Number three in a series of excerpts I'm crafting for the introduction to Women In Jazz. The copy is, of course, still a work-in-progress, but constructive comments and suggestions are more than welcome. The other two excerpts I've posted are Concerns About The Book's Title and A (Very) Brief History Of Women In Jazz.
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| Clarinetist, saxophonist, and composer Anat Cohen (Photo by Jimmy Katz) |
“I was a very rare
artist in the 90s, to have that ability to produce my own albums. I decided my
own music and my fate, my image, my everything. I controlled that. Not a record
company.” — Dee Dee Bridgewater to the author, 2013
When asked, each musician I interviewed for this book
confirmed they are seeing more women than ever working in the music industry, and
not only as musicians, but as recording engineers, managers, label owners, and
publicists. This growing emergence of women in an industry that is almost
unrecognizable when compared to what it was at the end of the 20th
century, is significant, given what women bring to the proverbial table in
times of upheaval and traumatic change.[i]
The business paradigms that since the earliest days of the music
industry have destroyed the livelihood of artists are now being challenged and
renegotiated by pop stars, such as Madonna and Beyoncé, as well as women musicians across
the spectrum of jazz. Artist-run labels, crowdfunding, and new types of
contracts with recording labels are just a few of the ways the artists
interviewed in this book are taking control of the business of making music.
Artist-Run Labels
"Anzic Records
didn't start just because I wanted artistic freedom. It started because I
wanted to have control over what happens to my albums…The days where musicians
just played music and didn't need to think about business are over." —
Anat Cohen to the author, 2013.
All of the musicians I interviewed for this book are
actively involved in recording, promoting, and selling their music. Several of
the interviewees own or co-own independent record labels and/or production
companies, including Anat Cohen (Anzic Records), Jane Ira Bloom (Outline
Music), Dee Dee Bridgewater (DDB Productions, Inc.), and Carmen Lundy (Afrasia
Productions), or manage distribution and sales of their music through their own
websites and/or online platforms for selling CDs and downloads, such as CD Baby
and Bandcamp.
In 1969, long before the advent of the Internet and MP3s, jazz
vocalist Betty Carter took control of her music by creating a label she named
Bet Car Records which, in turn, inspired Bridgewater to start her own label and
production company.
"I would go over to (Betty's) house and she would have
her LPs lined up in the hallway (as) she was preparing to ship them out,” says
Bridgewater. “My biggest influence has been Betty Carter. Not because I tried
to sound like her or imitate her…but because I wanted that kind of freedom.”[ii]
As a member of a thriving, forward-thinking music community
based in New Haven, Connecticut in the mid-1970s, a community that included
trombonist George Lewis, drummer Gerry Hemmingway, and bassist Mark Dresser,
composer and soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom was given the impetus to start
her own record label and publishing company, Outline Music. Bloom points out in
her interview for this book that the recording industry at the time "was
in a real lull," meaning, if you were a creative but relatively unknown
artist that "had music that was worth documenting," you had to learn
how to record, package, and distribute your own album.
The independent music label New Artists Records began in
1982 after pianist Connie Crothers and the drummer Max Roach recorded a series
of spontaneously improvised duets. When no record company expressed interest in
releasing the recordings, Crothers and Roach formed the label, which was later
reconfigured to operate as a cooperative. Each musician on New Artists Records
contributes to the operating expenses of the label and receives 100% of his or
her album sales.
Since digital technology now allows audio and video recordings
to be easily bootlegged and uploaded to the Internet, an overwhelming number of
aural and visual examples of jazz performance, going as far back to the turn of
the century and on into the present day, are readily available and instantly
accessible to both casual consumers and serious students of music. In her 2009
interview with the website Solidarity, Crothers describes the impact the
Internet has had on smaller as well as "big record companies."
"This is a change in the technology of distribution,”
says Crothers, “and like other similar changes in technological history it will
not be stopped. One conclusion is, inevitably, that recording is no longer a
feasible way to make money."
However, in the same interview, Crothers acknowledges that
there is a flip side to the less than artist-friendly aspects of the Internet.
"In a time when people bemoan the failure of jazz,”
says Crothers, “you can get the music of just about every jazz artist who ever
lived and recorded. Having gone through a time in the 1960s when it was
impossible to get records of even some giants like Charlie Parker, this seems
like a renaissance to me."[iii]
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding has become an extremely popular method for
musicians to raise funds for specific projects, such as the recording of a new
album. With crowdfunding, a musician sets the funding goal for his or her
project and then uses an online platform such as Kickstarter or IndieGoGo to
promote a fundraising campaign and facilitate monetary donations from fans to
the project. Most campaigns offer a variety of “rewards” to donors, each based
on the dollar amount of a donation. Crowdfunding platforms are typically
for-profit businesses, and donations to a campaign are not tax deductible.
However, the New York-based art infrastructure organization Fractured Atlas,
which offers fiscal sponsorship to artists without not-for-profit status, is
partnered with IndieGoGo so that online crowdfunded donations to Fractured
Atlas artist-members are tax deductible.
Composer and big band leader Maria Schneider is one of the
best-known jazz artists to successfully, and repeatedly use crowdfunding,
specifically the online platform ArtistShare, to finance the recording of
several of her critically acclaimed albums. Among the interviewees in this
book, trumpeter and composer Samantha Boshnack, used Kickstarter to raise over $6,000
toward the recording of Go To Orange
by her fifteen-member ensemble B’Shnorkestra. Violinist Mazz Swift, bassist
Jennifer Leitham and cellist Nioka Workman have also each utilized crowdfunding
platforms to fund their recording projects.
New Types Of
Contracts
In her interview for this book, drummer, composer, and
producer Terri Lyne Carrington explains how a recording project with a strong
concept or "angle," such as her Grammy award-winning album The Mosaic Project, which features an
all-female line up of jazz, R&B, hip-hop and Latin-music artists, can help
the process of securing what is called a license deal with a record company.
In a license deal, the artist is expected to cover the costs
of recording an album and deliver a finished product to the label. The artist
then licenses out the rights to the recording for a finite period to a label,
splitting any income that comes in from sales and licensing deals to television
shows, commercials, and/or movies, before all rights revert back to the artist.[iv]
Unlike the standard album deal, a license deal allows an artist
to avoid being in debt to a label and retain the rights to their master
recordings, rights that allow them to earn additional income so long as their
music remains available and in print.[v]
Many of the artists interviewed in this book have benefited from license deals
or what I call "hybrid" deals, which combine aspects of standard
royalty, license, and manufacturing and distribution deals.
Musicians typically spend their formative years practicing
and playing and honing their technique; this timeline of disciplined focus is
crucial for any musician with aspirations of playing at the professional level.
However, when it comes to building a career, a musician will be at a serious
disadvantage if they do not also develop a basic understanding of the music
business.
“For me it took, like, 20 years in before I was really
seeing how involved I could be on (the business) side of things,” says
Carrington, who believes music business classes should be a mandatory part of a
music conservatory’s curriculum.
“Everybody has to know certain things,” says Carrington. “It
all should be talked about as early as possible.”
[i]
"With Another Country, Cassandra Wilson
continues to expand the boundaries of jazz," by Chris Becker, Culturemap
Houston, October 18, 2012.
[ii]
Marian McPartland also started her label Halcyon
Records that same year.
[iii]
“Jazz in the New Depression,” Connie Crothers
interviewed by Against the Current for Solidarity, September/October 2009.
http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/2369.
[v]
Ibid.
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