[Dixielandjazz] Jazz Audiences

[Stephen G Barbone]

Barbone wrote:

:"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."


Kash responded:

"If the good music isn't there already, the promotion is going to do  
very little in the long run."

I agree with that. If you promote any product (including music) that  
sucks, you'll kill that product quickly. However I wouldn't want  
readers to get the wrong idea. Many of the bands that have no audience  
here in the USA are playing good music and still have no, or very  
little audience. Why?  Because they do not promote. Then to make  
matter worse, they blame the mass audience for not showing up to hear  
good music. Pity is the mass audience doesn't even know they exist.

Kind of like jazz audience studies in general. A 2009 NEA poll  
predicting the decline of the jazz audience cited two"facts" to back  
their doom and gloom.

1) Jazz audiences have been aging, on average, since 1982. From 29 to  
46.

2) Percentage of young people, 18-24,  attending jazz concerts at  
least once a year fell from 18% to 7%.

BUT, they totally ignored the young jazz audiences that visits the hip  
nightclubs in  L.A., or NYC to hear jazz. They represent a significant  
number. If one looks at Jazz Inside Magazine, one finds 100 or so  
venues in NYC that host some form of jazz at least once a week.

Just as there is in Spain, from Kash's accounts, there is a HUGE  
clubbing scene in the major cities of the USA. Lots of music, lots of  
jazz. Naturally not dominated by OKOM, far from it, but there is also  
OKOM in some of these clubs. And there are bands taking advantage of  
promotion to broaden that audience. Examples of that are Jon Eric  
Kellso's weekly promos, Vince Giordano's promos, Bria Skonberg's  
promos, Jim Fryer's promos, Barbone Street promos, Drew Nugent promos,  
etc., etc., etc.

The above bands all have audiences. Point being,; Here in the USA if  
your band is reasonably good, and/or puts on a good show, you should  
be working regularly, more than  twice a week. How do you accomplish  
that? PROMOTE.

The music is not enough and never was. From the beginning when ODJB  
became popular because of the media frenzy, to the advance men of  
Louis Armstrong putting up flyers in every town when he toured, to the  
latter day Eddie Condon whose flair for publicity was legendary.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband