The current JAZZNET247 RADIO EUROPE project was created in 1994 and the name JazzNet247 stands for The Jazz Network available 24/7 - ANYTIME, ANYWHERE and on ANY INTERNET DEVICE.
JazzNet247 Radio Europe was the Radio Station arm of my hugely popular EuroClubdeJazz Project which had 16 Radio Channels featuring many jazz sub-genres with STREETJAZZ being the marquee show, as the name suggests it featured many lesser known Indie Artists as well as the current household names from the Smooth and Fusion Jazz genres. We have always featured Vocals and Brazilian Jazz as well on this show as well as tracks from the past 6 decades.
At this time my Multimedia and Marketing company AGMAMI.com was approached by Sony Jazz in London and asked to develop the Sony Jazz UK website and online marketing elements such as E-Newsletters, Promotional Flash Cards, Digi-Cards, Enhanced CDs for the artists, and generically these were products which I had been designing already for other business and music business clients. It was a huge break from tradition for them as all of the other Sony websites were created and hosted inhouse, but the Marketing VP Adam Sieff wanted someone who understood about jazz to undertake this specialist project.
The two projects knitted seamlessley together for 6 years at which time Sony was amalgamated with German company BMG and they dissolved the jazz catalogue per se, dropped the website and sold LPs from the greatest jazz catalogue known to modern day jazz in outlets like Woolworths. Soon after the EuroClubdeJazz Project became so large and time consuming that I stopped the main project website and concentrated on the Radio Station only i.e. JazzNet247 Radio Europe.
Although based in Europe the station has a global reach, even in 1994 with so many colleagues, friends and artists associated to the EuroClubdeJazz project it became a jazz hub very soon in its own right. Today in 118 countries.
The marquee show STREETJAZZ was the vanguard to help independent artists showcase their music, generally they had no record label behind them and had little or no capital, or in many cases limitied marketing or PR knowledge. Hopefully I introduced many of them to a new audience and helped them along their career path. One of the artists, namely Paula Atherton and I became great friends in the late 90's and it was a huge pleasure to see her progress to the top all 3 Jazz Charts in 2021 concurrently. Very well deserved by Paula for all her hard work, determination, her huge talent, but most of all - 'the belief in her own ability to succeed'.
Make no bones about it - Jazz today is a tough gig with only 3 to 4% market sales and the landscape has changed so much during the past 30 plus years of the internet that it has become much easier for artists to communicate with their target market, BUT much harder to make any sales. I will expand on that subject in later editions of Personal Notes, but as someone who was very close to the 'goings on' at a major label and 'operating a marketing and multimedia company' myself I think that the way the current methodology of 'final music production' to 'advertising' to 'sales', AND most importantly, 'making a profit' are far from ideal.
So fast forward to today - I have no funding for the project and bear all the running costs myself to help others and this does not account for the 30 - 40 hours per week to research, communicate, produce and market the shows.
Our music licencing is done via MIXCLOUD in London, UK,, something that is very important to me, it may not be a lot of money going back to the artists, e.g. in the UK circa £0.009 via Amazon per stream, ( Note :- it would take almost 1,000 streams to earn one hour of the UK Minumum Wage), BUT it is their livelihood, and in 29 years of promoting the artists on my projects I have never asked any of them for a cent for anything, the business is way to hard these days.
With Jazz music in decline since the early 1960's today's artists have always got an uphill battle a) to attract listeners with something original, and b) to get enough people to pay for their music to make it worthwhile. Today's streaming option of individual tracks and hearing a sample before buying it have certainly helped.
In my experience of 63 plus years
in entertainments jazz is a minority genre and it must be difficult for today's artists to make a professional living from it. e.g. Phillip 'Doc' Martin plays music as a passionate hobby as he is a dentist by profession. Therefore our project has been helping jazz for many years by showcasing the latest artists and songs and introducing many newbies to our vast back catalogue through our 6 jazz channels.
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