Musicians and Copyright

Apologies for being AWOL recently but I've been super-busy!

So far this summer I have been to Greece twice, up north to Wirral and I'm about to start my rural tour in Cumbria, Durham and Northumberland tomorrow.  And BBC weather states that we're heading for a UK heatwave - yay!  I won't need any wellies - which is just as well as I couldn't find any sequinned ones...

And next month I'm off to Moscow to perform there for the first time.  Before that I'll be back up north to Wakefield and then in December back again to Greece for some gigs over the Christmas period. :-)

I've also been rehearsing for a new European project with guitarist Jonny Phillips for the London Jazz Festival in November.  I'm planning to sing songs in Italian, French, German, Spanish and Russian!  Time to brush up on those language skills...

But back to the reason for this post.  An excellent guide to copyright has just been published by the wonderful Jazz Services.  It contains important information that every musician/composer should know.  Definitely worth checking out to make sure you're not missing out on any potential income.

Download the Jazz Services Guide to Copyright here

UK Jazz Tour - Gigs 7 & 8 of 12 - London & Oxford

I became an honorary Pole on 5th March and it was fabulous!  The Polish hostess for the show at Jazz Cafe POSK in Hammersmith was the gorgeous Mariola and we were even treated to Polish cakes during the interval.  And I've discovered a new favourite drink... Zubrowka aka Bison Grass Vodka!   Absolutely delicious served with chilled apple juice.  And I've heard that you can also serve it over vanilla ice-cream.  Double yum!





With the lovely Mariola





George, Milo and Dave tucking into Polish cakes!

 

The audience were lovely and although we had to compete at times with a rather noisy birthday party happening in another section of the room, the audience seemed to enjoy themselves and there were lots of happy smiley faces.




Some of the happy smiling faces

 


Next was a return to Oxford - one of my favourite cities.  Unfortunately I got delayed by an accident on the M40 and although I left London at 4.30pm to get there for 6.45pm, I didn't arrive at the venue until 8.20pm...  Ten minutes before I was due on stage!  Other complications were that I had a call from Milo, the drummer, that day and unfortunately, due to no fault of his own, he was unable to do the gig so we had to get a dep in with very short notice.  Luckily, Charlie Stratford - a local drummer - was available and he acquitted himself extremely well and was a joy to play with!





George, Charlie and Oli

 Joe's Bar & Grill is a another great venue.  It's a shame they don't advertise the music more as with a decor that includes a beautiful chandelier and black and white photos adorning the walls, it has the makings of an excellent jazz club.




Joe's Bar & Grill

 



Lovely Layla and husband
(And more smiling faces)

  

UK Jazz Tour - Gigs 5 & 6 of 12 - Hawth, Crawley & Camberwell Crypt

We're half way through!

The Hawth is a lovely venue.  A proper but cosy little studio theatre with raked seating. Only thing is when I was on stage the audience was in complete darkness which meant I could see no-one at all!  I love to see the faces of the audience while I'm singing so that made it a little difficult but I made up for this by going out and meeting them all during the interval...

The Hawth Theatre

George, Oli and Milo on stage during soundcheck

 

Somr of the people I met during the interval



Brian (a jazz photographer) and his wife.  He took lots of pictures of me during
 the show so I thought it only fair to return the favour!



Me with 2 lovely ladies -  She looks as if she's about to kiss me
but think she was just caught mid sentence!



Taken by a professional - Brian O'Connor



Another photo from Brian O'Connor (See my photo of Brian above!)



Oli was back with us for these 2 gigs and it was lovely to play with him and hear stories of his tour in Ireland with Zoe Rahman.  The promoter also arranged for us to be given a hot meal before the performance.  This seems like a luxury but really it should be a necessity as when we've travelled for hours it can be tough to then have to go out looking for somewhere to get a meal with only minutes to spare after the soundcheck.  And that's not to mention the added cost!  I wish all promoters would consider this.

Then the next day we were in my home town of London for my first performance at the Camberwell Crypt.  I've been to this venue as part of the audience before and always loved it so it was great to be performing there.  Again we had a meal before the performance and I highly recommend the food.  Especially the puddings.  Yum!

