Was the series-influenced jazz sales boost in the USA a permanent reality or a brief phenomenon?
It was a very short-lived phenomenon, and the only CDs that got much of a boost from it were the anthologies that piggybacked off the series. I see that Down Beat magazine now lists at the end of their CD reviews the URLs of the websites where one can purchase the CDs. What is the current situation when it comes to the distribution of (major, indie) jazz CDs in the shops, chains etc.? Well, I live in Philadelphia, which is a pretty large city, and get to New York pretty often. So theoretically, I should be able to put my hands on any CD I’m looking for. Yet I find myself ordering more and more on line, because I read about things, or hear about things, that I can’t find in stores in Philadelphia or New York. And buying CDs at gigs – one of the nice things about the annual Vision Festival in New York is that there’s always a table in back selling CDs I haven’t seen anywhere else, usually put out by the musicians themselves. But yeah, distribution is lousy in the U.S. It’s a real problem
