Hello friends

On the start to Germany's First Annual Smooth Jazz Festival I present you a review about Fourplay's upcoming album Energy. The review is published here:

http://www.smooth-jazz.de/firstview/Fourplay/Energy.htm

Have a great weekend

hbh

Once again, a nice review. Thanks, that one is a must buy.

Thanks Mark. I just returned for the First Annual German Smooth Jazz Festival.

I'll get to Energy fairly soon, but I wanted to share this with you.
The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center will open to the public this Saturday. As a member of the media, I got a preview tour today. At the start of the tour, visitors are treated to an approximate 15-minute video presentation about King. The segment includes a session with bassist Nathan East, who also comments about B.B.'s influence. I got a really good shot of that clip, which I'll upload to YouTube over the next few days (no sooner than Saturday, but hopefully no later than Monday). I'll add more stuff from the tour as time permits.

That session I mentioned above was in recording B.B.'s new CD: One Kind Favor.
Nathan is the featured bassist, playing acoustic on all 12 tracks.
And here's a short promo from Bob James: FOURfather speaks about Energy

Here ya go: Energy

You've got me philosophizing about reviews. I read yours, Woody, and the one that HBH posted at the top of this thread.

For me, the value of the review comes in learning a bit of background about the band, and perhaps where they've been musically up to this point -- to bring some context to the CD under review.

Also of interest is who composed what, changes in instrumentation, and any advances or mutations of their style etcetera. Some discussion of any business changes is also interesting - such as their signing to a new label and the influence of that label on their creativity etcetera. Collaboration with a new producer is also interesting (funny how you always hear about producers when you talk about the Beatles or Abba, but it rarely seems to come up in cJazz).

But ultimately, you have to listen to the CD to really understand the music -- that's why a song by song breakdown of the CD, describing its musical content has never seemed all that satisfying to me (like in the first review, not yours, Woody).

So, for me, helpful reviews provide all the factual information I've described, and then a handy set of sound samples (if legal) on the same site so I can decide for myself what the band is really saying, and what the review author meant in his own description. This would help bring life to the song-by-song review portion of the review.

Just my two cents. I could see myself cutting my teeth on writing a review at some point; I find it interesting. Plus it's one thing to sit back and look at a review critically, and another thing to be in there actually writing it. I think someone once said "No one ever erected a monument to a critic", so it beehooves me to write a review myself...

As far as Fourplay goes, the review piqued my interest due to the presence of esperanza spalding, and the title -- Energy, which implies a plethora of upbeat music. I still feel that I have to head over to Amazon to listen to it, however to really understand it.

