Editorial: On the cusp
Posted December 31, 2007Looking back on 2007 might be a good way to start the new year. It has been a pretty exciting one, and a pretty exhausting one, too. With the music industry structures changing, there are a lot of gaps to be filled for the artists – while the freedom of the new media make them enthuse, the lack of professionalism in the business does not help them to find their path, not necessarily creatively, but in terms of their careers. While it is wonderful to be able to record almost anywhere and put your music on the internet for general consumption, it might well be frustrating for a creative person not to find the one producer that could make a difference to the arrangements and the sound, the one person once to be found in a record company that was actually able to help focus the development of the repertoire and the activities around a production, the one person in the same structure that was able to decide upon and handle the funds and the way to get the music to the people, rather than being drowned in the vast pool of myspace, never to be discovered by a great number. Not every artist is a great website creator and designer, even on a small scale. Not everyone knows how to write biographies, how to give a perception in words of their own artistic endeavors, etc. Not everyone, however big the musical talent, knows how to put their best foot forward in terms of communication. That’s where the professionals are missing, and while there were quite a few that were not as talented for their jobs as they thought themselves, there have been, in the past, some good a&r people at the label level to help artists to put creative people together to create good music and to make the right musical choices, some professional structures to handle the marketing and the promotion, more efficient physical distribution on the national and on the international level, which is not at all replaced by internet downloads.
All of this is changing, and change is refreshing, it is necessary, and it is inevitable. In the interim though, there is a lot of experimenting and uncertainty in the artistic community and a lot of need for moral and above all, structural support. Experienced publishers cannot replace record companies and management, but they can help, to a certain extent. We are trying.
Amongst the great pleasures of 2007 has been the creative and also commercial ascent of Yaron Herman, a young and quite extraordinary Israeli pianist based in France with his trio release in the autumn, “A TIME FOR EVERYTHING”; The appreciation of American hip hop artist Pigeon John by the excellent team of marketing of French chain “La Halle”, who picked one of his songs, “WEIGHT OF THE WORLD” for their advertising campaign and went on to invite the whole band for their Christmas bash. The song has become something of a company anthem, and the enthusiasm of the 500 staff at the party was a pleasure to behold; the signing of Toma Feterman and his group La Caravane Passe and the release, on the verge of 2007/2008, of their album “VELKOM PLECHTI!”. The signing of composer pianist and singer Sylvain Chauveau, who has been a favorite at Métisse Music for many years; and on the international level, to cite just a few: The releases of several jazz greats: Brad Mehldau with his collaborations with Pat Metheny, a beautiful solo by Jacky Terrasson, a very unconventional Blue Note release by Kenny Werner, still vastly under-appreciated, several Dave Liebman projects, the E.S.T. live album…
As well as the re-signing of Harold Budd, who would need a chapter for himself, but can be easily explored on the internet, for the curious ones.
Amongst the productions prepared in 2007 and which will be released in 2008, there are three that have been preoccupying us quite a lot in the last year already: Pianist Giovanni Mirabassi new trio album “TERRA FURIOSA” is a little gem, a classic jazz recording by this brilliant composer of themes and songs, ably supported by Leon Parker on drums, who hardly needs an introduction, and by Gianluca Renzi on acoustic bass – a brilliant musician who is too little known internationally. John Greaves, Welsh and based in Paris, has, over the last two years, been composing and producing “VERLAINE”, a collection of poems by the great French 19th century poet put into music; the production is magnificent, and so are the compositions. Both of these CDs will be released in France in February, both on independent French labels: Discograph and Zig Zag Territoires, respectively.
The third one is an eclectic little masterpiece by Jun Miyake, who is sharing his time between Tokyo and Paris. Jun, an excellent trumpet player who has studied music at Berklee in the US, has a great career as a commercial composer (advertising and film music) in Japan and has been, throughout his life, producing music that reflects his own eclecticism and openness to the world outside of Japan, while keeping his very personal approach. Amongst the artists that have been invited and have been happy to contribute their voices, their lyrics and their various instrumental skills to the production of “STOLEN FROM STRANGERS” are Arto Lindsay Arthur H., Sanseverino, Lisa Papineau (all voice and lyrics), Peter Scherer (piano), Dhafer Youssef (oud), radio personality Remy Kolpa Kopoul (text and spoken word), Vinicius Cantuaria (guitar). Enja Record’s (Germany) new label has signed this production for Europe, the label Drape will handle the release in Japan, via Videoarts. Partners need to be found for the rest of the world.
We are proud and happy to be able to handle the publishing for these three worldwide.
There is a lot more to be worked upon and told as the year unfolds. All our good wishes to the musicians and professionals of music for the year 2008, which will be, we feel, decisive for the way music is treated and appreciated, in many ways.