ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE MUSIC FANS TAKE FOR GRANTED IS THE FACT THAT THERE IS ACTUALLY RECORDED MUSIC FOR US TO LISTEN TO, EVALUATE AND APPRECIATE. THIS RECENT SERIES OF LOCKDOWNS DUE TO THE COVID 19 VIRUS AND NOW THE PROTESTS/RIOTS HAVE TAKEN AWAY OUR ABILITY TO IMBIBE THE GLORIES OF MUSIC IN A ‘LIVE’ FORMAT, SO A SUDDEN APPRECIATION OF THE VENERABLE ALBUM, BE IT IN CD OR VINYL FORM, AS RISEN IN OUR COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS.
THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY OF RECORDED MUSIC, MOST OF THE MOST IMPORTANT RECORDINGS OF JAZZ HAVE BEEN ON SMALL, INDEPENDENT LABELS, WITH COMMODORE, BLUE NOTE AND RIVERSIDE COMING TO MIND.ALMOST ALL OF THESE LABELS HAVE REFLECTED EITHER A SPECIFIC STYLE OF JAZZ, OR THE SOUNDS OF A LOCAL SCENE.
WHILE NOT EXACTLY CONSIDERED ONE OF THE BASTIONS OF JAZZ, NORTH DARTMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS IS THE HOME OF THE JAZZ LABEL WHALING CITY SOUND, NOW CELEBRATING ITS 20TH YEAR OF PRODUCTION. FOUNDER NEAL WEISS TAPPED INTO THE UNAPPRECIATED JAZZ SCENE OF THE BOSTON AREA AND STRUCK MUSICAL GOLD BY INITIALLY RECORDING LOCALS SUCH AS JOHN HARRISON, MARCELLE GAUVIN, JOHN STEIN AND GREG ABATE, AND EVENTUALLY BRANCHING OUT TO RECORD ARTISTS INCLUDING KENNY BARRON, DAVE LIEBMAN, GERRY GIBBS, JOHN ABERCROMBIE AND RON CARTER.
WHALING CITY LABEL OWNER NEAL WEISS WAS KIND ENOUGH TO SHARE SOME TIME AND INSIGHT AS TO HIS MOTIVATION IN STARTING AND RUNNING A RECORD LABEL.
WE THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE TO LEARN ABOUT THE INS AND OUTS OF RUNNING A RECORD LABEL, AND HOPEFULLY YOU WILL APPRECIATE THE WORK AND LOVE THAT IT TAKES TO GET THE MUSIC FROM THE ARTIST INTO YOUR EARS.
SO EXACTLY WHERE IS THIS CROSSROADS OF JAZZ, NEW BEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS?
Halfway between Cape Cod and Rhode Island
HOW DO YOU GO FROM DOING FIBER OPTICS TO STARTING A RECORD LABEL?
It goes back to high school.
I was a jazz nut in high school, and the only one who wasn’t in a band. All my friends who were jazz fans also played instruments in the band. I actually had a catalogue from the RCA Institute, which was a school in NYC where recording engineers would study. I didn’t pursue it because there was too much math; my dream was to be an A & R man.
I got through college and 12 years of teaching middle and high school English in New Hampshire, and then got a job in a small high tech company with a buddy who was the son of a next door neighbor to try to get out of teaching, as wife was a teacher at the time, got pregnant and we wanted to keep our home if possible.
The job with this high tech company was just two people, and I was number three. They did laser accessories, and when I started reading the technical magazines I got intrigued by fiber optics. I asked my boss “What’s fiber optics, and how come we’re not in it?” Something attracted me to it back in 1981; it was a brand new field.
This small training company became one of the first to specialize in fiber. There was then the big boom in 1998-99. As one of my competitors said to me , “There was a three month period when I thought I was rich” because the collapse came right after
When the internet collapse came in 99-2000, we continued to stay strong for 6 months, until we finally collapsed. But during the growth period I got the idea of putting out these cds by local musicians that I liked.
It bothered me that the people that I liked to go out and hear I could not listen to them at home.
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“It bothered me that the people that I liked to go out and hear I could not listen to them at home”
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SO IT WAS THE LOCAL SCENE THAT YOU WERE INITIALLY RECORDING.