What was particularly good about this venue is that it's full of young people.  A real rarity in jazz.  There were more than a hundred people there and the average age definitely seemed to be under thirty.  Maybe we shouldn't be so pessimistic about the future of jazz after all?



The sign says "Welcome To The Crypt"  A bit spooky, no?  Muhahahahaha!




Some of the lovely people at the gig

 

More lovely people.  And the girl on the left has spectacular hair!



UK Jazz Tour - Gig 1 of 12 - The Chapel, Stratford-upon-Avon

First of all, you probably noticed that the title says 1 of 12 instead of 1 of 13.  That's because sadly one of the gigs (Derby) got cancelled this week.  :-(  But... it means I get to spend a free day - a mini-holiday if you like - in lovely Northumberland.  So it's not all bad!

Anyway, back to Stratford Jazz @The Chapel.  We arrived after a 2-hour fairly easy drive to be met by a very helpful member of staff who also doubled as the sound engineer. 

The promoter Roy - who does a wonderful job running the club - arrived soon after and they sorted out drinks and food for us whilst we set up and did a quick soundcheck.  If only all gigs were so smoothly run and well organised!  I complimented Roy on his great checked shirt which made him chuckle as he said his wife hated it!

The audience started to trickle in quite quickly and there was a good turnout with all seats taken, and a couple more standing at the bar.  The promoter Roy introduced us and we started our set.

Audience coming in at start of gig

Ryan Trebilcock who was standing in for Oli Hayhurst did a remarkable job.  Especially as he only saw the music 30 minutes before we went on stage.  What a star!



Ryan, George, Milo and me



During the break I chatted with some of the lovely people in the audience  - if any of you read this, please comment so that I can add your name below your photo - and then we were back on for the second set in what seemed like the blink of an eye.



Someone trying to take a photo of me while I was taking a photo of them!




Some lovely audience members




More lovely audience members



The audience called for an encore at the end of the second set and we did a new version (with my own lyrics) of the standard "Let's Do It" which went down really well.  Someone came up to me at the end and urged me to add some more of these types of songs to my repertoire as he believed I had a talent for satirical lyric writing.  Hmm,,, food for thought.

And then there was the lovely lady who, as she was leaving, said to me excitedly that she'd never listened to jazz before but that she really enjoyed our performance.  For me, that's one of the best things someone can say to me at the end of a gig. I feel proud to have attracted a new convert to jazz!  One by one...

Next gig - 14th February @ The Royal Albert Hall, Elgar Room. 

Live Music and the Recession

I've just read an interesting article on Yahoo News that reports that revenue has fallen for touring bands this year.  When I said "interesting", what I meant was depressing!  Just last year, live gigs and selling merchandise was being touted as the saviour of the music business.  Yes, album sales were down with the increase in downloads but if musicians and bands were any good then they could prove their worth and increase their income by touring.  And personally I've found that live gigs are the only way to sell albums now with record shops having all closed down...  So what now?  Answers on a postcard please.  Or in the comments section at the end of this post. :-)

In other news...  I've just ordered my flyers!  Found a really great site called alocalprinter.com that produces eco-friendly flyers cheaply and efficiently.  Hopefully they'll arrive sometime next week.  Just in time really because most of the venues need them 6-8 weeks in advance of the performance date.  I've 13 dates in total now.  I was let down by 3 venues but thankfully found 3 more to replace them.  Just as well that 13 is my lucky number!  I'm really hoping that things turn around by next year for the live music industry or that someone comes up with an ingenious solution that will save my tour in the comment section below...  Here's the final list:


Juliet Kelly presents... Inspired: Celebrating the Divas of Jazz
UK TOUR

Featuring George Moore - piano/arrangements, Oli Hayhurst/Dave Mannington - bass & Milo Fell - drums

06 Feb - Stratford Jazz, Stratford upon Avon 8pm

14 Feb - Royal Albert Hall (Elgar Room), London 8.30pm

17 Feb - Queen's Hall Arts Centre, Hexham 8pm

18 Feb - Voicebox, Derby 8pm

19 Feb - The Maltings, Berwick-upon-Tweed 7.30pm

24 Feb - The Hawth, Crawley 8.15pm

25 Feb - Camberwell Crypt, London 9.30pm

05 Mar - Jazz Cafe Posk, London 8.30pm

10 Mar - Joe's Bar & Grill, Oxford 8pm

17 Mar - Restormel Arts, St Austell 8pm

18 Mar - The Bebop Club, Bristol 9pm

19 Mar - Chapel Arts Centre, Bath 8pm

20 Mar - Ipswich Jazz Club, Ipswich 8pm



And December's Vocal Zone goes out tonight at 8pm on UK Jazz Radio.

