Jazzletter 93023 July 15, 1983 Vol
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P1). BOX 240 Ojai, Calif. Jazzletter 93023 July 15, 1983 Vol. 2 N0. 12 Year’s End up the audience that the Sony and JBL and Akai people want to talk to. At the height of the competition between the proposed “discrete” Down Beat has a different constituency. It too has had and “matrix” quadraphonic systems, High Fidelity commissioned difficulty attracting record advertising. One record executive told me to write an evaluation of the systems being promoted by CBS, me that the only reason he took ads in the magazine was to RCA, and other companies. I studied and listened to them all, massage the egoes of his artists. Another said bluntly that he felt guided and aided by Wendy Carlos, whose knowledge of the money was more effectively spent on payola. Consequently, electronics of sound is enormous. Down Beat is heavily dependent on the advertising of instrument In the end I concluded that it was all an appalling waste of manufacturers. And to whom do instrument manufacturers make money, which would ultimately be passed on to the consumer in the bulk of sales, professionals or students? Students, obviously. higher prices for other things. Hearing is a primitive —— compared The situation is analogous to that of photography magazines. If ' h sight — sense that serves as a warning system. It is charged Eastman Kodak and Nikon had to depend on the purchases of ‘h emotion, precisely in order that we will react instantaneously professionals, they would be out of business. Therefore to danger. This is its survival value and, I am convinced, the photography magazines are aimed at the non-professional camera foundation of the mysterious art called music. It is instinctive, buff. Since Down Beat is so dependent on instrument even in “lower” animals, to look toward the source of a sudden manufacturers, it would be irrational to expect it to do other than sound. And it is in our very nature to want, even to need, to keep act in the broad interests of those manufacturers. This is one important sounds in front ofus, whether the hissing ofa wildcat or reason it has been such a supporter of the jazz education the song of the thrush. The bird-watcher with hisbinoculars is movement. Any magazine's editorial direction inevitably will be perhaps the perfect symbol of the concert audience. determined by the need to attract the audience that its advertisers A quadraphonic system that surrounds us with sound is in wish to address. This is not to derogate the jazz education conflict with the psychology of hearing. Given this fact — and I movement (although there are within it teachers who have some think it is a fact — and without even considering a woman’s reservations about it, which is a subject for another time). It is to problem of planning a room decor to accommodate two speakers, identify the invisible motive for Down Beat’s attitude toward it. much less four, all the storm of claims and counterclaims of CBS But in order to attract that adolescent audience that Elkhart and RCA amounted to a bad joke, as nitwitted as their earlier and South Bend want to reach, Down Beat gradually came to conflicts over 45 and 33 l/3 r.p.m. record speeds, which left us compromise its critical standards, praising music that was saddled forever with expensive and useless gearing in our successful and popular with “the kids” in order not to alienate that turntables, and television color, in which the wrong side won and audience. This fading of objectivity accelerated when, in the age of left us with a system much inferior to the systems in Europe. In all rock, guitar became the most popular instrument, and then these cases, it is obvious that marketplace competition, the various electronic keyboard instruments came into vogue. When rationale of our economic philosophy, did not work in the public’s makers of wah-wah pedals and synthesizers became potential Qt interests. But in this instance, I predicted, we would not be sources of ad revenue, Down Beat began to pay attention to and ck with a bad system, we would have no quad at all: the public praise some egregious musical crap. wouldn’t like and wouldn’t buy it. Rolling Stone had no such problem of altered policy. It was Had High Fidelity printed that article, it could later have taken founded on the celebration of rock, and although it triesito move credit for some accurate prognostication. But they didn’t print it, away from its origins, it still is caught up in the praise of the and one of the editors said something far more significant than he successful rather than the detection of the worthy. realized: “We’re rather committed to quad.” The various magazines such as Guitar Player and Frets and But of course. No magazine that is supported by the