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

Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis larrys.bands at charter.net
Fri Feb 3 08:49:03 PST 2006


Tom: I have seen this happen over and over again throughout the years and I 
believe that this kind of attitude has hurt us all.  The American public 
jumped at the new DJ's that sprang up.  Musicians failed to be interesting 
but what's worse was a lot of guys didn't care.  Looking down at the guy who 
pays your bills is stupid.  Personally I have always played at whatever the 
audience liked and heavy jazz wasn't it which could be a reason I still get 
to play for money.

I always find your (you too Mike) replies interesting and really 
informative - thanks for taking the time.


SNIP:    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.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <tcashwigg at aol.com>
To: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 4:07 AM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Sorry, Tom. More realities of jazz recording


> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
> 




More information about the Dixielandjazz mailing list