[Dixielandjazz] Sorry, Tom. More realities of jazz recording

[tcashwigg at aol.com]

Well sooooo sorry to have Pissed you off Mike, but that often happens 
to guys who think they know what they are talking about with limited 
knowledge of the record business. I have worked on both sides so I 
definitely know what I am talking about.

#1 I never said anything about shopping for cheaper musicians or not 
using the regular guys in the band, but you are correct about many Jazz 
artists not being able to sell 150,000 recordings, but why?   Because 
they don't promote or market themselves aggressively and neither do the 
labels that sign them.   They are all content to sit around and be cool 
and try to impress the Jazz literati and academic set from the IAJE in 
a mutual admiration society atmosphere.

And Yes some band leaders found a way to pay their men UNION wages and 
pension and dues, Hell we paid ours a Hell of a lot more than that, 
because they were worth it, so don't even get me started on the union 
and all it has done for the american musicians of this country.   That 
has long been a major problem with musicians who think they know 
something about the business just because they joined the union and sat 
around waiting for the union to do something for them besides collect 
dues and pension monies and levy fines against their own members.  It 
was never a Union at all but a GUILD.  The only reason it lasted as 
long as it has is it's former help from the TEAMSTERS OR AFL CIO  BACK 
IN THE DAYS WHEN A PICKET LINE MEANT SOMETHING.   But even guys like 
you woke up and realized it was a useless organization for the most 
part for working musicians outside the symphonies and Broadway shows 
and for a while the hotels who had teamsters and AFL CIO union backers 
in enough numbers to shut down a hotel with a walk out.

Much of what you do is certainly honorable, but you said it yourself, 
you are in the "Legacy" business not the record business, therefore you 
have no right whatsoever to be pissed off at people who are in the REAL 
RECORD BUSINESS, in all fairness you need to take off the ROSE COLORED 
GLASSES.

And no I am not the ONLY guy who knows how to sell records, but I am 
pretty damned good at it and I proved it a long time ago even before I 
went into the business.  I was screaming at Capitol and ABC because 
they would not promote the artist I managed and was booking to the 
market that they claimed was their target market for the music, and 
with artists that they had made money on with every record release.  
Their attitude was we don't need to promote them anymore because they 
are already making money.   So do I have an EGO,  you bet but I earned 
it.  During a very tough changing time where many musicians simply lost 
out by not paying attention to reality in the business of music, and 
not ever learning how to treat it like a business, and certainly not 
all of them were Jazz acts either however a great many of them were.

    Many of these kind of excellent and well trained musicians while 
being great players are simply BORING AS HELL AND ARE BORING THE 
GENERAL PUBLIC SO BAD THEY WON'T GO NEAR THEM.   We have discussed it 
on this list before several times about how the  Cool Hipster Jazz cats 
told their audience to sit down shut up and listen to their creative 
genius, and for god's sake don't get up and dance.  well those cats 
pissed off their audience base and the deserted them an never came 
back.   The same thing has happened to a many great Jazz star since the 
60,s when Jazz started going into the dumps.

  First of all let me set you straight about who the hell you are 
talking to which should really piss you off.

  When I worked for Crystal Clear Records a limited edition direct to 
disc company: And I did not sell wholesale to some big company, we 
built our own marketing operation selling to small high fi and stereo 
shops one damned store at a time and created our own distribution 
network Internationally.

  We produced a recording with Arthur Fielder & The Boston Pops paid the 
orchestra $60,000.00 for one session, and had about $25,000.00 more in 
production costs, we flew the entire team and the equipment to Boston 
Symphony Hall and did it live, We made the recording in ONE TAKE, with 
only Three (3) microphones, & 8 channel custom made mixer, and it was 
reviewed as the best recording they Ever made, sold 150,000 copies at 
$6.50 to $8.00 wholesale. Do the math yourself and see if it lost 
money. We paid for Two Neauman cutting systems and the board and the 
mics with that recording alone.