Very much so. It started in Providence, RI and even New Bedford has an amazing jazz scene and history. At Berklee College in Boston I got to know just a few people there.
Label owners are generally not held in high regard, along with club owners, but I was less of a jerk than others, so a lot of the Berklee professors would contact me when they had projects to do.
The word got around, so I started putting out cds by more Berklee people until it spread on a more national level to New York.
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“Label owners are generally not held in high regard, along with club owners, but I was less of a jerk than others “
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WHO WERE THE MAIN LOCALS THAT YOU WANTED TO RECORD AT THE INITIAL TIME?
A piano player named John Harrison III; his number 8 cd of ours Roman Sun still stands up as a very strong outing. The drummer Alan Hall was flown in for that from California.
Bass player Bill Miele (who’s also on a recent cd with Jim Robitaille) is one of my favorite musicians in the world.
THAT WAS A GREAT MOVE TO TAP INTO AN UNCHARTED COLLECTION OF LOCAL ARTISTS, WHICH MANY HISTORIC LABELS HAVE DONE, SUCH AS BLUE NOTE, RIVERSIDE AND COMMODORE. WHO WERE THE RINGERS AT THAT TIME?
Jim Robitaille is a local, and he’s been around a long time, doing a lot of different things. He can do any style of music. He was in a rock band for awhile; he’s also done acoustic stuff as well as commercial stuff when he has to.
I originally met Gerry Gibbs (son of vibist Terry Gibbs), when he lived in San Antonio; I had a brother there who heard him and called me up all excited. It took a few years but I finally met him; the first album we put out was his big band album Live at Luna, which is a restaurant in San Antonio.
I met Joe Beck through a friend in a studio in Connecticut. I did a duo with him and a singer named Sarah Brooks and continued the relationship with Joe.
YOU MENTIONED THAT GUYS THAT RUN LABELS AND VENUES ARE LOOKED DOWN UPON, YET MUSICIANS NEED THEM. WHAT IS THE BAD RAP?
Both are commercial enterprises, and it’s very hard to make money, so you squeeze where you can, and it’s often the musician.
One line that I’ve heard musicians were told when they go to clubs “I don’t care if you play for free, I don’t want you.” It’s not uncommon to hear things like that, particularly for jazz players, as it’s cover bands and rock bands that djs that are the big draw.
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“musicians were told when they go to clubs “I don’t care if you play for free, I don’t want you.” It’s not uncommon to hear things like that, particularly for jazz players”
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SO WHAT’S THE ADVANTAGE OF A MUSICIAN USING A LABEL LIKE YOURS AS OPPOSED TO JUST RELEASING SOMETHING THAT HE RECORDED IN HIS BEDROOM ON HIS OWN?
These days it’s not as much as an advantage. It depends what you’re trying to do.
Now, with the internet, you can go viral if you can figure it out and get lucky. You can reach a lot of people directly; you don’t need an intermediary.
One of the things people said to me when I went out to put out the music was that “you’ll have fun, but no one’s going to play your stuff”, meaning getting on the radio.
Seeing if I could make the radio became a challenge for me early on.
At the time the radio people told me “We get 30 cds a week, and we pick 2-3 to add to the playlist.” So, the game with radio was to get on the playlist. The djs were given a box of 20 or so cds, and with a “heavy”, “medium” and “light” rotation are required to play a certain number of “heavies” each hour, a “medium” every two hours and a “light” rotation every three hours. So if you made the playlist, you had a much better odds of getting airplay.
I remember I was driving around, and Ron Della Chiesa, a very popular Boston dj on WGB, opened up the Friday night show with my cd, Faces of Love by Marcelle Gauvin. I almost drove off the road, I was so excited. That was the first one I put out, produced by Harrison, who also played on it.
Over the years we’ve done very, very well with radio play, and my interpretation of this is that the program directors, the decision makers, began to recognize the label as one that put out a certain level of quality.
The radio promoters have said that. When they get the cds, they now get excited. At times they told me that their people were getting angry because it had been a couple of months since they’d gotten anything.
So, the advantage is that when something comes from Whaling City Sound, the decision makers are aware of it and anxious to play it.