Juliet Kelly's Vocal Zone - December Playlist

I'm loving being a presenter for UK Jazz Radio!  It's great to help in some small way to give current jazz vocalists more exposure.  In December's show I focus on singers I believe are underrated.  Here's the playlist:

December - Underated (on air from Sat 4th Dec)

Sheila Jordan – Little Song/Blackbird (Little Song – High Note)

Frank Holder – As Long As I Live (Ballads Blues Bop – Mainstem)

Christine Tobin – Bye Bye (Secret Life of A Girl – Babel)

Vanessa Rubin – Simone (Pastiche – Novus)

Vanessa Rubin – Tenderly (Soul Eyes – Novus)

Vanessa Rubin – Yardbird Suite (I’m Glad There is You: A Tribute to Carmen McRae – Novus)

Beady Belle – Apron Strings (Belvedere - Universal)

Carmen Lundy – Moment to Moment (Moment to Moment - Arabesque)

Jacqui Dankworth – Sign Your Name (Courtney Pine’s Devotion – Destin-E)

Sheila Jordan – If I Should Lose You (Little Song – High Note)

For January's show the theme will be British vocalists.

Juliet Kelly's Vocal Zone - November Playlist

Making Money From Music or 1,000 True Fans

I was a member of a panel last Monday at an event that was part of the London Jazz Festival organised by the Musicians' Union.  The topic was Marketing and Promoting Your Music and it turned out to be a very interesting and lively discussion.  Other panel members were David Jones (Promoter, Serious), Kit Downes (Musician, Kit Downes Trio), Steve Rubie (606 Club owner), Rick Finlay (Musician, Just East) and the panel was chaired very successfully by Dave Webster from the MU.  (If you're not a member of the MU, I'd urge you to become one.  They run lots of interesting free events like these.)

One of the ideas I brought up was the concept of "1,000 true fans" which I think is especially important in the niche genre of jazz.  Everybody has been talking about "the long tail" - the ability of music outlets to increase sales in the digital age because they have an endless catalogue with a huge amount of sales although most individual items are selling in very small amounts.

Although good news for the likes of Amazon, unfortunately this doesn't mean much for the thousands of jazz musicians who are selling very few CDs.  All it does is increase competition and reduce prices and therefore income.

The 1,000 True Fans idea argues that an artist only has to acquire one thousand real fans to make a living.  A "true fan" is someone who will buy every album you produce, go to as many gigs as possible even if it means travelling over long distances, buy any merchandise you produce and tell everyone they know (by word of mouth and online through social networking etc) just how fantastic you are!  Perhaps you have some of these wonderful people already but increasing that number to one thousand would ensure that you could make a reasonable living from your music.

But how do we attract these fans?  For me, the only answer is one by one.  I don't have the money or support of a record label to launch a PR and marketing campaign.  This means that I need to connect to every fan individually and directly.  If you show your fans that they are important to you and that their support and opinions count, eventually you will convert casual fans into "true fans".  Of course the downside of this is that you'll have less time to devote to your music.  Nurturing fans takes quite a bit of time.  It means staying engaged by responding quickly to all emails sent to you by fans through your website, setting up and monitoring accounts on myspace, facebook and twitter etc.  Most importantly, it means giving your time and energy at gigs by chatting to the audience members and signing CDs both during the intervals and at the end of the night (when really all you might feel like doing is collapsing in a heap somewhere with a large glass of something).  But I think it's worth it.  Do you?

More in-depth analysis of the concept here.

