Jazz Ain't Easy

Date: 31 May 2003 19:32:11 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.music.bluenote
Size: 2,665 bytes

Amidst the amusements of the Ray Bryant threads, Ric posted a comment which
deserves a reply. Regarding a hard-to-find import, Ric wrote:
<< As far as the average jazz listener is concerned...this CD does not exist.
>>
This, I think, is an astonishingly ignorant comment to find posted in a jazz
discussion forum -- and an ironic comment to find, online.
I own a few thousand jazz albums. I have written about the music for several
years, and I spent some years before that running a popular record store in the
Boston area. I certainly don't rank with someone like Jack Woker, but I suspect
I'm among the more knowledgeable RMB participants.
The single most important factor to jazz recordings, this past decade, has been
the internet. Musicians and labels have created their own websites, cheaply, to
sell and distribute their music. Mainstream sites, like Amazon and CDUniverse,
readily offer recordings from heretofore-obscure or foreign labels. Retailers
like Tower and Borders employ individual buyers, who can now easily connect
with smaller labels to distribute their products. And niche websites, like
CrazyJazz or ControTempoJazz, have found a market for themselves.
For the past few years, the Import:Domestic ratio in my own purchases has grown
steadily. Today, at least half the CDs I buy come from overseas.
The internet has also caused an explosion of the secondary market. Websites
like eBay and Half.com offer listeners the opportunity to purchase out-of-print
recordings. Last year, I bought an old, out-of-print release by Hal Crook &
Jerry Bergonzi. I bought it using Amazon's website, from a seller in Germany
who didn't speak English. (I can't even say "Hello" in German.) We were able to
conduct a perfect business transaction, thanks to the internet.
I find Ric's attitude to be shockingly lazy. Frankly, it's the kind of comment
I expect to hear from a pop music fan. I love jazz. I love great music -- and I
don't mind that great jazz requires more of me, as a listener, than does pop
music. I don't think it's unreasonable that shopping for jazz should require
more of me than would shopping for pop music.
I have trouble taking seriously someone who says, "I love jazz...but if it's
too much trouble to get an album, then I won't bother." That person identifies
themselves, in my opinion, as an "amateur fan." I know too many people who will
gladly jump through hoops, and pay an extra few dollars, to own a fantastic
foreign, or out-of-print CD.
There's a lot of fantastic jazz out there, Ric. If you're limiting yourself to
what you find on your local shelves, then you're simply missing out on the vast
majority of it.
crib