[Dixielandjazz] Jazz Audiences

[Stephen G Barbone]

> "Jim Kashishian" <jim at kashprod.com> wrote
>
> Steve Barbone bounced off of my previous email by stating how he  
> promotes
> his band.
>
> Not sure that sort of promotional material would work in Europe?   
> Anyway, if
> we were to begin to list the names who we have all played & recorded  
> with
> over a continued period of some 60 years of professional playing,  
> we'd need
> several sheets to do it per man!
>
> Maybe that works in the U.S., but here your music does the talking  
> for you.

Dear Jim:

I think you totally miss the point. The example I posted had a very  
targeted approach. Follow this:

1) No matter who appears at PA Jazz Society Concerts these days, they  
usually do not draw more than 150 people. And that included many  
concerts by INTERNATIONALLY PROMINENT JAZZ musicians.

2) Virtually no young people attend.

3) Most bands do not make any effort to promote their concerts to new  
audiences.

4) Therefore their music may talk, but NO ONE IS LISTENING IN THIS  
INSTANCE.

RESULT . . . 150 people.

To say things like "your music does the talking for you". is beside  
the point and is why most OKOM bands have virtually no audience in the  
USA. They don't promote.  Your situation is different. No doubt the  
club you play in has a packed house no matter what kind of band plays  
there. As you have said many times, the many clubs are packed because  
the Spanish audience is socially oriented to clubbing, not because  
OKOM is such a big draw. They like the "scene". You don't have to  
promote.

Of course you could list hundreds of musicians you played with. Anyone  
working for 60 years, including the guys in my band, could. However, I  
doubt you or anyone else could match Ace Tesone's (our bass players  
list) of LEGENDARY JAZZ PLAYERS that he has appeared with. Not as a  
leader but as a CHOSEN sideman in small group jazz bands. Ace is a  
jazz musician, the rest of us are mostly wannabes. (e.g. he spent 6  
years on the road with the Charlie Ventura, Quartet/Quintet, part of  
that time when Krupa was the drummer, recorded with Mel Torme and  
Clifford Brown etc., etc., etc.)

Now, please make an attempt to understand who I was writing to.  
Professors of Jazz Studies courses in colleges. Who do they teach  
about? The very musicians I mentioned I my correspondence. Ergo, there  
should be some interest among the professors and students to hear and  
talk with musicians who actually played with the people they teach, or  
learn about. To list hundreds of other musicians would have been  
pointless.

The point was to selectively list those jazz musicians who would  
interest the recipients and just maybe increase the attendance of a  
specific concert. That's what band promo should do.

No doubt you and your band are excellent, and your musicians have  
played with hundreds of well known musicians. But that is not the  
point. I am not suggesting starting a pissing contest about who played  
with whom or whose music is better, or who gets royalties, or who  
knows how to record, or anything that has anything to do with you.  
What I am suggesting is a promotional method that may work to increase  
young person attendance in specific instances at jazz society concerts  
here in the USA. For you to read anything more into it is erroneous.

You saw the response of one such professor. That response is EXACTLY  
what I was trying to elicit.

I welcome constructive ideas from folks who may have other methods of  
drawing audience via promotion.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband