[Dixielandjazz] Jazz Ring Tones

[Steve Barbone]

How about some of the techo wizards on the list offering ring tones from
OKOM? Like High Society, or Livery Stable or Dippermouth Blues? What fun.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


Jazz Enters Cellphone Era, Ring Tones From Blue Note and Other Companies

NY TIMES -  By NATE CHINEN - July 29, 2006

The Francis Wolff photograph on the cover of ³Dexter Calling ...,² a 1961
Blue Note album, shows the tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon in a phone booth
with the receiver pressed to his ear. He¹s smiling, as if in response to
some fortunate bit of news.

That was the image that came to mind on Monday afternoon when I stopped by
the Fifth Avenue offices of EMI Music, Blue Note¹s corporate parent, and
learned that the label was introducing the first batch of ring tones culled
from its back catalog. The effort, branded ³The Best of Blue Tones,²
includes 24 song samples selected by Bruce Lundvall, the president of the
Blue Note Label Group, and Tom Evered, a senior vice president and general
manager. 

Nothing from ³Dexter Calling ...² made the cut. But a track from another
1961 session ‹ ³Crisis,² by Freddie Hubbard ‹ is being released, along with
classics like ³Song for My Father,² by Horace Silver, and ³The Sidewinder,²
by Lee Morgan. The ring tones, up to 30 seconds long, have been rolled out
to all major domestic mobile carriers.

The response from those services, according to representatives of EMI, has
been overwhelmingly positive. Some are packaging the ring tones with
graphics for promotion on their browsers. In all likelihood, those graphics
will involve images by Mr. Wolff, digitized and reduced to fit a cellphone¹s
little screen.

My cellular provider apparently hasn¹t mounted one of these features, so I
sought the tracks out myself. Early yesterday I connected to the ring-tone
service on my phone. On a moderated Top 10 list under the header ³What¹s
New,² I found Chet Baker¹s version of ³My Funny Valentine² wedged between
songs by the reggaetón star Tego Calderón and the rock star David Bowie: an
encouraging sign. 

But the ³browse² function involved scrolling through a list of categories,
assembled in what might reasonably be described as a pecking order.
Rap/Hip-Hop came first, followed by Rock, R & B and Pop, among others. I had
to advance to a secondary screen ‹ past Soundtracks, Comedy and Voice
Ringers ‹ to get to Jazz/Blues. It came just after Oldies and just before
Traditional: a less than encouraging sign.

If you¹re even a casual jazz fan, you¹re probably familiar with the
resignation this provoked. For the last 10 years, the Recording Industry
Association of America has consistently reported jazz¹s domestic market
share at less than 3.5 percent. Last year the figure was 1.8 percent, a
figure that registers as all the more appalling when you account for an
across-the-board slump.

Ring tones represent one of the few sectors of the industry with recent
growth. Last year they helped drive a reported 190 percent increase in all
digital music sales; they yielded more than $600 million alone. Most of that
revenue came from big bruisers like 50 Cent. The current best-seller list
includes summer singles by Nelly Furtado and Christina Aguilera.

Jazz fans, the reasoning goes, will get on board for the same reason as
everyone else: to make a statement about personal taste. This helps explain
why the Blue Note announcement has made such a splash. For some demographic
groups that have lately been catching up with digital music downloading, the
label¹s catalog still strongly evokes an era (the 1950¹s and 60¹s), a set of
traits (hipness, soul and innovation) and even a visual aesthetic (modern
cool, thanks to Mr. Wolff, who also served as a Blue Note executive, and
Reid Miles, the label¹s graphic designer).

As I browsed through my provider¹s ring tone library, though, I realized
that Blue Note was arriving late to the party. The Verve Music Group has
already dipped into its catalog, as has the Legacy division of Sony BMG. I
never did find ³Move,² the track that Blue Note has cherry-picked from Miles
Davis¹s ³Birth of the Cool,² but my search did turn up his ³Milestones² and
³All Blues,² along with later Columbia efforts like ³Bitches Brew.²

I bought ³Black Satin,² from Davis¹s 1972 funk-fusion album ³On the Corner,²
because it has what I look for in a ringing phone: a penetrating hook and a
short form suitable for repetition. Those aren¹t jazzlike properties,
really; they¹re compact reasons that a song like ³Ain¹t No Other Man,² by
Ms. Aguilera, makes a much better ring tone than ³My Funny Valentine,²
despite Chet Baker¹s considerable charms.

But I would be happy with Thelonious Monk¹s ³Straight, No Chaser,² one of
the new Blue Tones, or Charlie Parker¹s ³Now¹s the Time,² from Verve ‹ both
bebop, both blues. What I ultimately settled on was the bright and jangly
³Ecars,² one of four available tracks licensed by Atlantic from ³Ornette on
Tenor,² a 1961 Ornette Coleman album.

Like his fellow saxophonist Dexter Gordon, Mr. Coleman once released an
album with a telephonic conceit (³Tone Dialing,² a 1995 release that Verve
might consider raiding for the very purpose its title describes). Unlike
Gordon, Mr. Coleman is still alive, which means he should be receiving at
least a few cents from my $2.99 purchase.

A majority of available jazz ring tones are by artists no longer capable of
reaping such royalties. This is in keeping with recent trends in the
industry: major labels have tirelessly repackaged their jazz catalogs even
as they have slashed their active jazz rosters. While browsing, I came
across the ominous version of Billie Holiday¹s ³Strange Fruit² that Tricky
produced for the 2002 compilation ³Verve Remixed.² Verve has since released
two more albums in that series, and dropped all but a few of its jazz
artists. 

Still, one, the trumpeter Roy Hargrove, has ring tones available from his
most recent album, which is more than Blue Note can say for its current jazz
stable. Among the label¹s Blue Tone offerings, nearly half the artists are
living; an admirable proportion, considering the depth and vintage of the
catalog. 

But while I found ring tones for Norah Jones, there were none on my service
for Cassandra Wilson, let alone the clarinetist Don Byron or the pianist
Jason Moran. The saxophonist Joe Lovano is unrepresented, even though his
new album ‹ ³Streams of Expression,² scheduled for release next Tuesday ‹
serendipitously includes a new arrangement of ³Move,² the Blue Tone
selection from ³Birth of the Cool.²

Mr. Lovano may not have a ring tone, but he does have an online video
scrapbook, viewable at streamsofexpression.com and, starting Tuesday,
downloadable as a podcast through iTunes and other applications. It¹s a
production by Bret Primack, whose start-up Jazz Video Podcasts
(jazzvideopodcasts.com) has also created recent video features on the tenor
saxophone legend Sonny Rollins, among others.

Mr. Primack describes his videos as a marketing tool, a claim that seems
accurate mainly when you¹re watching one. In tone and production value, they
bear a strong resemblance to the electronic press kits occasionally
distributed in advance of a release. They seem less likely to win converts
than to inform and edify constituents. The same could be said of jazz¹s
other recent advances in new media, from musician blogs and MySpace pages to
the subscriber-driven independent label model of ArtistShare.

And the same can probably be predicted of ring tones, despite a beleaguered
industry¹s inclination to fixate on evangelism. For some insiders, the best
measure of the Blue Note effort¹s success will be its tally of new fans,
especially if they also function as consumers.

But one of the pesky little truths of jazz fandom is that people often don¹t
mind feeling like part of something enlightened and endangered. So a truer
measure of success might merely be the intimate, conspiratorial thrill of
something familiar ‹ but not too familiar ‹ piping up across a crowded room.