generations upon generations who keep the flame alive.

It is unfortunate that because the streaming companies have ostensibly wrestled almost all the income from recorded music away from the artists, because it only discourages people to make records. It only takes about 200ish sales of an album for me to personally break even these days, but it would take around 5,000,000 streams on spotify. I may have 200 fans (hopefully more? please?), but I definitely will NEVER have 5,000,000 million (name a contemporary jazz artist that does?) no matter how hard I try, or how much publicity I get (or buy, which is an entirely other problem with recorded music, the growing necessity of publicity, which often can cost 2 or 3x the cost of the record).

I think about all those Jackie McLean albums in the 60's that sustained him while his cabaret card was taken away, or Mingus retiring from music in the late 60's and being able to sustain himself on royalties alone for a few years. That's completely gone, and so many folks I know loose money on every album they make, and if they don't, it takes them years on the road to recoup the costs (but they also may loose money touring, many do). It's a really shitty position, and what really can be done? The majority of folks will NEVER go back to buying one album at a time when they can pay a corporate monolith $10-20 a month for EVERY ALBUM (which isn't really every album, because so much important music is missing, another downside). I'm not really proposing a solution other than saying, what do we do?

Most of our favorite albums could never have been made today unless John Coltrane had a trust fund or Cecil Taylor was also into crypto currency (they didn't). Will the recorded medium eventually die out for this music, only leaving rich people who can afford to throw (sometimes tens of) thousands of dollars away with every release? Will it exclusively be cheaply produced DIY and expensive rich-kid records? We all know which will be easier to find on your streaming playlists. What should we do?

[JSngry]

Albums?

Go back to making impactful singles and thenget them streaming.

Then think about an album.

 

[felser]

Is Crowdfunding a possible approach?  How does @AllenLowe manage to do his releases?

Edited October 10 by felser

[rostasi]

I'm guessing the quote starts with "I know...?"

Quote

blah, blah, blah... what should we(?) do?

I would suggest approaching the subject
with analysis rather than mostly emotion.

Also, get rid of those pearls.

[JSngry]

Recordings like "Out to Lunch", "Interstellar Space", or "Machine Gun" weren't hit records, and those artists were not playing to big audiences when they came out...

Does anybody know the size of the crowds that Coltrane was drawing in 1974?

[JSngry]

Am I reading right that this guy can break even with only 200 hard copy sales?

Am I wrong that that's actually an improvement over the old days?

[Chuck Nessa]

49 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Recordings like "Out to Lunch", "Interstellar Space", or "Machine Gun" weren't hit records, and those artists were not playing to big audiences when they came out...

Does anybody know the size of the crowds that Coltrane was drawing in 1974?

Not many folks caught Coltrane after 1967.

[JSngry]

Much less caught up with...

[jlhoots]

1 hour ago, rostasi said:

I'm guessing the quote starts with "I know...?"

I would suggest approaching the subject
with analysis rather than mostly emotion.

Also, get rid of those pearls.

Harsh!!

Edited October 10 by jlhoots

[Rooster_Ties]

Chuck, may I say it before you get the chance to?

Sigh…

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, jlhoots said:

Harsh!!

Maybe. But not necessarily inaccurate?

I mean, what is really being asked here - how to turn back the clock of the marketplace or how to find a way into it as it now exists?

I don't know that you have to compromise the essence of the music, but it does seem obvious to me that you do need to reimagine what is your "product" and what your goal for it is.

And to that end, if you need to do things the old way and you know what the inevitable results are going to be, hey...

[mjazzg]

I think "pearls" to a considerable degree too 

With platforms like Bandcamp artists can have instantaneous worldwide distribution it seems to me. I'd hazard there's more non-mainstream music being made commercially available these days now that the traditional gatekeepers don't have such a tight grip on the market.

The issue is getting heard amongst the crowd not that music can't be made available for an audience to buy.

And I don't see how 'Machine Gun' wouldn't happen today, that was hardly a major label release that the audience would listen to piecemeal on Spotify on a playlist. It was a release (if vitally important historically) in a niche market, at the time and would be now.

 

[mjazzg]

So assuming it's the same Max Johnson I checked Bandcamp

https://maxjohnson.bandcamp.com/

and found that he has 13 releases since 2012 which isn't a bad release schedule and because of the sales platform he should be getting a reasonable slice of each purchase, I'm really not sure how it squares with the statement

" the streaming companies have ostensibly wrestled almost all the income from recorded music away from the artists, because it only discourages people to make records".

 

[Rabshakeh]

As you say, the bigger issue with making Machine Gun today would be that it would be drowned out by everything else.

[rostasi]

Yeah, but everything would appear to drown out everything else if you don't swim.

[mjazzg]

Maybe if you turned it up to 11...

[JSngry]

Where are swimming, anyway?

[felser]

8 minutes ago, rostasi said:

Yeah, but everything would appear to drown out everything else if you don't swim.

Huxley saw this coming almost 100 years ago:

[rostasi]

30 minutes ago, felser said:

Huxley saw this coming almost 100 years ago:

I'm talking about swimming as an enjoyable activity,
not as a precursor to drowning.

[JSngry]

Sharks ruin everything. So do jellyfish.

 

[Pim]

As I am not in the business it’s hard for me to make a good judgement. But the article makes it feel like as an artist/producer you are obliged to go with the whole streaming thing and bringing out a physical release isn’t profitable anymore? As Jim mentioned 250 records sounds to break even sounds like a pretty reachable goal. After all the market has also expanded with internet and stuff. And was the situation ever better? Guys like Charles Gayle and Sonny Simmons were living on the streets in the non streaming era.

I thought that record sales were doing pretty good last years. If you can’t make a living out of it how come so many of it still is released? And I am not only thinking about Blue Note and big companies. The Byard Lancaster box by Soufflé Continu comes to mind for instance. Just some sincere questions. 

Edited October 11 by Pim

[jlhoots]

I kind of agree with Max Johnson. 😜