Bward (sorry, forgot your first name), limitations on word counts prevent me from going into those kinds of details at AAJ. If I spent more on background, I'd have to cut something about the new release. A six of one/half dozen of the other sort of thing. There are times when I will single out composers, but I don't make a point of doing that with every review. Ultimately, it comes down to balancing what a fan wants to know versus what someone unfamiliar with the band needs to know. Show me a writer who can pinpoint the exact mix every time, and I'll show you a Hummer that gets 80 mpg.
Now, would it be any different if I operated my own site? Well, for sure my format would be different. I could write more freely and not have to devote so much time to searching for the names of every contributing vocalist/musician and breaking down which instruments they play or which tracks they appear on. Sometimes, that single block of text is twice as long as the actual review. There will always be something that a listener wants that I did not include. I could post samples of five songs, but maybe they're not the songs a certain reader wants. I could post photographs of the band, but maybe there's not one of Fourplay with Esperanza Spalding. There would be occasions where I might say a little something about every song on the album, but a reader like yourself wouldn't find that helpful. And how about those song samples? If you can hear the music, why bother reading about it? You may want both, but someone else, if they can hear the music, they won't bother reading about it.
Not too long ago, some members of this forum opined that reviews of any kind are pointless because they're either somebody else's opinion, which may or may not jive with reality, or because the writers are just kissing up to the labels so they can get free CDs.
If review writing were a primary source of income, perhaps I could build my own Web site and have all the bells and whistles necessary to be your one-stop shop.
But I am a volunteer. I do this purely for the love of music and because there's a need to do something to let people know it's available.
Different reviewers - for the record, you can call me a fan, a listener, a music lover or a reviewer, but please do not call me a critic - have different processes and don't necessarily handle the same volume.
Mine is simple:
1 - Preview the CD. Listen once to determine whether I like it enough to devote any time to reviewing it. Set it aside. When the disc makes it to the top of the stack, which may be 2 to 10 weeks after the first listen, depending on how many are ahead of it, go to steps 2-5.
2 - Pre-write. Start a file and fill in the necessary details: track list, personnel, etc.
3 - Read the press kit provided to see if there's pertinent information that I can use. For Spyro Gyra or the Yellowjackets, I can go on memory. For Jessy J, I have to read. Some independent artists' press kits are very thin - a single page, double spaced, with maybe one paragraph about the artist's background and two or three blurbs from magazines. So then I have to dig a little. I use what I need from that in the bio, which is generally the second paragraph. It may or may not include personal history, awards, education or artists with whom the album artist has performed or recorded.
4 - Listen while writing the review. I may pre-select the songs I want to highlight, or I may start with track 1 and listen all the way through. I may not necessarily highlight all the best (my favorite) songs. I may just choose a representative sample. Some reviews are random samples. Others are strategic. There's no rhyme or reason to it. That keeps me from being a cliche. Occasionally, there'll be a song I want to highlight that I am so passionate about, I'll play it twice so that my highlight can be more complete, but generally, the entire CD only gets one pass.
5 - Proofread and submit.
Typically, the total time spent on a CD is about 2 1/2 hours. It will vary, depending on how long it takes to fill in all that personnel info. With Fourplay, Spyro Gyra or the Yellowjackets, two minutes tops. With John Pizzarelli or George Duke, it might take up to a half hour - just to get all the names, the instruments and the specific tracks.
Between my job, community theater and just relaxing at home, I think I do well to get 3 reviews submitted in one weekend - and that's not taking into account working late, social events, funerals or any other writing I do.
In other words, while I would love to think that all my reviews are well read and actually do help people make good decisions, ultimately, some responsibility falls on the person looking to buy. If the review doesn't tell you enough, read another. I can't speak for other sites, but AAJ often has several writers reviewing the same CDs, offering different perspectives.
I see the reviewers' role as providing information that will help a person decide to buy, not buy or investigate further. If you are serious about writing reviews, let me be the first to encourage you to do so. There can never be enough people writing about jazz.

I don't know if bwardmusic wants some insight view about the critics, but jazzwriter started the run, so here my 2 cents:

I write 1-3 reviews a week. I need 5-8 hours for a review. The simple reason: English is not my native language. I spend a lot of time in researchs, especially about the previous albums of the artist and the musical career of his/her co-musicians. So my review is always somehow a database about the music I write about. I carefully select the albums I want to review.

I am specialized in smooth jazz but seldom write about music of other genres if the quality is good and demands it. Like jazzwriter I am a volunteer. My website is sponsored what allows me to expand my reviews.

I never add samples to the review because of the royality fees which is a huge problem for all music websites and really prevents a prosperous developement of music.

I also recommend to read all reviews you can get to be informed and to find your decision to buy or not to buy a CD.

Before I write a review I pre-listen the album twice. During the writing process (2-4 hours in 2 days) I listen to the album again track by track. Some labels like Heads Up Records and Peak Records are very helpfull delivering information about each album they release. For other albums you must be a scout or a sleuth digging the net to find some information. Some musicians are giants onstage but dwarfs in information policy.

After my personal observation and opinion the amount of writers is going down. I believe the main reason is other interests of people or the demand to spend so much time to deliver information.

Yes, I find this interesting because I've published a few articles and had a textbook on the go once.

Plus I now write lectures for online technology courses for part-time income, which then go through copy editing and other formal channels before being published to the web. I've also gone through the often frustrating query process with magazine editors etcetera. So, yes, writing is in my blood as it is with you.

Thanks for updating me on your processes both of you -- I found that interesting -- and I suspected it would take quite a bit of research to really do the context/background portion of a review properly -- even for bands that I've listened to for years.

I didn't know that the music companies require roylalties even for the sound samples, which I thought would be considered promotional material they would want to see freely distributed in order to promote awareness of the CD.


Also, since it sounds as if writing reviews is a primarily volunteer effort, and since my life is already full of volunteer work, or part-time contracts which after I do them properly, have me working for a lower wage than my full-time work affords, I think I'll probably pass on the reviews until time becomes available.

But never say never....thanks for filling me in.