Someone told me “We don’t bother to preview your cds any more; we just open up the envelope and put it one the air”. I don’t think that’s literally true, but it is the sentiment.
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“One of the things people said to me when I went out to put out the music was that ‘you’ll have fun, but no one’s going to play your stuff’ meaning getting on the radio”
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DID YOU DETERMINE TO HAVE A PARTICULAR STYLE, IDENTITY OR SOUND TO ASSOCIATE WITH YOUR LABEL? IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE IN THIS ECONOMY?
I don’t know if it’s impossible, but my rule was that the quality had to be at the top, but it could be any style.
I did try to choose things that I like. If I didn’t care for the music, even if it was well done, I’d really have to think about it a lot.
But, I didn’t want to limit myself to a style. For my own taste, my needle is stuck between 1958-63; Coltrane and Miles, and obviously I like newer stuff, too. But that’s my sweet spot; hard bop, soul jazz, Cannonball and Wes. That’s what appeals to me.
But we have Jerry Bergonzi and Bruce Gertz, sax, bass, drum trios that are pretty abstract. Dave Liebman can get pretty out there.
HE PROBABLY MAKES SOME SALES FOR YOU.
Liebman definitely brings attention, but nothing “sells”.
HOW MANY SALES DOES IT TAKE FOR AN ARTIST TO CAUSE A LABEL TO BREAK EVEN FOR YOU?
I don’t know; it’s never happened. (chuckles) Not even close.
When I first started out in the early 2000s, if you had a certain position on the radio charts, like the top 20, it equated to 1000 copies sold. There were numbers, but I don’t think it applies anymore.
That’s why I focused on radio to create an audience. Sometimes I made it to the Top Ten, Top Five and even Number One, and yet there still weren’t sales to speak of.
SO YOU HAVE TO SUBSIDIZE THE LABEL.
Yes, I do. I’m still in the fiber optics business part time, and continue to put out the cds with the understanding that if I get something back, it’s terrific, but it doesn’t pay for itself.
DO YOU HAVE ANY DESIRE TO DO VINYL OR DIGITAL RELEASES?
I have two vinyl albums out so far. I think about digital releases, but it has to do with my mind-set. I’m so wedded to the “thing”. I’m too young to be completely wedded to a disc, but too old to not think of music as a thing in your hands-to hold the cd, the liner notes and a beautiful cover. All of those things are physical objects, and that’s also what the music is to me.
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I’m too young to be completely wedded to a disc, but too old to not think of music as a thing in your hands-to hold the cd, the liner notes and a beautiful cover. All of those things are physical objects, and that’s also what the music is to me.
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ANY ADVICE YOU WISH SOMEONE HAD TOLD YOU BEFORE YOU STARTED THE LABEL?
I don’t know. I just did it; I maintained high standards. The quality has stayed strong.
I guess someone could have warned me about the money (laughs)
There’s the old joke “How do you make a million dollars with a jazz label? You start with two!” (chuckles)
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“There’s the old joke ‘How do you make a million dollars with a jazz label? You start with two!'”
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OF ALL YOUR SESSIONS, WHO HAS BEEN THE EASIEST AND MOST HEAVENLY?
Heaven would have to have been the first session with Gerry Gibbs, Ron Carter and Kenny Barron. I think the cd is named Thrasher Dream Trio. We did three of them. I was at almost every day of the sessions. The third one was a “live in studio” where we had an audience, and that was terrific.
The first one happened to be on my birthday. At one point I was in the listening room, and at one time Gerry asked me to come down, as the guys had some questions. They played “Happy Birthday” for me (laughs)
DO YOU DO ANY SOCIAL MEDIA?
Ginny Shea of Mixed Media is in Rhode Island, and she’s been with me from the beginning. She does all of the social media stuff, but my web site hasn’t been re-done in 20 years, although we’re just about to.
I’m distributed by Naxos, and they are very good about advising us on that kind of stuff. They have conferences and have done sessions on how to have a social media presence.
This virus has caused all of the musicians, even the older ones, into becoming virtual.
The ones who teach in Berklee and elsewhere have had to go online with teaching.
IF YOU HAD $1000 WHO WOULD YOU PAY TO RECORD?
