[Dixielandjazz] Target audience for Dixieland, Swing, etc.

[Ministry of Jazz]

Shalom Jazz Fans,

Last week I played tuba in a Dixieland band called the Stompers over in one
of our coastal cities about 1 1/2 hours from Jerusalem. This band has been
around for some 30 years, and I've played with them many times since I moved
to Israel 12 years ago. Their show sold out -- over 160 paying customers in
a synagogue social hall. The audience was almost entirely Anglo, and I don't
think there was a person among them under 60 years old. The conventional
wisdom for marketing OKOM tends to be to target this audience. I am told
repeatedly that I should be trying to play for the older English speaking
crowd here in Jerusalem, including tourists. The problem is, where is this
audience going to be a few years from now? (I know this point has been
raised many times on DJML, but it is not often I see it illustrated so
clearly.)

Now on the one hand, I would love for my band to be able to fill a room with
160 paying customers at nearly $20 a head. But on the other hand, I came
here to bring our music to the Israeli public, and not just to a homogeneous
group of expatriates. My Doctor Jazz band has found that most of our paying
customers are coming from the ranks of native Israelis and Israelis of
middle eastern origins, often not English speaking at all. We work hard to
reach the general Israeli public. And I hope that by the time we've been
around for 30 years or so, we will be filling halls with Hebrew speaking
Israeli citizens of all ages and ethnic backgrounds.

It may seem more feasible economically to target the older Anglo audiences,
but this leads to a dead end (pun not entirely unintentional). Those in it
for the long haul need to draw younger and more ethnically diverse crowds.
This is especially true in Europe and Israel and most of the world, but any
more it is also the case even in America.

Obviously I am not the first one or the only one to be saying this on DJML.
However, more of us need to be making the effort to reach new and younger
audiences. WE know our music is great. The rest of the world is out there
blissfully ignorant of what they're missing. If they even know what
Dixieland is at all, they have an image of it that is not attractive. But
nowadays most people simply don't know the music exists. I find that when
people hear it, they generally like it. I can't tell you how many gigs we
book because the customers saw and heard us playing on the street in
downtown Jerusalem and took a business card. We must get the music out
there.

This Sunday Doctor Jazz has finally been booked to play in the Jerusalem
Mall, which I've been wanting to do for years. Someone finally noticed us,
and we're doing 3 hours Sunday evening. If we can handle this right, it
should result in a bunch of residual bookings, as well as return engagements
at the mall. And this is not a tourist place. This is where the Israelis
hang out ... particularly the young ones! We'll be doing banter in Hebrew
between the songs, and several pieces from our repertoire in Hebrew, either
translated or our renditions of Israeli songs that we've jazzed up. It's
amazing hearing audiences sing along with us in Hebrew to songs they know,
but hearing them played in a bright and energetic style that is not familiar
to them. OK, so they may not know what the music is called. As long as they
know our name and phone number, we can educate them later!

Time to get busy passing the torch.

Elazar
Doctor Jazz Dixieland Band
Tekiya Brass Ensemble
Jerusalem, Israel
www.israel.net/ministry-of-jazz
+972-2-679-2537