Trumpeter Dave Douglas has released a new album, "Brazen Heart" (featured this week on Alloy). The album is excellent and I highly recommend giving it a listen. Dave was also interviewed recently by NY Times music critic, Nate Chinen, for this month's issue of Jazz Times magazine. It is an excellent and concise interview focused namely on what it means to create and publish music in this age of streaming, subscription, and independent/DIY music models. One of the more interesting exchanges centers around the notion of what is considered an "album" these days:
Nate Chinen: What are your thoughts about the business of streaming, both as an artist and a label head?
Dave Douglas: Obviously I’ve given this a lot of thought, but I feel like these issues are really at the corporate level. And a lot of artists are now releasing their work on Soundcloud or Vimeo or YouTube. So the deeper question is, what does it mean to put out an album? I talk to a lot of young musicians who are incredibly talented, and I say to them, “When are you going to make your record?” And they go, “What do you mean?” You’re asking me about streaming, but I feel like the question is, to people who are half my age, what does it mean to document and release recorded music? Maybe the corporate streaming problem isn’t the real crux of the issue.
Past models, paradigms, and practices are shifting and changing in the music/creative world. What was once so clear and defined, like what an album "is" and how you get "heard" are changing rapidly. Dave seems to understand and grasp this moving landscape very well. Read the full interview here.