  Jazz Act Laurindo Almeida Two albums total cost for production 
$15,000.00 and yes Laurindo and the musicians were all paid scale or 
better. + additional for LAURINDO. Sold 125,000 copies of one and about 
60,000 of the second.

  Two more with Carlos Montoya same deal basically: sold 50,000 copies 
of each  both cut in one session in one day.

  Virgil Fox Two albums Classical Pipe Organ production costs approx 
$20,000. Reviewed as the greatest technical Phonograph recording in 
history. also sold 150,000 copies of one and about 50,000 of the 
second. both were cut at the same time one session.

  Taj Mahal Folk Blues act: Paid $20,000 to record and studio costs. 
sold 50,000 copies

  Charlie Musselwhite Blues artist production costs of $15,000.00 total 
sold 50,000 copies

 Cal Tjader total production cost $15,000.00 sold over 60,000 copies

  Jazz man Charlie Byrd one album cost about $15,000.00 and  sold 
140,000 copies

  We sold over 75,000 copies of a totally unknown Jazz group of local 
players named it San Francisco Ltd.

  The first record they had made before I came on board was a piece of 
crap Disco record by a nobody bar band in LA. it had a picture of a 
long blonde haired girl's rear end on the front cover in hot pants that 
Allowed me to set up a marketing campaign that sold 100,000 copies of 
it. Production cost on that project maybe $10,000. total The music was 
crap but the sound quality was fantastic and we found the market that 
was looking for quality and willing to pay a premium price to get it.

  And another 40,000 copies of an unknown Jazz pianist who refused to 
tour after we made his albums, fifteen years later he called me and 
told me he was ready to go concertize now and would I book him.

  Nobody ever short changed or paid musicians cheap and we built and 
operated our own State of the art equipment for each recording, 
manufactured the highest quality records in the world on 100% virgin 
CD4 vinyl for $2.00 a damned record including the four color jackets 
with custom designed art work some of it commissioned artist. Now the 
company owner did have a reputation of writing some pretty big checks 
with Little or No money in the bank with total confidence that we would 
get the recording in one or two takes and that I could sell enough 
copies with letters of credit before the checks hit the bank, which 
somehow I always managed to do.

  Did two more albums with Walter Suskind & Morton Gould & the London 
Philharmonic Orchestra. Costs $50,000 each total.

 Another with Peter Nero sold about 75,000 copies

  We also produced some lesser known acts that still sold very well 
although not as well as the bigger named artists, because we had built 
a reputation for producing QUALITY with the label, the label owner was 
sure he could record ANYBODY and I could sell them,  well I told him he 
could not but he would not listen and he did sign some real turkeys and 
paying them stupid money.

He also signed and paid a few major ROCK ARTISTS IN ADVANCE that never 
recorded a note for him even though I told him they could not record 
with our direct to disc process.  So he just squandered a whole bunch 
of the money on his ego trying to be a somebody in the record business.

  I was a Producer, A& R Director and the Promotion and Sales Director 
for the company for 22 months, it had sold $250.000. worth of product 
on credit to it's sole distributor when I came on board, who by the way 
Never Paid for one of the damned records, when I arrived I discovered 
this and cancelled his distributorship and took over marketing myself, 
and 22 months later I had taken sales to over 6 Million Dollars, 
getting the Trend setter of the year award from Billboard Publications 
for International Marketing of phonograph records. I also sold them all 
COD or pre-paid. None of the record industries standard 90 days from 
the end of the month in which they receive the product BS. We were in 
the business of selling records not giving them away.

  Oh, I forgot to mention that I also got two Grammy nominations for my 
first two productions for the label for Producer of the year category. 
And no I did not expect to win up against Quincy Jones and Stevie 
Wonder, but it was nice company to mentioned with. Especially for a 
Blues record and a Solo Jazz Piano recording of a kid nobody ever heard 
of named Jon Jarvis.

