The Jazz.com Blog
February 15, 2009 · 7 comments
Is the Jazz World Recession-Proof?
That big elephant in the corner of the jazz club that no one is mentioning . . . is our current economic recession. Even in good times, the jazz world seem to on a shaky financial footing, but what will happen over the next 12 months. Jared Pauley, a regular contributor to jazz.com, asks some hard questions about the bottom line. Readers are invited to comment below or by email to editor@jazz.com. T.G.
The entertainment industry has always been able to weather economic hardships from the Great Depression to the recessions of the 1970s and 1980s. With the current economic situation coming down hard on almost every sector of business, especially here in New York City, I pose the question: Is jazz recession proof?
Being an active musician and member of the community I get the feeling that the jazz scene here is going to be hit pretty hard in the coming months because of the economic climate. When Mayor Bloomberg is cutting the city budget by up to 10% across the board in 2010 I have to wonder when the club circuit here in New York is going to start really feeling the effects.
As the city faces a $4 billion shortfall and as tourism starts to decrease because of the global connection between financial markets, its only a matter of time before clubs start to curtail their business aspirations. I know many of you might be thinking that people in New York will continue to pay the ridiculous prices that the clubs charge but the majority of people that frequent clubs like the Blue Note are tourists. When I performed there I played for a house full of. . . Japanese and Danish tourists. Common sense suggests that since tourism is sliding so will the revenue for local New York City jazz clubs.
While music wrestles with its own fate amid the current financial crisis, is the Obama administration prepared to bail out the music industry? Within the more than one trillion dollars allocated for spending in both stimulus packages, how much of the money is being used for the arts? Both economically and particularly culturally the United States is at a standstill. The idea of being a working performance artist has become a joke in recent years. I often wonder how all of us are going to survive on just music in the coming years given the current rate at which the industry is sliding. Given how quickly politicians are mortgaging our future, it freaks me out to think where private and public arts are headed.
An acquaintance of mine that works at Jazz at Lincoln Center recently informed me of the struggles facing the famed NYC organization. While they havent been laying people off, overtime has been largely eliminated from the picture in the face of a decline in ticket revenue. If not for the annual subscribers, JALC would be in much more trouble with the decline in general ticket sales. Can I propose that Wynton Marsalis salary be capped just like the proposal to cap CEOs of Fortune 500 companies? Sarcasm aside, if an organization like JALC croaks, were in serious trouble my friends.
And when all of this business collapses, who feels the brunt of the impact? The musicians. Many of us in this small community realize how difficult it can be to make a living off of jazz music. I am not sure what the markets are like in Los Angeles, New Orleans, or Chicago but I would be interested to hear the specifics. If they are anything like NYC then we have some serious issues to address. Some of my friends and peers have resorted to playing Eastern Asia for month long engagements as opposed to struggling for survival in NYC. The money is a little better and the work is much more consistent and frequent. How has America come this far only to necessitate the export of our creative artists to another part of the world? Instead of Europe, now its China. Maybe some of these issues rest on the notion that people in the United States dont consume music using the old business models. It seems with this change in aesthetic jazz music has been lost somewhere in the world of fictional translation.
How many people reading this have been to a jazz show recently in Manhattan? If you have, then you know the pains lying ahead for your wallet. Being a jazz fan in Manhattan can deplete your monthly entertainment budget in one night. When a fan has to shell out twenty-five dollars plus a two-drink minimum for one set of music, somethings wrong. First, the sheer amount is mind boggling compared to NYC in the early days. Second, even with the increase in covers and food/drink the musicians are still getting the short end of the stick. I feel like I am cheating the musician when I know how little of my money actually makes it into their pocket.
If you go across the East River to Brooklyn and enter the world of hipsters in Williamsburg, you experience the bitterest portion of the NYC musical market. Ask most musicians how much money they make playing in Williamsburg. Large majorities of people that reside in Williamsburg are notorious for not paying covers or giving support when the money bucket makes the round. On the other hand, its not uncommon to encounter people splurging on fifty-dollar bar tabs. Where do the musicians fall in this wacky game of musical chairs? Club owners in both Manhattan and Brooklyn can act as if its an honor for musicians to have the privilege of gracing the bandstand of their establishment. Has the consumption level for live music changed so much here that theres no turning back? Even though club owners and the upper class might not feel the full damage of financial collapse, the people who do are the high school kids and the twenty something undergraduates that have devoted their lives to music. Whats waiting on the other end for these kids when its their turn?
I personally challenge the jazz community at large to weigh our own collective fate. If the business model thats in place now stays the way it is, jazz might very well be in its last years as a vital performance art. Other than private philanthropy or government intervention, how else can jazz music survive? Where does Americas music rank on the list along with terrorism, stock-market collapses, and Botox? Not too high and the people that lose out are the young generations that grow up missing out on their own culture because we failed to adequately preserve it. Hopefully our Miles Davis-loving president can do something in the coming years for the arts. It kills me to see how pitiful our culture has become given our rich history in the development of music.
This brief article is my small attempt as a musician and a writer to engage my community with open dialogue. I am really tired of having conversations about who plays better than whom or who did what the best. Lets move onto to something more meaningful. The musical atmosphere is changing rapidly with each year. Are we as a community doing enough to make our voices heard? What can we do to ensure jazz music survives another fifty years? I know we can do something, what do you think?
This blog entry posted by Jared Pauley.
