[Dixielandjazz] Why Mike Vax, Vince Giordano et al, should be appreciated.

[Steve barbone]

Why should Mike and Vince be appreciated? See below, from the Kenton List

Cheers,
Steve.


February 10, 2006 - LA TIMES - Entertainment Business
One lone Grammy RSVP - By Scott Martelle, Times Staff Writer

Many jazz ensemble nominees, including the winner, were too busy
making music (and ends meet) to attend.

Bill Holman wasn't at Staples Center on Wednesday afternoon with the throng
of other Grammy nominees. If he had been, he'd have heard Dave Holland Big
Band's "Overtime" announced as the winner in his nominated category, large
jazz ensemble.

It's not that Holman had something more pressing to do; certainly he wasn't
boycotting anything. The Grammys just aren't that big a deal to him.


"It's the afternoon thing, not the TV presentation, and so usually we feel
like we're bringing up the rear anyway," said Holman, nominated for his
"Bill Holman Band Live" album. The composer, arranger and bandleader added
that he hasn't belonged to the Recording Academy in years.

Big band music doesn't pay enough to justify the $100 annual dues - making
the annual awards ceremony a whole different world for Holman and dozens
like him in the lower-profile categories than it is for the pop, rock,
hip-hop, R&B and country stars who soak up TV camera time each Grammy night.

"I never have made a living from the band," Holman, who began his career in
the 1940s, said this week from his home in Hollywood Hills. "Nobody does."

In the upper echelons of pop music, success is measured in millions of units
sold and, it seems, tons of bling on display. Nominees in the album of the
year category have total sales of nearly 15 million copies.

In Holman's section of the Grammy program, sales totals seem to be short a
few zeros - some 15,000 units combined for all five large jazz ensemble
finalists, according to a Nielsen SoundScan tally of sales through retail
outlets. Not surprisingly, the winning entry, Holland's album, accounts for
12,000 of those scanned sales. The John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble's "A
Blessing" is at the low end of the SoundScan tally, with 100 copies.

The artists and their labels point out their actual totals, supplemented by
sales at gigs and through websites - and typically not tracked by SoundScan
- is closer to 20,000. That's still just a sliver of the 5.2 million copies
Mariah Carey's "The Emancipation of Mimi" has sold.

For these relative unheards fronting large jazz bands, a Grammy, while nice,
probably won't transform a career. A few extra commissions might come
through, a hall might get booked a little more easily. But there will be no
need for Ray-Bans and floppy hats, or checking into hotel rooms under
assumed names.

Still it's better to be nominated, and to win, than to be ignored, said
Holland, who won Grammys in 2003 for large jazz ensemble album, and in 2000
for jazz instrumental performance, individual or group. It "lends credence
to your work," Holland said before the ceremony from his home in Ulster
County, N.Y., where he was writing new music for a follow-up to "Overtime."
In fact, he's never been to the Grammys, blaming lack of time and a
disinclination to travel cross-country for a bit of industry elbow-rubbing.

Though it's rare for contenders for a top award to miss the Grammys, only
one of the five large jazz band ensemble nominees took the time to be there
Wednesday. That was Chris Walden, a Los Angeles musician whose career is
built on writing and arranging for other performers, Diana Krall among them.
Walden was nominated for "Home of My Heart."

Most of the other finalists were busy doing jazz. Sue Mingus, director of
the Mingus Big Band, nominated for the "I Am Three" album, was in San
Francisco for a gig, and Hollenbeck, the experimental percussionist, was at
a sound check at UC Riverside's University Theatre for his evening
performance with singer-performance artist Meredith Monk.

"It certainly gives a lot of validation to the music," said Hollenbeck, a
New Yorker whose West Coast appearances this week were planned before the
Grammy nomination came down. "It gives a lot of hope to a musician like me.
It's possible for the mainstream world to accept it a little bit."

Hollenbeck says he's already noticed the effect.

"It's always an upward battle for someone like me," Hollenbeck said. "I do
my own bookings, and it's opened a few doors already for me."