A lot of them are that way anyway! (laughs)
I have one coming up; it’s booked at Rudy Van Gelder studios with the sax player Greg Abate doing the music of Kenny Barron, and Kenny is on it, with his drummer Johnathan Blake and bassist Dezron Douglas. Kenny played on Greg’s first cd with us.
IT MUST BE SATISFYING THAT MANY ARTISTS HAVE STAYED LOYAL TO YOU WHAT PHILOSOPHY, BOOK OR RELIGIOUS TEACHING HAS KEPT YOU POSITIVE AND MOTIVATED?
My parents. I view my attitudes and sense of purpose coming from them; the idea of giving back.
I also think that the music industry is in the blood somewhere. I have a cousin who ran a record store in Manhattan and ended up working for Herb Alpert and A&M Records, and an older brother in San Antonio (who passed away) and taught Radio, TV and Film and briefly had a label and into the music business. I have a sister that was a big Beatles fan and now does stand-up comedy in New York!
WHAT DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SAY WHEN THEY PUT YOU IN THE PINE BOX?
“He had good taste” (laughs)
My sense of the label comes from my arrogance that I know what’s good. That’s also what motivates me. If I put something out there, even if you didn’t like it, I want you to say, “I really don’t like this kind of music, but I can tell it’s good”.
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“If I put something out there, even if you didn’t like it, I want you to say, ‘I really don’t like this kind of music, but I can tell it’s good'”
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WHY DO ARTISTS RETURN FOR YOU?
For many years artists would come to record labels and the labels would tell them what to do. For me, many of the albums were done before I even knew about them. They’d send me the music, and I’d package, promote and distribute it. It’s still that way.
I have a few “vanity projects” where I put the band together and decide what to do, but they have complete artistic control. The difference is that you have musicians putting out music that they feel is theirs, as opposed to my saying “I want you to do a disco album” or whatever the fashion is.
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” When (the radio promotes) get the cds, they now get excited. told me that their people were getting angry because it had been a couple of months since they’d gotten anything”
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WHAT THREE ALBUMS WOULD YOU HAND TO A STRANGER AND SAY “THIS IS WHAT WE SOUND LIKE”?
The first Harrison album, Roman Sun, Joe Beck’s Get Me Joe Becks, which was was right before he passed away. He’d had lug cancer treatment and was on the West Coast for the NAMM show. On the weekends he recorded in a small club with bass and drums. After he passed away, the bass player approached me and told me that he had this recording and he knew Joe wanted it to be put out.
I said I didn’t think so. He gave me the list of songs and he’d already had 2-3 recordings of them on other albums. But he sent them to me and it was fantastic.
Joe always played with a lot of effects with a very electric sound, but this was not like that. It was like Tal Farlow; stripped down and straight jazz guitar. Playing for himself; almost all ballads. Not doing it for any reason other than he wanted to play.
All of the Gerry Gibbs albums. When he sent me his two-cd set Electric Miles , I sat down and listened to it twice through. I started at midnight and listened to it until four in the morning. Other people that I gave it to got angry at me and said the same thing, “You cost me a day!” (laughs) They couldn’t put it down once they put it on and played it all the way straight through.
ARE THERE STILL GUYS IN BOSTON WHO NEED TO BE DISCOVERED?
Oh, a thousand of them! There’s way to much to do.
SO, WHEN YOU TAKE PART IN THE JOY OF DISCOVERING A PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN ARTIST, OR FIND ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE MUSICIANS ON A “SMALLER” LABEL PERFORMING MORE OBSCURE MATERIAL, IT’S GUYS LIKE NEAL WEISS WHO HAVE PUT IN THE TIME, EFFORT, AND YES, MONEY TO GET THAT MUSIC BETWEEN YOUR EARS. AS THEY SAY AT OUR CHURCH, THERE IS NO FEAST WITHOUT A SACRIFICE, AND BECAUSE OF NEAL WEISS’ VISION OF MAKING THE NEW ENGLAND AREA A HAVEN FOR JAZZ MUSIC AND MUSICIANS, WE FANS CAN BE THE BENEFICIARIES.
NEAL WEISS’ AND HIS WHALING CITY LABEL HAS HARPOONED A GREAT NICHE IN THE JAZZ WORLD, COME, LISTEN AND TAKE PART OF HIS VESSEL.