"Jazz: Analog Music in a Digital Era?" by Steve Provizer

Gentlemen, we must not have an analog/digital Gap

When you talk about the struggle for economic justice for jazz musicians (see posts below), you have to talk about the why's and wherefore's of the shrinking jazz pie. One factor I've yet to see explored is this: People, especially those who grew up in the digital sound era, have become used to a certain kind of "pristine" low-noise (and highly compressed) sound, and attendance at live performances may be taking a hit because of this. In a digital era, I believe that jazz-at least mainstream jazz-is, by its nature, analog.


Let's go back a bit:

We humans tend to adjust our expectations as necessary. Until the mid-1920's and electronic reproduction, recordings were fairly crude and listener expectations were low. When you bought a King Oliver record in 1924, you understood that it would be a vastly inferior sonic experience to hearing him live. During the 30's and 40's, recording technology continued to improve and people expected better audio.  Then, in the 50's, stereo, recording tape and the long playing record significantly raised the bar. When you bought a studio-recorded Blue Note record, you expected to hear audio quality that approached what you got at a live performance. 

A cultural meme was alive and well: "There's nothing like hearing music live."


Up to the 60's, most recordings still represented "performances," an entire band playing together either in an acoustically-controlled environment (studio), or live on location. Then, isolation booths, layered sound and significant editing became much more widespread. Plus, the content of recordings began to seriously diverge from what could be heard live. People did not expect to hear Sgt. Pepper or, for that matter Ascension, in concert.


Over the next few decades, recording moved from the analogue to the digital domain. CD's and digital files replaced the cassette and LP's for personal listening. In every genre, recordings were expected to sound crystal clear (if reduced in quality by compression to MP3's).

While there were always comments along the lines of: "They sounded better on the record"-and popular recorded solos were duplicated live-more and more, rather than conceiving the LIVE performance as something that a recording should try to capture, the RECORDING has become the standard by which the live performance is judged. 

The truism "there's nothing like hearing music live" has been taking on serious water. 

Theatrical spectacle, stacks of amps and enormous woofers get rock and pop fans to live shows, giving them an experience they can't get on their ipods. On television, performances like Robert Glasper's recent appearance on David Letterman demonstrate that TV has the tech to give us the hi-fi experience. Film does too, although with atrocious decibel abuse.  Not so the typical jazz venue.

Ancient fetishists like me, who abide the scratches and clicks that we grew up hearing on vinyl can live with less than stellar sound, but we're already deeply invested in the music. For young people, lower quality audio can be a reason, along with high prices and lack of media attention, to make going out to hear jazz a non-habit.

There's been a lot of blog talk about jazz musicians making more of an effort to relate to the audience-to make a better "presentation." This is important, but jazz venues must reckon with current audio expectations or expect increasing erosion in a demographic whose attention they must capture.


Truth is, I don't know if even a staunch effort to produce better live mixes of acoustic instruments will stem the tide. Recording has become atomistic to the degree that recordings can fairly easily be pieced together note by note and out-and-out mistakes seldom slip through the digital editing net. Plugging in a MIDI cable will always guarantee a cleaner signal than putting a mic on a trumpet-especially in a live performance. 


Jazz is a music that thrives on getting in and out of dark corners, but it doesn't seem to be thriving on the native soil of Digital-Vania.

The Music Publishing Sham, by Steve Provizer

On the more-or-less 143rd anniversary of the invention of the phonograph, the right to physically publish sheet music has become largely irrelevant-especially for jazz musicians. Yet "publishing" continues to exist as an anachronistic impediment to the recording careers of musicians.

 
The imposition of publishing into the process of making a recording is a vestige of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the sale of sheet music was the preeminent means of making money via music in the US. Millions of people had pianos and every entertainment venue had a piano player. Literally billions of sheets of music were sold. 

This was big money and all musicians but the most powerful ceded ownership of a song's publishing rights-essentially the copyright-to record companies. Victor, Okeh, Columbia et al held all the cards-or convinced musicians they did. 

Through the 20's-30's record companies closed down the cultural sieve by trying to make performers-especially "race" and "hillbilly" performers-record material they already held the rights to.        

                                         

Eventually, in mid- 20th century, the balance began to shift. Now, it's supposed to be a better deal, because songwriters are getting 75% of the royalties due, but the whole thing continues to stink.

The fact is, as soon as the songwriter either records or writes down the music on paper, that in itself constitutes a legal copyright. That should be it-end of story about rights.  Demand for reproduction can be handled by the musician. Or, if it a tune actually hits (see the 5% statistic below), the licensing process can be subcontracted out. And yet, the entire structure of "publishing" continues to be artificially supported by the musician. It fills ancient coffers and flummoxes musicians-another impediment to financial independence.




Then, there's the distribution of royalties by the licensing organizations. This is essentially an impenetrable morass, as even music lawyers admit. but any way you slice it, it dis-proportionally rewards those at the top of food chain. In any case, only 5% of artists ever see a royalty check.

Of course, there are good guys in this industry and yes, I know, I know-musicians have to be entrepreneurs-we've talked at B.C. about jazz musicians getting their act together. But why has the deck been stacked for so long against the-god help us-content providers?

The unexamined life, they say, is not worth living. Maybe the life, the entire creaky gestalt of the music publishing industry, needs a closer examination.