LJC Community Conversation: Artist Run Record Labels
LJC Community Conversations are designed to explore major ideas in the Latin Jazz world together as a community and inspire conversation through comments. My main motivator here is my belief that LJC readers hold a great deal of knowledge and passion around Latin Jazz, and I think that we can learn something from everyone. Whether you’re a seasoned Latin Jazz performer or a newcomer to the music, leave a comment and let your voice be heard!
The recent review of Dafnis Prieto’s Taking The Soul For A Walk inspired some interesting comments from Luis & Chazro about independent labels in Latin Jazz, sparked by the fact that Prieto created his own label, Dafnison Music, to promote this album. This is an issue effecting modern Latin Jazz artists, and something we should discuss . . . .
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Major labels have been struggling with their place in the modern music world. Napster popularized file sharing in the general public, inspiring us to fill our computers with MP3s from our favorite artists. Many of us have forsaken CD players, carrying hundreds of albums on our ultra portable iPods. We’ve begun to ignore traditional radio and MTV, turning instead to MySpace and podcasts. Purchasing music has become cheaper and more easily accessible through online distributors like iTunes and Amazon. These changes shook the music industry, altered the course of popular music, and created a new listening experience for the public. It’s a new ballgame for everyone involved and Latin Jazz artists, like everyone else, need to adapt to the changing direction of the music business.
For a large part, jazz artists and especially Latin Jazz artists have traveled through these changes under the radar, and their careers have remained largely unchanged. Major labels never served serious jazz well; the massive promotional infrastructures built into major labels have always leaned towards pop music. Major labels have always employed jazz musicians, but the promotion of theses artists consumed little of their business. Jazz “stars” like Kenny G, Diana Krall, or Harry Connick, receive plentiful attention, but they exist as the exception. Most jazz artists spend the majority of their career jumping between labels and supporting their careers with self-promotion. Live performance remains their bread and butter, and they travel consistently; exciting live shows charge their reputations, and resultantly sell more records. Since jazz artists never felt the extreme tie to the major record labels that pop artists did, this change seems to hold less impact for them.
Several Latin Jazz artists have moved outside of the record label world and developed their own independent labels. Dafnis Prieto started Dafnison Music for the release of his current album, Taking The Soul For A Walk. Papo Vazquez established Picaro Records to release his 2007 album From The Badlands and followed that with the recently released Marooned/Aislado. John Santos has promoted several albums on his own label Machete Records from different groups: The Machete Ensemble, his folkloric group El Coro Folklorico Kindembo, and his current configuration, The John Santos Quintet. When Marty Sheller decided to record his own album, he formed his own label, PVR Records, LLC. Wayne Wallace founded Patois Records and proceeded to record albums for Kat Parra and Alexa Weber Morales, in addition to his own projects. This seems to be the current trend for Latin Jazz artists who wish to pursue music on their own terms.
The freedom afforded by running a record label brings a variety of pros and cons for Latin Jazz artists. Without a record company executive overseeing a recording, the independent Latin Jazz musician maintains complete artistic control over their work. Freedom to create without boundaries remains the most powerful positive of the situation. Without a record company splitting sales, the artist retains a higher profit from the sales of their work. They have a higher initial overhead, but the possibility of earning significant money exists in the independent realm. A lack of middleman between the artist and the listening public opens a new flow of communication, both online and off. At a concert, the artist represents their work completely and must connect with their public. At the same time, artists must make time for the online world of social media – a time consuming process necessitated by the modern world. For the first time, the artist is not only the performer, but also their company’s CEO. Business issues for the release fall completely to the artist; they may hire a publicity company, lawyers, artists, and more – in order to reach a level of success, they must split their time between artistry and business. For most artists, I would imagine that the significant pros of artistic freedom and higher profit margins outweigh any negatives for the modern artist.
The path towards self-promotion has been a rocky road for some Latin Jazz artists. Many artists’ websites sit on the internet without an update for months, leaving their fans wondering about live dates, new album info, or news of any kind. With news of a new release, I often head straight for iTunes, eMusic, or Amazon, usually to find independent releases unavailable. Sometimes these releases appear on download sites and sometimes they don’t. I often need to search for news of new releases, and sometimes, I don’t find a release until months after it was released. Since I’m looking for new albums daily, I would assume that the casual listener would be lucky to find these releases. I’m sure that different reasons exist for these gaps in business issues, but I’m guessing that the responsibilities of running a business in addition to developing your artistic identity overwhelms some musicians.
A variety of possibilities exist for the future of artist led record labels, but personally I tend to lean towards the positive side of the equation. From a listener’s perspective, I’ve encountered more new music in the past few years from “unknown” artists than ever before. Honestly, it’s been thrilling – I’ve never been so exited about music before. I do get frustrated by outdated websites and a lack of downloads, but I feel like these issues will work themselves out over time. I’m hoping that sources like LJC will help filter information for Latin Jazz enthusiasts, and more artists will experience success with their personal projects. Only time will tell . . .
Here’s some possibile ideas to explore:
* Do you see artist led labels as a positive or negative?
* Do you feel differently about artists promoting their own work without a label?
* Would you be more or less likely to support them?
* What are some future possibilities resulting from this trend?
LEAVE A COMMENT below with your thoughts. I’d love to hear from every LJC reader! Once you’ve left your thoughts here, don’t forget to visit our past community converssations.
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Do you have an idea for a future Community Conversation? As much as I enjoy exploring my own interests with this regular post, I’d prefer to have this forum address the overall interests of the entire community. Do you have an issue that effects Latin Jazz? Do you have an idea for a fun topic? Let me know so that we can throw it out to the whole community – Leave a Comment or e-mail me.
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Stumble it!
!!! Just goofin’ of course but enough can’t be said about creating the all-important “Buzz”. I’m afraid I’ll have to leave it to smarter folk than me to come up with a formula for THAT! (For anyone that’s interested enough, I’ve mentioned ANZIC records, for me, the epitome of a modern successful recording company. Go to their site, click on reviews, THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about when I say “Buzz”.)
