I am being featured today on the front-page of SXSW.com – thank you SXSW! For those of you new to my music, welcome, and please have a look around. Be sure to check out my recordings, and if you are going to be in Austin for SXSW, I’ll be playing Friday night, March 16 at The Elephant Room. Time is still TBD but check back here often for updates. I’m also on Facebook where you can preview my music and on Twitter. I look forward to connecting with you!
As 2011 closes and we move toward a new year, I wish you all the very best and hope you have a healthy, prosperous 2012. It’s been a whirl-wind couple of months but I’m so fortunate to have been able to make some great jazz saxophone music along the way.
Dr. James Polk telling one of his famous stories
One of the highlights for me was the ability to go into the recording studio with Dr. James Polk, Austin jazz icon and former musical director for Ray Charles for many years. Dr. Polk played on my first CD, Standards, and I was thrilled to be able to have him play on my latest effort. Recorded in two days at Churchhouse Studios just before Thanksgiving, the new CD will feature Dr. Polk on Hammond B3 organ, Jake Langley on guitar, Daniel Durham on bass and Scott Laningham on drums.
The program features two new original compositions and eight standards that I arranged for the group. In contrast to my last CD Dream Story, which features all original compositions and is heavily influenced by the nuanced style of Wayne Shorter, this CD is very accessible, swinging and just feels good. Nothing wrong with that!
I’m going back into the studio next week to mix the recording and I hope to have it ready to release sometime in Feb or March – before SXSW. If you are interested in participating in this recording with me, please consider joining Patronism.com where 100% of your subscription goes to finishing this CD. Thanks for reading and enjoy your holiday!
I’m pleased to announce that on Saturday, December 3, The Elias Haslanger Quintet featuring Angelo Lembesis, Bruce Saunders, Steve Schwelling and Daniel Durham will play an exclusive concert at Casa Karen, one of Austin’s finest listening rooms.
The Casa Karen concert series is produced by George Oldziey and Suzi Stern, fantastic musicians in their own right, who have carefully created the perfect listening environment. The setting is George and Suzi’s living room, where listeners are up-close and personal with the musicians and without the usual distractions of bar talk, wait-staff or less-than-ideal seating. Every seat is perfect and the room is filled with the amazing sounds of the 9-foot grand piano which is really something to hear.
Doors open at 7pm, show starts at 7:30pm. Tickets are $20. Free refreshments and treats of all sorts! Casa Karen is located at 7402 Greehaven Dr 78757 call for more info and reservations which are recommended: 512-459-9900 credit card payment accepted. This series is very popular and seating is limited so please, call now for reservations.
My electric band Palladium is playing next two Mondays, Sept 19 and Sept 26 at Momo’s Club at 8pm. Palladium features some of the best jazz musicians in Austin and we’ll play a complete set of original compositions that I wrote which reflect a wide variety of influences including Weather Report, Michael Brecker, Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock Headhunters and more. If you like this style of music, I think you are going to dig this band. To hear a sample, go click the “Like” button on the Palladium Facebook bandpage.
Sonny Rollins turns 81 today and is undoubtedly one of the finest jazz musicians to ever walk the earth. Countless jazz saxophone players have been influenced by him and I’m no different. His style is unique and he incorporates a myriad of influences into his playing and writing. Known for his collaborations with Clifford Brown, Miles Davis and many others, Sonny is truly a living legend who continues to inspire. Here’s a couple of links for you – the first being an outstanding video by Bret Primack and the second, a link to one of my favorite Sonny records, Saxophone Colossus. Enjoy!
I moved to NYC in January of 2000 and spent 4 incredible years there. I truly believe that I went there as a student and came back to Austin as a master – not of music but of life. It goes without saying that I still have much to learn about being a person and a musician but the life experiences I had there, in a relatively short amount of time, were really profound.
One of the highlights for me was one of the times I saw Elvin Jones perform at the Blue Note. I believe it was in the Fall of 2000. I had seen him play at the same club earlier that year and musically, it was amazing. I’ll never forget the first time he did a press roll and cymbal crash – it sent chills down my spine. But the second time I saw him it wasn’t so much about the music as it was the experience I had actually getting to sit down and speak with him for about 15-20min before the show. The pianist in his band at the time was Eric Lewis, an amazingly gifted pianist who I came to know a little bit while we were both attending the Manhattan School of Music in the Fall of 1992. I re-introduced myself to Eric before the show and he instantly invited me up to the green room and he introduced me to Elvin. What a rush! It was surreal and one of the few times in my life I was truly star struck. Here was the man who I listened to thousands of times on legendary recordings and who I held up as the pinnacle of jazz and jazz drumming.
