Holy crap! David Sanborn just called me!

Sometimes my job just rocks.

He's a really nice guy, and we spent a lot of time talking about that great TV show he had in the 80s called Night Music.


What a weird, totally random thing to happen on a Friday afternoon...

:toast: :yourock:

BTW - was my phone call to you not worthy of a thread? :P

Did you miss that thread? Oh yeah, it was great. I can't believe you didn't see it. I had well over 100 reponses to it. People were green with envy. They kept asking me for your phone number, and I was like, "JimmyJazz doesn't give out her number, dude. It's all about 'Don't call me, I'll call you.'"

I met him at the World Saxophone Congress in Montreal a few years ago. Short little fucker, though.

Great music

Al Green singing "Space Is The Place" with Sun Ra and his Arkestra.

He also was one of the first to give the Pixies a national audience. And he had the balls to put the Residents on TV!

Which I guess is why it was on at 3AM and didn't last very long. :(

do you do that you would get that kind of call? Cool.

...one of them big chains that sells a ton of jazz CDs.

cool! Good for you, a chain that sells jazz? Wish we had them around here.

Too cool!

I still can't believe I get to buy jazz CDs for a living. I used to get jobs to fund my jazz purchasing habit. Now not only do I get paid to do it, I also get pretty much any CD I want...for free!!

How'd you get this position?

I happen to live in the town where this retailer is based. I had worked in a great indie record store through college and beyond, and had been doing radio for a few years as well. My degree in Arts Management/Marketing probably helped too. But I think mostly it was a matter of being in the right place at the right time...isn't that so often how good things end up happening to us?

has never happened to me no matter how hard I work. But I'm glad you were able to capitalize on it. It sounds like a job right up my alley. I've got a degree in Music $ Business and knew I didn't want to teach and didn't have the skills to play professionally. One thing we do have here in this small town is a big city record store with a pretty decent jazz section.

But have you done any work with presenters? That's an area of the business that doesn't require you to live in NY, and it can be a lot of fun. Artist management/booking can also be rewarding, though it would have to start as a second career, as making 10-15% of what a jazz musician makes is pretty piddly.

Never heard of the job. What is it?

You can sometimes find something part-time fairly easily with a non-profit. Any subscription series in your town that might have a jazz series? You could start there. Maybe there's a jazz club in town? I do some (unpaid) consulting with our local jazz club. There are a lot of ways to establish contacts and a reputation within your local music scene. Then it becomes a lot easier to branch out from there.

The agents book the groups so where does the presenter come in? Thanks for your patience here.

Agents represent the performer.
Presenters decide who plays at their venue, and they negotiate artist fees with the artist's booking agent. They are often also called promoters. Once you book the gig, and you're out the artist performance fee, you have to get the butts in the seats.

It's a fun thing to do, honestly. The best presenters are up on pop culture - your best scores are getting someone on the way up before their fees get ridiculously high but when there's a lot of buzz on them.
And then you have to figure out the best way to market the show to your target audience. Is it flyering campus, buying a targeting mailing list, buying radio spots, getting the artist interviews on the local NPR station or in the arts section of the paper...

for the info!

Good luck.

I think it might be the only Sanborn song I know.

that San Francisco International Airport was a non-smoking facility, and that I should smoke only in designated areas.

He approached you to tell you this? What did you say to him?

technically it was over a loudspeaker. ;)

...in a NYC cab.

I'm such a dork.

At first I was going to go with Eartha Kitt in a NYC cab, but changed it to homeboy Glover. :D

The only time in my life I was ever tempted by drugs was cuz she told me that.