J-Jazz (Japanese Jazz)

RHANDMJ said:
Fair, and no one can knock enjoyment of any music.

I would point out, though, that back in the day (I was around then), TBM had a fairly narrow audience and little awareness outside Japan. There were plenty great jazz labels in Japan producing outstanding records. Search them out, don't just take what reissues feed you!

Point. Reissue labels play safe. Nothing too challenging, their market is baby boomer audiophiles and relative newbies building a collection, often coming to the music new and seeking sound above all else.

Threre is an awful lot of audio pablum in the TBM catalog. Particularly at the outset, there was an insistence on heavy doses of common standards, and near the end it got to some very commercial, even poppish territory. Inbetween - there are some true gems. Unfortunately, they are unlikely to be reissued, as they are not in the circle of audiophile favorites.

Hideto kanai - Ode To Birds
Takao Uematsu - Debut
Kimiko Kasai - Yellow Carcass In The Blue
Isao Suzuki - All Right
Kenji Mori - Firebird

Just a few examples.

Advertising on social media costs money. Word of mouth on social media - unearned media in the business - works well for major artists who already have nothing to worry about, but is actually very narrow in niche material. There are simply not enough buyers for this material. And thedre is a limited potential to build greater demand. BN - no problem. TBM - in the hundreds outside japan, not thousands.
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again, respectfully disagree - not with your musical choices, horses for courses, of course...but there has been a real moment in j-jazz that TBM has mostly missed. Look at what Ogawa-san is doing with project re:vinyl and what Think! (disunion) started - these all sell out and most have been repressed over and over, so much so that Sony is no longer licensing stuff and creating their own reissue series.

these are marketing opportunities, full stop...and back in the day there wasn't this thing called the internet...

and while the scale isn't millions, or maybe thousands, I guarantee you not one person 10 years ago would have said that a BN TP reissued this week would sell more copies than in its entire 60 year run, which is basically what's happening. although I do believe we are at a tipping point regarding, cost, quality, fomo, and wear out that may slow down the vinyl rush a bit....
 
bornard said:
and while the scale isn't millions, or maybe thousands, I guarantee you not one person 10 years ago would have said that a BN TP reissued this week would sell more copies than in its entire 60 year run, which is basically what's happening. although I do believe we are at a tipping point regarding, cost, quality, fomo, and wear out that may slow down the vinyl rush a bit....
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In this, we agree completely.

We are at a tipping point, which is being seen at retail.

This has been standard procedure for the record industry over many decades, which has led to repeated boom-bust cycles.

Milk it, over-saturate the market, zero in on the most easily manipulated market segment and push product on them until they have had enough.

There's a whole industry-marketing complex facilitating. Fremer, online mags, online forums, big box online retailers, online influencers/plants. All facilitating another kick at L.A. Woman to get into the pockets of empty nest boomers revelling in the past.

I can't really complain too heavily about TBM reissues, conservative though they are. There is authentic demand and exposes people to music they likely never have heard.

But most of the market today is not authentic demand, it is invented or created demand - demand that wouldn't be there if not for the aforementioned industry-marketing construct.

This has led to prices going way up, false demand being created via FOMO, and quality declining. Inevitably, this will lead to fatigue among buyers - we are seeing that at retail right now.
 
It really is very big…. And Heavy
ngower said:
There's a joke here somewhere....

This is probably my last book for a bit, got the Jazz Life book, Blue Note one, and Tokyo Jazz Joints in the last year. Now this. I think that's like $2.7m spent on four books.
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Yusuke Ogawa (Universounds) is upping the ante on Project Re:Vinyl with Project Re:Generation and the King Records label. I had to translate the page. Also an instagram post you can translate, although neither translation is great.

news.kingrecords.co.jp

アーカイブ配信シリーズ『King Jazz Re:Generation』 第1弾は大坂昌彦、クリヤ・マコト、中川英二郎、原朋直ら – KING RECORDS TODAY

1950年代のジャズブームから現在に至るまで、数多くのジャズ作品を世に送り出してきたキングレコードに残る膨大なアーカイブを順次配信化していくプロジェクト『King Jazz Re:Generation』が始動する。
news.kingrecords.co.jp
 
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