  We also recorded the first Digital recordings as well with Dr. Tom 
Stockham's system, but the very little Man with a bigger than life ego 
who owned the company refused to release any digital recordings because 
our direct to disc product was higher quality. Sort of like the Beta & 
VHS decision made by Sony . The record industry opted for digital 
because of the unlimited productions capability and far more profit 
potential than we could make with limited edition Direct to disc. Not 
to mention how badly it curtailed our International sales that would 
have come with it and giving us the opportunity to be a real Major 
label.


  Our technical and design engineer was John Meyer, who designed and 
built the first stadium sound system for the Grateful Dead, and now 
owns Meyer Sound Labs who built and installed all the surround sound 
systems for the theaters for Francis Ford Copolla's Apocolypse now 
movie. And now provides the sound systems for major Festivals like 
Montreaux Jazz and many of the other largest Jazz Festivals in the 
world.

  So I think I am certainly qualified to speak about how much profit is 
made on phonograph records by record companies, and I can also tell you 
about how much can be pissed away because of egos and control freaks 
and idiotic signings and out of control spending because the owner 
thinks he is now in show business and can do anything and it will never 
end. Well he made a few too many bad deals and decisions against the 
board of directors and company officers and I quit first and within two 
weeks so did everybody else, and the company went out of business in 
less than six months. What a waste of money and great talent of a lot 
of creative people.

 Cheers,

 Tom (Been there and done that) Wiggins circa 1978-1980

  And not a Pop record in the bunch, the bulk of the sales came in the 
two hardest genres of music to sell in Jazz & Classical.

  We made several recordings for less than $10,000 each total and they 
certainly recouped the investment and made money.








 -----Original Message-----
 From: Vaxtrpts at aol.com
 To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
 Sent: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 18:35:03 EST
 Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Sorry, Tom. More realities of jazz recording


 In a message dated 2/2/2006 3:08:18 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
 tcashwigg at aol.com writes:

 With all due respect Mike:

  those 58% of music fans are correct, on both counts of their 
statements.

 It's all in how it's done, I have produced and sold a lot of
 recordings since 1978, on some pretty diverse genres of music, and I
 have sold them anywhere from $6.50 to $8.00 wholesale and made a
 substantial amount of profit at that price for the record label which
 sold about 150,000 copies of each in vinyl no less. They actually
 retailed for $16.99 to $33.00 each So Who do you think made the most
 money? The distributor and the retailer that's who.

 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 Sorry, Tom, you are WRONG!!!!!
  You have lived in a different world with your pop stuff. Most of us 
don't
 sell wholesale to some big company. Most bands put the recordings out
  themselves and sell to the people who come to hear the band. Some 
bands do
 pretty
  well that way. We will NEVER sell 150,000 copies in any manner. Almost 
NO
 jazz artists do that!
  And don't come on to us like you are the only one who knows how to 
sell
  properly or you don't have just as big an ego as the rest of us. We 
make
  recordings to get our music to fans and have a "legacy" of what we 
have created
 as
  musicians. If that is egotistic, then so be it! We don't "shop" for 
the
 cheapest studio, engineers, or art work. We want some quality.
 And I REALLY resent your even suggesting that we "shop" for cheaper
  musicians. WE use the musicians who work with us all the time. WE try 
to pay
 them
  at least something for their time. We don't ask them to work for only 
a "cut
  of the profits." Some union band leaders actually find a way to pay 
union
 scale for their recordings and they pay the pension and dues.
  I am not in the union any more, so I work different deals with the 
musicians.
  I do have to admit that my big band musicians record for a lot less 
than
  what they should be paid, because $5.00 from every CD we sell goes 
into our
 scholarship fund to send young people to summer jazz camps, through my
 nonprofit.
  Even with that, to record a big band costs a few thousand dollars 
before
 you even talk about studio time or production.
 Sorry, but as you can see, your message really "pissed me off."
 Mike Vax

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