{"id":3491,"date":"2014-02-17T14:19:07","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T14:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=3491"},"modified":"2014-02-17T14:19:07","modified_gmt":"2014-02-17T14:19:07","slug":"bruce-lundvall-on-playing-by-ear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2014\/02\/17\/bruce-lundvall-on-playing-by-ear\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Lundvall On Playing By Ear"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
Bruce Lundvall at Recording Academy hosted Special Merit Awards Ceremony in 2011<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nMy January Wall Street Journal Cultural Conversation<\/a> with Don Was<\/strong>, president of Blue Note Records, began with a sincere tip of the hat\u2014via onstage hat-tips from pianist Jason Moran<\/strong> and Robert Glasper<\/strong>\u2014to Bruce Lundvall<\/strong>, who ran that company for 25 years and who continues to provide guidance as chairman emeritus.
\nLundvall\u2019s story is a great one, about a singular man, maybe the last of his breed of music executive, whose work spanned a few important eras at a few major record labels, companies that also may be the last of their breeds.
\nIn a July post, I interviewed writer Dan Ouellette<\/strong><\/a>, who was then working on \u201cPlaying by Ear<\/strong>,\u201d a book documenting Lundvall\u2019s half-century career.
\nNow that book is available. You can find it at Amazon<\/a>,\u00a0or by going to the ArtistShare<\/a> page.
\nAs he did with a previous biography of bassist Ron Carter<\/strong>, Ouellette pursued an interesting path, developing this book through the fan-funded Artistshare website<\/a>. Besides forgoing a traditional publisher and offering readers various forms of participation in the process, Ouellette worked in a nontraditional biography form, he says, inserting \u201csnapshot\u201d chapters within the narrative of Lundvall\u2019s life story. \u201cA reader can choose to read the entire story on Bruce’s Elektra experience,\u201d he says, \u201cor choose to read the focused sections on Bobby McFerrin or Whitney Houston or Ruben Blades. This whole setup offers the reader options. Most people read a book cover to cover without skipping around. This format allows people to skip around at their leisure, kind of like someone listening to a CD and selecting different tracks to play versus the entire album.\u201d
\nHere\u2019s a brief excerpt, courtesy of the author:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m 78 and I\u2019m still doing what I started doing in 1960. Why? I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s like the mob\u2014once you\u2019re in, you can\u2019t get out\u2026.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I started out, it was the record business. Now it doesn\u2019t seem like it\u2019s a business at all. In the short term, we\u2019ve reached the end of a format, and the music business will become smaller. In the long term, there will be a new generation that will be exploring a different way of doing business, and I\u2019m not sure what that\u2019s going to look like.
\nThe information world is changing by the minute. The future of the music business is all tied up with that, so there will be major changes. Maybe there won\u2019t be record companies anymore. Already a lot of young people don\u2019t even know what a CD looks like\u2014let alone an LP. They receive their music from a cloud.
\nBut one thing is certain: There are still artists who have great things to say in every field, and you still need people to find the talent. In jazz, the music has become international so you have talented artists from everywhere who are important. There are more and more originals who deserve to be heard, and artist development needs to be kept alive.
\nIn the future we\u2019ll need people who have a passion for the music in addition to having intelligent computer skills to be able to spread the music, to get it heard. No one in the business is a star. We have to remember that we are the middlemen to get creative music to market, even when you have a young generation that believes the music should be free\u2014and treats it that way.
\nThose who are passionate need to seek out mentors who can help them bring the music into the future. They can\u2019t do it alone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Photo by Noel Vasquez\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My January Wall Street Journal Cultural Conversation with Don Was, president of Blue Note Records, began with a sincere tip of the hat\u2014via onstage hat-tips from pianist Jason Moran and Robert Glasper\u2014to Bruce Lundvall, who ran that company for 25 years and who continues to provide guidance as chairman emeritus. Lundvall\u2019s story is a great … <\/p>\n

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