The Jazz masters Guild

Part Two

The Audience Identification Program

Published December/2000 on “Birdlives.com

As I mentioned in my article "Access," the problem the disenfranchised jazz musician faces today is one of access. The artist's lack of access to an audience that may want to hear them, and the audiences access to these artists. The reason for this lack of access have been clearly stated. It would appear that any efforts to improve the current business climate for these musicians by working within the system for change would be labor intensive and non-productive. The only other alternative solution, The Jazz Masters Guild, is no less labor intensive but does offer the hope of creating a "work-around" that will bypass the established system entirely.

The Jazz Masters Guild has a two-fold mission:

To reinstate the apprenticeship system for those students who wish to enhance their musical education through on-the-job experience playing with their bettors,

To offer work, for a living wage, those musicians who have become disenfranchised by the current educational and music business system.

One segment of this alternative approach is through the implementation of modern marketing techniques.

In marketing terms, the jazz music business may be termed a "niche" market. Successful niche marketing depends on maximizing the income that can be gained by targeting and identifying a market segment and maximizing the potential of small numbers of potential buyers.

This concept, as it relates to the jazz market segment, is based on certain assumptions that at first glance may be considered unwarranted.

That a master musician who has been performing and recording for over thirty years has garnered, worldwide, the minimum number of fans necessary to support thier career.

That 25,000 fans is this minimum number.

That $50,000 per year would be considered a basic living wage.

That each of these fans have a fervent desire to hear these musicians and are willing to spend, per year, $15 to come to one public performance and $15 buy one CD.

That these fans can be identified and collected in a fan data base.

If we can accept these assumptions, and a little later on in this article you'll begin see that they may be true, then each artist may have the potential to earn a gross income of $750,000 per year from this revenue source alone. At the end of Part Three (The Team Targeting Concept) I'll include a list of additional potential revenue sources that could support the total administrative expenses of the Jazz Masters Guild, its infrastructure and salaries.

Naturally, one would be sceptical about the existence of a fan base large enough to justify the first and second assumtions.

However, the National Endowment of the Arts, in a demographic survey of the jazz audience in the United States, documented that this country's jazz music audience, and this includes all genres, comprises about 20% of it's total population or about 50,000,000 fans. This figure, if extrapolated worldwide, would seem to suggest a potential fan base of at least 100,000,000 jazz fans. With these figures, at second glance, the first two assumtions begins to take an aspect of a realistic possibility. 25,000 fans per jazz master out of this worldwide fan base is not much of a goal to reach for.

Bringing the product to the buyer and the buyer to the product are two of the basic tenets of niche marketing. The goal of the Audience Identification Program is to implement these tenets in an aggressive manner by acquiring the names and addresses and an economic commitment from each fan that wants to hear the music of any of the Guild's Jazz Masters.

One of the most successful techniques for funding music performances has been the use of Subscription Programs. These programs raise funding for a series of performances by selling the series as one package. The Audience Identification Program would be based on this same model.

To make the program work, three data bases would have to be created, two of which are germane to the Audience Identification Program: A fan data base and a Jazz Masters List. The third data base, a Performance Venue data base will be discussed in Part Three.

The Guild's Jazz Masters would be publicized through media and Internet advertising asking jazz lovers worldwide to register with the Guild and support the Guild by selecting from this list those master's they'd most like to hear in performance. Subscriptions could then be offered to those who wish to attend their performances, one performance per Jazz Master per year. Subscribers would receive a free CD of their most favorite jazz master. For those who would prefer not to commit the subscription series in advance, Guild memberships could be offered attendees for reduced cover charges and record purchases. Both members and subscribers would recieve a monthly newsletter promoting Guild performances and other merchandising events such as new recordings.

Audience Identification Program advertisements would be ongoing and monthly.

Contributions could be made by check or credit card, by phone or on-line.

To reiterate, the overall goal the Jazz Masters Guild is to enhance the careers of our Jazz Masters by affording them a living wage, not only resurrecting the apprenticeship system as an educational tool but also to create income producing performance opportunities for both master and apprentice! These performances would generate additional income for the Guild, it's Jazz Masters and Apprentices as well.

At the end of Part Three. I'll nail down to a greater degree how additional income sources can be created, how the Guild could be financed and administrated, how income and expenses might be allocated and the parts integrated to make a working whole.