NEW JAZZ WAVE: TSUNAMI OR ALL FOAM?

Nobody may know the jazz record business quite as well as Orrin Keepnews, the president of Bay Area-based Landmark Records who has been producing jazz albums for more than 30 years.

“I take a long-range, super-objective, super-cynical viewpoint,” he said. “We know, thank God, that jazz does not live and die by the attention the major record labels give it. Otherwise, it would have been dead many times over.”

Keepnews is one of several top record industry executives who claim that jazz, sparked by renewed interest on the part of major labels like CBS, RCA and MCA--all of which have been vigorously issuing new releases and first-class reissues--is witnessing a boom in 1987, similar to the bursts of sales in the late 1950s and late 1970s.

“The current rise sure as hell can’t hurt,” he said. “The promotional bucks and lip service are good for the whole cause.

“But even though we’re seeing lots of reissue programs and new activity where jazz hasn’t been for years, I still don’t think there’s any permanent attachment to jazz at the major labels. Jazz doesn’t give them the kind of results they want.”

Keepnews--who started Riverside Records in the mid-1950s, recording such greats as Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins and Cannonball Adderley, and Milestone Records in the early ‘70s, where he produced Rollins, McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans--finds many adherents, and very few detractors, to his views.

“As an executive in any major record company, you’re always running certain personal risks if you have a great love for jazz,” said Bruce Lundvall, currently president of Manhattan/Blue Note Records. Lundvall joined CBS in 1960, eventually rising to president of the domestic division of CBS Records Group before leaving in 1981.

“When I was at CBS, jazz was treated as a subcategory,” he said. “No one wanted you to jump into jazz with both feet. Being at Blue Note is the first time I’ve had a chance to do that. Before, it was ‘We wish you weren’t so into jazz.’ The bottom line is so important.”

While at CBS, Lundvall, a genuine jazz lover, tried to “create a balance so that the more popular players (like Bob James) could pay for the less commercial artists (Woody Shaw).” At Blue Note, Lundvall is repeating this practice by recording such contemporary musicians as guitarist Stanley Jordan, whose first LP has sold more than 500,000 copies, as well as more traditional players like the Don Pullen-George Adams Quintet, whose album Lundvall expects will sell 10,000 to 25,000 copies.

Industry experts estimate that it costs the majors between $20,000 and $50,000 to get an album ready for shipping, including recording costs. At a wholesale price of about $4 per album, the company needs minimum sales of 5,000 to 12,500 copies to break even. For a little company like Albert Marx’s local Discovery Records or Keepnews’ Landmark, these lower sales figures are, while perhaps not ideal, at least acceptable.

“In a small operation, the overhead is such that with 10,000 sales, you can survive,” said Keepnews, who was vice president/A&R; at Fantasy/Galaxy before starting Landmark. “At the majors, they’ll never sit still for that. One reason the majors have trouble with jazz is that jazz records have the same overhead as a pop record. Eventually the bottom line catches up.”

Being realistic in signing deals and promoting artists is the key reason that executives like Lundvall, Ricky Schultz, president of MCA Jazz/Zebra Records, and Carl Jefferson, owner of the Concord Jazz line, are successful. “I can’t pay acoustic pianist Henry Butler what I pay the jazz/fusion group the Yellowjackets. I have widely different expectations from both and I have to understand that difference,” said Schultz, whose MCA Jazz was chosen Billboard’s 1986 Jazz Label of the Year.

One way of generating interest in jazz is to devise unique projects, said Lundvall. “An established artist has a lot of product over many labels. Instead of producing another blowing session, we’re looking for something artistically valid, like teaming Freddie Hubbard with Woody Shaw, that will make the serious jazz buyer say, ‘I’ve got to have this.’ ”

Although the majors create lots of publicity, they only have about 100 artists under contract. Most players with record deals are on independent labels--from highly visible lines like Fantasy/Galaxy and Concord to smaller labels such as Passport Jazz, Muse, BlackHawk and many others. Artists who can’t get a contract with a major or an independent often start their own label. Toshiko Akiyoshi’s Ascent, Vinny Golia’s Nine Winds and Marty Krystall and Buell Neidlinger’s K2B2 are three home-owned record labels. These operations sell their product either through independent distributors--who in turn sell to one-stops (middlemen where many stores buy their merchandise), chains and individual specialty stores--or through direct selling, like mail order.

All labels, whether majors or independents, seem to be benefiting from the current boom. “The music sells,” said John Breckow, jazz buyer at the record-crammed, shoe-box-size Rhino Records in Westwood, pointing to bins full of records. “Jazz accounts for up to 30% of our business.” Tower Records President Russ Solomon agreed: “Stores that carry jazz do well with it, but the truth is that most stores don’t carry it.”

Rick Laudati, domestic buyer at Aron’s Records in West Hollywood, said jazz sales, even in a boom time, could be better--if distribution was better. “We’ll order something for months and months,” he said, “and it doesn’t come in.”

Still, during a peak period there’s “a ton of product” available, Lundvall said, and large numbers of customers are coming into the stores--some loyal fans, some new to jazz.

Almost every jazz record executive surveyed told The Times that the compact disc gets most of the credit for this resurgence. “There’s no question a lot of consumers are buying their favorite LPs as CDs,” Lundvall said.

“The CD has caused a tremendous boost to the jazz market,” said Larry Rosen, co-founder with composer Dave Grusin of GRP Records, which has its entire catalogue available on CDs.

Jefferson said the high-tech aspect of the CD appeals to many listeners. “There’s no noise, no pops, no ticks, it doesn’t wear out, nothing touches it,” he said.

That high-end audio aspect has brought many new jazz listeners in a trickle-down fashion, said Howard Gabriel, vice president of Important Records, a Long Island-based distribution firm. “The CD player started as an expensive toy for the yuppie,” he said, “and when they came into the store, looking for CDs, they bought a little of everything . . . New Age, old rock, jazz.”

Another boost to jazz sales comes from younger musicians, said George Butler, vice president/A&R; at CBS Records since 1977. “Young artists, devoting time and energy to studying music, will assure jazz’s longevity,” he said.

Breckow thinks Bertrand Tavernier’s “ ‘Round Midnight” “has been a big factor. People come in, saying they saw the film and they want to know about this music.” Indeed, many high schools and junior highs have jazz ensembles and those players are consumers as well.

New Age music, which while certainly bearing little relation to mainstream jazz, has been of some benefit to jazz sales. “As long as there’s a sloppy attitude that intermingles jazz and New Age, with New Age getting a lot of press, that helps,” said Keepnews.

“New Age has given instrumental music new cachet, and to the extent that it makes record companies reevaluate jazz, it could be very healthy “ said Sam Sutherland, vice president/manager of marketing at Windham Hill Records. “We sometimes forget that instrumental music had a massive influence. From the ‘30s to the ‘50s, we had instrumental hits, month in, month out. But during the rock era, instrumental hits stood out like a sore thumb.”

If jazz records achieve the sales required to make the pop charts, then even the crusty Keepnews, who had a Top 10 hit in the ‘60s with Mongo Santamaria’s version of Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man,” is willing to admit that the resurgence might be for real. “If jazz instrumentals made it to the pop charts,” he said, “then I’d say that jazz is back in a major-league sense.”