In my wildest dreams I can't imagine playing for a club audience larger than
30 people given my current status as the best kept secret in jazz. We're not
talking about rock, rap, hip-hop, blues, or even smooth jazz. We're talking
about traditional, tasteful small combo stuff. Whom would we open for --
Miles Davis?

Were it possible to get onto even the very parochial traditional jazz
festival circuit (Dixieland, Swing, semi-Bop) -- still a longshot and a year
away -- we might sell some CDs since the audiences would be bigger. But
locally? Forget it.

Russ

WESTLAKE PUBLISHING COMPANY
www.finescalerr.com
WESTLAKE RECORDS
www.westlakerecords.com


"playon" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 4 Jul 2004 16:05:42 -0700, "Uncle Russ"
wrote:

I completely agree with Bob Olhsson ... having learned the hard way what
he
so succinctly wrote.

I'm lucky enough to own a small magazine publishing company that earns me
a
decent living. When I returned to jazz, I expanded my company to include
music CD production. I bought good gear and discovered my photography
studio
doubles as a good music studio. With the help of Ben Maas (whom I met on
this group), I recorded and produced my own album. I used my writing,
photographic, and computer graphics skills to create artwork, liner
notes,
and a website with free sample downloads.

The album is for sale not only on my own site and from advertising in my
own
publications, but also online at Amazon, Tower Records, CD Baby, and half
a
dozen Internet download sites (like Apple I-Tunes). I sent a copy to Fred
Kaplan, the author of the article at the beginning of this thread, and he
failed to acknowledge receipt of -- let alone review -- the CD. A couple
of
less well known people did review it (very positively). Even without
paying
a publicist, I even got my fair share of air play on a few all-jazz FM
stations around North America.

Big deal. After 9 months, I doubt I have sold as many as 60 albums.

Yeah but do you ever play anywhere? A pal of mine sold 170 of his CDs
at one recent concert where he was opening for a name act & he
routinely sells dozens of CDs at his smaller gigs.

Al