Tags:
IMO Jazz music in general exists more or less in a permanent state of depression . Jazz musicians generally have to make a living doing things like teaching, doing GB gigs ,etc. Even the old standbys of pit orchestras and recording in general have fallen way off the radar. Far too many of the remaining few jazz gigs ( and these usually only in larger cities ) are low paying or worse, "door " gigs. Too many jazz clubs these days book singers and other "quasi -jazz" acts to attract a wider public. I am now "semi -retired" but I spent 40 + years wriiting jingles, and film and TV music .Now, for fun, I do my own jazz projects just to keep my mind active and I'm having more fun than I have in the past 40 years! Most of the jazz musicians I know play for the joy of the music and rely on other means to put food on their families :) Phil Kelly www.philkellymusic.com NW Prevailing Winds SW Santa Ana Winds Origin Records
The difficulties facing Jazz musicians are pretty much the same for musicians of every genre. In a perfect world you could make a healthy living doing what you love... i'm studying audio engineering at the moment, and the reality is i almost certainly won't be able to do it for a living. There will always be an audience for Jazz and all quality music, how much money is in it is another matter entirely.
I'm actually living in China right now making ends meet as a jazz musician. You're right about the export of jazz. When I first got to Shanghai a year and a half ago I noticed that the same groups were playing almost every night at all the biggest jazz clubs. Today the scene is more diverse with a lot more talented expats, and some people are even complaining that the market is becoming over saturated.
Maybe I'm naive, but, considering the dire circumstances, I think we're doing OK. When there's less money going around, sure, people might opt to stay at home an extra night or two, but historically, they seem to take more pride in saving the right amount of money to still go out and do what makes them happy. For one, I went to Smalls last week to see Seamus Blake and got there an hour early to hang out and make sure I could grab a seat - and it was already standing room only (d'oh!). Countless other shows have been consistently packed and/or selling out - and, last time I looked, the Vanguard is still boosting ticket prices an extra $5 for the "bigger shows" - why? because people are still walking down those steps (if the Vanguard has suspended that, kudos, if not, maybe it's time?). Anyway, there's no doubt that the beginners and mid-level artists have a tough road ahead of them these days, but that's hardly a new dilemna. Let's be thankful that there ARE other options - teaching, writing, performing abroad (hardly a knock on one's pride or abilities) so that no one has to completely abandon their ambitions. Perhaps most importantly, though, for every "$25 plus two drink minimum" jazz club out there - there's another cheaper NYC hang where the players are just as good. Cornelia St. Cafe, 55 Bar, Smalls, Cachaca, Bar Next Door, Stone, Jazz Gallery (with $$ exceptions for big artists), Zinc Bar... these are cheap(er) clubs with great music - even more the reason to check these places out. They are easier on the wallet, and these are the musicians (and club owners, and bartenders) who need our help to sustain their careers. Kind of a win-win. And while you're there, you might catch the new young guns working out their material and smashing to bits any notion of a "cultural standstill" - one that I hardly believe exists. Might an upstart club or another magazine not make it through '09? Of course - and it's a horrible thing. But the musicians will get through it - and may even come out of the other side with more energy and enthusiasm then when they started.
So far in 2009 Jazz Journal and the Mississippi Rag have gone out of business -- not, in the latter case, due to financial problems, but a loss nonetheless. I predict we'll lose at least one more jazz periodical this year. There is already a report about the financial difficulties facing Festival Network, which produces the JVC Jazz Festivals in New York, Newport and elsewhere, and rumors those fests won't occur. The Jazz Foundation of America has lost E*Trade as a sponsor for its Emergency Housing and Health fund. Ticket sales were off and general buzz diminished at the PDX Jazz Festival (Portland OR). I wouldn't be surprised if some NYC jazz clubs closed. Musicians will carry on -- there's no evidence of musicality vanishing in the financial meltdown -- but there are few young players emerging who believe they can survive without doing something other than playing. Let's not kid ourselves that jazz is immune from economic downturns.
The money losses for working musicians are not limited to the Jazz portion of the industry. It is right across the board. The problem starts right at the base and continues through every avenue of the business. The golden recording years proved that there was not only hope that a working musician could make a decent living but the inspiration of making large sums of money was also possible with record sales. That part of the industry has spurned the public into thieves. There used to be a bar in the recording industry as well. Now its just a fragmented miriad of computers and small time producers with entry level microphones plugged into cheap integrated microphone preamplifiers made by a bunch of prisoners in china. Then we take that signal and make MP3s. Who cares about sonic quality, bandwidth or jitter as long as it fits into abox the size of a cigarette package. In the old days we had people we called audiophiles. How many of those folks are left. The public doesn't really know what they are listening to or how the piece was produced. All they know is what they like. They now get more for less and more more nothing. The people that created and asked us all to accept the fact that the public is going to pilfer and rip your music anyway are the ones responsible for the record industry situation. It boils down now to how many friends you can make on facebook, myspace, youtube. Instead of spending your time honing your musical skills you are much better off being cool and finding as many friends as you can in areas such as these. Was there any bar for actual musical skill and knowledge ? Of course but the public or the majority never really pays much attention to that anyway. So much for a bar in that department. So what the whole thing boils down to is that we are all left to our own devices and whether we see music continue as an industry may just be left to one man upmanship (always been there), the golden oldies, the ones that already made it, billions of recording studios in 10 foot by ten foot rooms. Though there will always be ones that make millions whether they are talented or not while geniuses are busking on the corner for coffee money. Anyway don't be discouraged by any of this. Just make sure you put your money in when the collection bowl is being passed around for the car industry and everything will be just fine.
I'm young jumping into the music industry and having all of this happen right before I begin. How am I supposed to make a name for myself if the job I'm trying to get hired for doesn't exist. I have a little false sense of security that I'm going to be the only one brave enough to follow through with a performing career... but besides that I'm hanging onto nothing. Maybe we are all supposed to go to Europe. That's fine, I like spaghetti.