To say that he was gracious is an understatement. Elvin couldn’t have been a nicer, more generous person. He asked me to sit down next to him and he was interested in the fact that I was also a musician and we talked about rhythm, rag-time, swing and music for the next 15-20 min. It was the quickest 15-20min of my life. What a joy! He even asked about my music and I gave him my CD’s Kicks are for Kids and For the Moment. About that time his wife Keiko came in and she shooed me out and took my CD’s so I’m not sure he ever heard them, unfortunately. I am positive he received thousands of CD’s from aspiring saxophonists over the years but at least he was aware, in that moment, that I was one too. And I am better because of it.
Today, I’m officially announcing my participation on Patronism.com and asking for your support. The idea of a patron of the arts has been around forever. The great composers of Western Classical music were all supported by the church or the ruling government and this still exists to some degree in our modern society, albeit in a much different form.
I welcome you to the 21st century version and ask that you consider this: subscribe to my ongoing stream of online content and decide what you think it’s worth. For as little as $2 per/mo (or more – you decide), you’ll have a login to Patronism where right now, all of my recorded material lives in digital format. You will be able to download any of my material that has been commercially released plus lots of stuff that hasn’t including radio appearances and out-of-print items like my first release, Standards. Additionally, you’ll find my blog posts about music, videos of live shows, and more. I’m hoping to start a webcast of my performances in the very near future and will soon be hosting a series of concerts which of course, you’ll have VIP access to.
Here’s what I like about this model, if you like my music and subscribe, your money goes directly toward creating more of it. Even though many of the barriers of entry to the music industry have crumbled, one still significant hurdle for an independent artist is getting in the studio and making a great CD, mostly due to cost. The Patronism website has some good detail about the economics of the music industry and I’ll sum it up for you: recording CD’s is a money losing scenario for a lot of artists (and labels, too). Patronism takes only a small (15%) fee for administrative purposes which is much different than the 40%+ that the current iTunes + middleman (CD Baby or the like) takes out of the pocket of the artist. More money directly to the artists means more music for you.
So that’s it. That you’re here and reading this is fantastic – thank you. Are you interested in collaborating to create more art and spread the music word to the community? Then join me at www.Patronism.com/EliasHaslanger
The US launch of Spotify has certainly garnered a lot of attention and has once again stirred the pot on the issue of streaming music, artist royalty payments, the major labels and the state of the music industry. Many pundits and artists are crying foul over the fact that artists get bupkis through Spotify’s free streaming service but Spotify is not alone. Here’s a small sampling of my royalties from different streaming sites:
Last.fm, 22 streams, $0.010010
Spotify, 1 stream, $0.006728
Rhapsody, 3 streams, $0.027300
MySpace, 1 stream, $0.001980
As you can see, I’m getting filthy rich off of music streaming. I made an entire penny off of 22 plays of Watch Your Step on Last.fm. Woo hoo! At this rate, I’ll make $10k after 22 million downloads which of course, I’ll make happen by next month, right?
I jest but the point I’m making is that as an artist, I’ve chosen to opt-in to this scheme by saying ok to digital download and digital stream services through my aggregator, CD Baby. I am not a victim – I gave my permission to CD Baby to allow my music on these sites and if you are an artist and sign a deal with a record label or distributor, chances are you are allowing it as well unless you didn’t pay attention to the deal you signed. That’s still a you problem and not a Spotify problem. Does it suck, yes, but it’s the system as we know it. You either play the game or you don’t and some artists choose not to participate. Coming from my view, I see the stream delivery as pure marketing. People who otherwise would not have known about my music can now listen and if they really like it, chances are they will purchase my music. Now when someone does actually want to pay the artist for music, I still would like more choices over iTunes, Amazon and other download sites (eMusic, etc.) and I would like a larger chunk of that revenue but that’s a different blog entry.
Will I opt-in to digital streaming for my next release? Probably not right away — I’d like to make as much money as possible off of the new release — but eventually, sure. And in the meantime, I’ve installed Spotify and am using it to discover new artists that I previously would not have known about.
Was lucky enough to get into the recording studio, thanks to Mark Sarisky and the Art Institute of Austin, and lay down 13 tracks of original music (minus one Monk and one Shorter tune) in two days. We got over 3 hours in the can which is really great. It was an amazing experience thanks to Bruce Saunders, Steve Schwelling and Daniel Durham, not to mention Mark and his crew who made it very easy. The next step will be to critically evaluate what we got and see if we have enough to put out the next CD. My gut tells me yes but the ears don’t lie. We’ll keep you posted on how it turned out. Regardless, the experience of rehearsing and recording my original stuff, some of which I wrote way back in ’98-’99 (!), is invaluable and I vow to do this at least once a year if I can pull it off. Balancing the family, a challenging (but fun) job, and music is not easy but it is so worth it.
Playing with Gaute Solaas and his group SERPENTINE tonight at Swan Dive. We start at 10:30pm. Come get your jazzrockavantegarde groove on.
