For those of you who may not know whom Israel Lopez "Cachao" was http://ping.fm/eZdE3
and Carlos "Patato" Valdes: http://ping.fm/Hw3yk

The Wall

So I just got back from the Aspen Ideas Festival, and it was an amazing experience. I feel so blessed, as something like this never crossed my mind. Being among the elite of the world, having dinner and sitting next to the CEO of Phillips, meeting Dana Perino and Bob Schieffer, walking and mingling with people like Michael Eisner, Alan Greenspan and many more notables, was so unreal. I mean here's someone that came from Latin America, not rich, small business owner, but so freakin' blessed!

Even though it was an amazing experience and such a blessing, it was also something that continued to confirm the huge gap between the hard working citizens and the elites. This festival is supposed to be a think tank on how to help our society get better and be better, but something that resonated in my mind was, "how can they come up with ideas when they don't really know what's going in the trenches?" It's parallel to what's going on in the music industry, where they are trying to solve the issues on monetizing new media, but yet they have no idea on what's going on with the audience and/or the artists.

Furthermore it also made me realize that even though these people always talk about diversity, their group is not really diverse. Though I was having a good time, sometimes I could feel the pressure of being Latino. We have to find a way to brake "the wall" that keeps us from uniting, the wall that says "we are too colored for mainstream, and too mainstream for the colored".

This is something that many of us struggle with, and I experience it everyday with all the talent buyers out there. It's never enough to be able to book the artists that we represent, if it isn't "they don't draw enough", then is "they don't have a new album" or the classic "I'll think about it, I like the artist, I'm just not sure". Since when is it about the talent buyer? Isn't it supposed to be what the customer wants? Isn't the customer always right? If so then why is it that talent buyers, record labels, radio, print and TV media don't deliver to their audience? Do they really know what they're doing?

Yes is a different kind of wall, but could that be because our artists are Latinos playing Jazz or Latin jazz?

The quest continues, I just pray that God helps me to eliminate or at least help me get around the wall. Our artist are worthy of working on any stage in the world!

So after reading Bob Lefsetz and Jim Markunas today, it got me thinking. How can Latin Music be completely ignored by the music business?

I mean we have some amazing talent, especially in the arts and yet we don't get the respect to what we call the big boys? I mean we have bands like Spanish Harlem Orchestra, The Latin Giants of Jazz (Tito Puente's Band), Sonora Ponceña, El Gran Combo, and of course many more. However, you will rarely see these bands in a performing arts center, or a jazz festival. This year for example Playboy had Oscar Hernandez but with Los Angeles based musicians, you look at Monterey Jazz fest and they have Conrad Herwig with Joe Lovano and Randy Brecker? Playing the music of Wayne Shorter? Is that the best they can do under the Latin Jazz field? The only band that I can say plays Latin jazz is "Forro in the dark", which they don't even bother to put a link to their site to even try and help promote the band!

Oh wait! My mistake they're also having "Alfredo Rodriguez Trio", he was "discovered" by Quincy Jones. Again, does it take a noteworthy US American (yes I have a gripe with people in the US calling themselves Americans, if they haven't noticed America is an entire continent), to make it happen? Are we looking at Q's version of "Buena Vista Social Club" phenomenon?

Why can't talent buyers take their time and learn more? I mean we are in the 21st century and most jazz buyer feel they're the only ones that know and have an eye for talent. What will it take for them to realize that pretty soon their regulars will no longer sell? Do they really know the fans? How many of them actually attend?

Most Jazz clubs complain about attendance, but yet they fail to realize their food and drink prices. Then they forget about the people that come, they try and target the "high end" clientele, but reality is they don't really care about music. Then we get into the ticket pricing, yes I know that they have to price it according to artist price and what it would cost them to open the door. But what about when the artist takes the risk? We still have to share a percentage with the venue!

Some of the old timers ask for top pricing, but question remains can these guys deliver the audience? And we ask why is the business aspect of music doing so bad...