Jazz on the Airwaves

Yesterday I attended the relaunch party and one year anniversary of UK Jazz Radio.  It was so wonderful to see the support for what is sadly one of the few media outlets for jazz in this country.  There was great music from Digby Fairweather and his band and guest spots included appearances from the excellent Geoff Eales, the fabulous Tina May and a wonderful singer I'd not heard before called Val Wiseman.

BBC Radio does a fairly good job but obviously they need to cater to all tastes and can't be expected to play jazz 24/7.  Here's a useful page where you can find a summary of the jazz on BBC Radio. Looking through this list though we can see that they've also included blues in this list and also that a lot of the programmes are general music programmes that aren't averse to adding jazz tracks to the playlist rather than playing jazz exclusively. 

Then there's Jazz FM...  After the demise of theJazz - a new station that only lasted 2 years - I was so excited to hear in 2008 that Jazz FM was back on the airwaves after its ambush and takeover by Smooth FM.  Sadly, however, it's no longer available on FM (regular radio) and can only be heard online or on DAB (digital radio) in restricted areas.  On a positive note though, apparently it's available using iPhone or Google android apps too. 

So with the lack of dedicated jazz on the radio,  I'm really hoping that all lovers of jazz will get behind and give massive support to UK Jazz Radio - a new internet radio station - that devotes itself completely to jazz and has already attracted 600,000 listeners worldwide.  Founder and one-man operator Brian Soundy has worked tirelessly to get the station up and running and the presenters have given their time to promote and support jazz in the UK.  Please listen to the excellent programmes and most of all SPREAD THE WORD!

(I have to declare an interest here...  I'm one of 9 new presenters to the station and will be starting my "Juliet Kelly's Vocal Zone" programme soon to highlight the wealth of vocal talent on the current jazz scene.  It goes without saying that we are all indebted to the icons of the past like Ella, Sarah, Nina and Bille but I'm hoping to introduce listeners to singers who are currently continuing the tradition and/or pushing the boundaries to contribute to the vibrant and evolving jazz scene today.  I'll post details of the first programme soon.)

In other news...  I've been a bit slack recently with working on the tour but during the last week I've:

• Worked on the press release - almost finished.
• Confirmed all dates with promoters (apart from one.  Hmm....at this late stage it's doubtful that I'll be able to replace it as I did with the other two.)
• Previewed the material at the Pizza Express.  Just a few rough edges that need to be sorted before we take it on tour.  On the whole though I'm very pleased!

Next week I'll be:

• Making sure that I've sent all necessary information to each promoter/venue for brochures/websites/programmes.
• Researching contacts for local newspapers and radio stations for the areas I'll be visiting.

I'll also be recording my first radio show and working on another couple of new projects.  More news soon.

If I've missed any jazz radio programmes on other independent stations please feel free to post them below.  It would be great to have a comprehensive list of all the jazz radio shows in the UK.

Pay What You Want

I discovered two great blogs by musicians yesterday.  Both highly recommended!

The first is by the wonderful UK guitarist Mike Outram who writes a funny and insightful blog about music and life in general.  I've had the pleasure of working with Mike and although I knew he was an amazing musician, I never realised he was such a great writer until I discovered his blog...

The second was recommended by Mike and is from a US trumpeter called Jason Parker.  In his One Working Musician blog he writes about the daily life of a musician and chronicles his  "path to self-sufficiency" and  "thoughts on how to live a creative, art-centered life".

In one post, Jason mentions a Pay-What-You-Want system which was something I tried when selling my Licorice Kiss albums during my Arts Council sponsored tour last year.  I was a bit nervous about it at first and became even more so when a student at one gig offered me just £1.94 (the change he had in his pocket) for the album I'd been used to asking £10 for!  But strangely enough when I worked it all out at the end of the tour, I'd managed to shift an average of 10 CDs per gig which worked out to about £9.50 per album.  And I'm pretty sure that a lot of those sales wouldn't have happened at all had I stuck to my £10 per CD pricing.  In the end, most people paid £10 for it.  I also made sure to point out at the time that it was more about "Pay What You Think It's Worth" rather than "Pay What You Want" which probably accounted for those sales where people paid £15 and sometimes even £20.  Anyway, it all worked out in the end and I was one happy bunny! :-D