advertising Keyboard and Musician similarly serve, whether the editors are of high-fidelity equipment manufacturers is likely to go counter to consciously aware of it or not, the needs of the advertisers. the economic interests of its angels. And its angels were lit up like To a greater or lesser degree, all these publications, including Christmas trees over the possibility of selling four speakers (since the addition of its “Back Beat” review section) High instead of two, and, for that matter, persuading every music lover Fidelity, cater to the fantasy of the would-be rock musician, and hi-fi freak that his equipment was obsolete and should be namely that of getting rich quick. This is a basic difference forthwith replaced. between jazz and rock musicians. The jazz musician has an The nuance of the situation that fascinated me was the indirect impassioned and sometimes even fanatical interest in and corruption of the thinking of the editors, all good and honorable commitment to music, in itself and for its own pure sake. The rock men, by the advertising process. They had rationalized themselves musician is primarily interested in making money. into enthusiasm for quad because it was in the economic interests Billboard sen/es the entertainment industry — indeed, at one of their employer’s money sources. point its chief executive officer was the former president of a For this reason you can, and should, evaluate a magazine by its record company. Every once in a while it runs a “special issue” on advertising. It is the first thing to look at: it tells you who’s paying some subject or another, and attracts a prodigious amount of for the publication, which in tum determines its editorial bias. advertising. Its editorial policy is in general in accord with the High Fidelity and Stereo Review draw their revenue from overall desires of the industry. hardware makers. (They have never been able to attract much The immense amounts of money the record companies realized record advertising.) Therefore the editorial policy is shaped (and it from the rock phenomenon permitted and perhaps made is irrelevant whether it is done consciously or otherwise) to round inevitable the editorial corruption ofpublications so powerful and Copyright 1983 by Gene Lees prestigious that one might have thought them beyond reach. The And so all I can do is thank you, with some very special thanks New York Times, I am told, now has four rock and/ or pop to some new friends, including Frank Tack, Lyn Murray, and Dr. reviewers. One suspects a manly ignorance ofthe “feminine” art of Terry Rogers, and an old friend, Robert Farnon. music in its upper editors as the explanation of a tolerance for so And this is who we are: much sober writing about the ridiculous. But in the case of the Los Angeles Times, something more directly sinister seems to be at Michael Abene, Sharon Aday, Eleanore Aldrich, Will Alexander, work. The record companies and rock promoters spend huge Mousie Alexander, Asa B. Allen, Steve Allen, David Allyn, Lloyd amounts of money on advertising in its Sunday Calendar section. O. Anderson, Bill Angel, Ron Anton (BMI), Ted Arenson, Calendar reciprocates "with huge amounts of editorial space Hubert Amold, Mr. and Mrs. Irvin Arthur, Kenny Ascher, devoted to the glorification of trash and its makers and Harry Babasin, Bob Bain, Bill Ballentine (CKFM), Whitney merchants. And yet the Times at first turned down Leonard Balliett (The New Yorker), Julius Banas, Charlie Barnet, Charles Feather’s news story on the historically significant fact that the Baron, Jeff Barr, Randolph Bean, Shirley J. Beaty, Don Beggs, Monterey Jazz Festival last year was sold out more than two Lori Bell, Malcolm Bell Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Mike Benedict, Myron months in advance. Bennett, Dick Bentley, William S. Beres, Jay Berliner, Bill Berry, It is important to understand something. Payola is not Gene Bertoncini, the Beverly Hills Library, W.S. Bicknell, Fred necessary to this erosion of integrity, although for all I know the Binkley, David Bird (CBC), Prof. R.L. Blackmore (Colgate U.), more influential rock commentators may be as bought-and-paid- Pat Blair, Les Block, Charles E. Bloomquist, Phil Bodner, David for as Spanish bullfighting critics. The publications, whether J. Bondelevitch, Harry Boon (CJAZ), Terry Borst, Tracy Borst, High Fidelity or Down Beat or the Los Angeles Times, hire critics the Boston Conservatory, Jack Bradley, Leon Breeden (North who genuinely believe the astonishing nonsense they write. There Texas State U., ret.), Mark C. Brennan, Teresa Brewer, Bern? is nothing so trivial that someone, somewhere, will not take it Brightman (Stash Records), Bill Britto, Carol Britto, Peter . seriously, and contemporary journalism has taken on any Brooks, C.