The Business Side of Making Music

How do you reconcile the irresistible force of music with the immovable object of the profit motive?

This perennial problem was brought into focus here recently during the 41st annual Conference on World Affairs, for which 105 experts came from all over the world to the University of Colorado campus. Among the 183 discussions during the week--intermingled among panels and plenary sessions dealing with subjects heavy (Nicaragua, Iran, drugs, nuclear war) and light (“Is Safe Sex Fun?,” “The Jewish Princess and the Bimbo”)--were nine music events. One of the most provocative panels was “Technology, Vision and Ethics in the Record Business.”

The principal panelists were Dave and Don Grusin, both graduates of this campus.

Coincidentally, Don Grusin, a late bloomer in music, was inspired in the early 1960s by a class on contemporary social issues conducted by Prof. Howard Higman, who conceived the conference concept in 1948 and who, since retiring a couple of years ago, has devoted most of his time to planning it. Don Grusin earned an MA in economics, taught it at a university in Guadalajara and continued as a teacher until, at age 34, he moved to Los Angeles and what he now calls his true love, music.

“I never thought much about ethics and greed,” Don Grusin said. “Growing up in the ‘40s in Colorado, I saw my father working up to 14 hours a day as a jeweler in his store. You had to be very ethical; it was the only way to do business. But as I began studying economics, reading Adam Smith and all the great theorists, I realized that capitalism is based on an internal desire to be somewhat greedy.”

Not until he followed in his brother’s footsteps (“I had figured one musician in the family was enough”) did Grusin come face to face with the harsh realities of that notorious contradiction in terms, the music business .

He enjoyed expanding his horizons, moving from jazz to country and Western, backing pop singers and adapting to the studio life, but was frustrated by the callous attitudes of the businessman.

“I had two traumatic experiences. About 10 years ago several musicians who had left Sergio Mendes because they were unhappy with the money came to me and suggested a partnership. It sounded like fun; we rehearsed, found two fine singers and got a record deal with Lou Adler of Ode Records. We called the group Kitchen and we really did cook.”

With Adler, the architect of Carole King, behind them, they pooled their resources (mostly Adler’s money but some of their own) to the tune of $60,000, buying band uniforms and staging an elaborate showcase. A week later, Adler announced that he had sold his record company to Epic, a Columbia subsidiary.

“We thought, ‘Wow! Now we’re really in the big time.’ We adjusted to leaving our families and going on tour. But then the bottom fell out--Epic decided not to release the record,” Grusin said.

“We were dumbfounded by the casualness with which they reacted to us. They just said, ‘Well, it’s a business decision. It’s not worth our while to work on it.’ It was an emotional as well as a financial trauma.”

Almost no better was Grusin’s experience with Friendship, the band he formed with Lee Ritenour, Ernie Watts and others. “This could have been the beginning of what Spyro Gyra turned out to be. About $75,000 went into the project, and Elektra Records promised us an ad campaign. Well, they took one ad in Billboard and that was it. We played a New York club and a couple of other dates, but their devil-take-the-hindmost attitude essentially killed the group.

(Representatives at Epic and Elektra say that people responsible for the above projects are no longer with the company. Adler could not be contacted by Calendar’s deadline.)

Dave Grusin, seven years Don’s senior and wearer of many hats (his 30-plus film scores have earned four Oscar nominations and he was among the first to plunge into the U.S. compact-disc market full scale, with his own GRP Records) takes a more pragmatic view, but his experiences too stem from disillusionment.

“We have to understand how the record industry works,” he said. “The companies are like banks; their clients are the artists, whose sales have to recoup the companies’ investment. Say the artist gets 10% of the retail price. The record companies make more, maybe a buck or two per record, so they are in a profit position before the artist is. It’s totally confusing to me, and I’ve been involved in it for 20 years. Is this an ethical way to do business?

“My partner, Larry Rosen, and I teamed up in 1976 to form Grusin/Rosen Productions. We produced for United Artists, then spent five years putting projects together for Arista. But there were so many conflicts between our musical interests and their values that in 1983 we decided to form our own label. At GRP, Larry Rosen has been a visionary in terms of our potential scope; but it’s not easy to predicate everything on our past track record. I have to be concerned about practical matters like cash flow and overgrowth.

“We also realize now, by hindsight, something else we should have thought of years ago. The older record contracts were designed to encompass LPs, singles, cassettes ‘or any medium known or unknown to come.’ That means that any advantages the record companies may derive from CDs or from the digital audio tapes that will be on the market here eventually--they’re already available in Japan and Europe--will not be shared by the artists.”

Ben Sidran, who like Dave Grusin is a multiple hat-wearer (composer, pianist, singer, NPR radio personality, author, producer) also focused on the technological issue.

“There are hidden agendas in every innovation. Records went from six minutes on a 78 disc to 30 on a 10-inch LP, 40 on a 12-inch LP, now it’s an hour or more on a CD. Well, you can’t always come up with that much valid music; you may be obliged to put on extra material of less value just to enable the companies to gross more money.

“Look how many record companies today are going into the vaults to repackage jazz classics. The musicians probably were paid $20 union scale for three hours, with no royalty. The cost of putting out these CDs is a couple of bucks, the public is paying $12 or more, and it all goes to the businessmen; the artists are totally frozen out.”

Another issue discussed by the panel was multitracking. Sidran said, “Rudy van Gelder, the engineer who has helped create thousands of great jazz records, told me he thinks the worst thing that ever happened to records was the invention of multitrack recording. After the musicians have gone home, the engineer can rebalance the music any way he likes, maybe eliminate a valuable solo or generally treat the music without any regard for the artist’s considerations.

“Having to wear earphones in the studio is another problem. You hear what’s going on in a totally unnatural way . . . you’re forced to manipulate your art for the technology. How does that help self-expression?”

Whatever the answer to this or other questions raised by this delicate issue, the colloquy here was a healthy catharsis for the participants and an often enlightening experience for the audience. Moreover, it was impossible to avoid one upbeat conclusion: No matter how often the artist in our society may suffer frustrations, and regardless of the aborted projects and the constant evolution of new technical problems, somehow or other, good music, even great music, will continue to be provided for posterity.