Stompin' At The Savoy: A business model that's breathing new life into a classic jazz label.
Radio and Records
By Carol Archer

The Savoy Label Group, with its presitious catalog that includes recordings by legendary jazz artists Charlie "Bird" Parker, Dizzy gillespie, John Coltrane and Miles Davis, is undergoing a renaissance consistent with the label's rich heritage and appropriate to 21st century jazz fans' tastes too.

By the close of the company's second fiscal year, business was up 25% over the first year - an impressive accomplishment, especially in today's economic climate. This week Savoy President Steve Vining and VP/A&R Guy Eckstine illuminate the company's revamped business model and artistic approach.

After Strauss Zelnick, Vinning and others left BMG under what the latter calls "the Middelhoff cloud," Vining spent a year in Silicon Valley with a company that makes high-quality recording and digital processing equipment. When that project was completed he reconnected with Zelnick, who in the interim had gone into business with Manhattan-based leveraged-buyout firm Ripplewood. The company specializes in putting better management structures in under-leveraged companies to turn them around, especially companies in Japan.

A gutsy move.

Ripplewood owns a bank and several technology companies. It bought the former Nippon Telegram's land lines, the equipment company Denon, and Nippon Columbia, Japan's fourth-oldest record label, which it split into separate hardware and label groups. Zelnick took over as Chairman of Nippon Columbia and invited Vining to run the U.S. operation, including Savoy's jazz catalog and Denon Classics and Jazz.
"This was the end of 2001, in the depths of hard times for the record business, " Vinning says. "It was a gutsy move. In the meantime, Strauss overhauled the company management in Japan, and they've had to platinum records - their first in over ten years.

"We've been cranking up the U.S. operation, albeit on a modest budget. The goal was to get the company straightened out. They had no finance infrastructure in place, royalties were a mess, and there was a distribution deal through Atlantic that no one was happy with."

As he begins his third year guiding Savoy's latest incarnation, Vining has a specific vision for the label that is not unlike the one he has implemented elsewhere over the past ten or fifteen years, including when he served as President of Windham Hill Records.

Target: Consumers Over 30

"We're working from adult base, and the catalog gives us a head start. " Vining says. "We've got really high-quality classics and jazz from Denon that have been recently recorded and the great Savoy catalog. We bought 32 records a year ago in December, which netted us the old Muse and Landmark recordings. That was Joel Dorn and Robert Miller's old label.

"By picking up those assets, we re-launched a few lines and used the repertoire for a range of releases, including lifestyle compilations and the Jazz Four series, which did incredibly well for 32 in its day, and used to build the base for new artist signings.

"We're in the thick of it now with releases from the first wave of signings, and obviously, we're talking to a great number of other artists, because it's a target-rich environment right now. I think jazz will go back to the model of the late'50s and early '60s, where it's the domain of independent companies.

"We plan to expand into all the adult genres, beginning with a couple of great records on our triple A label, 429. We're looking at the 30-and-up market: smooth jazz, AC, triple A, some world music and New Age - no hip-hop. All good, controllable formats, which, if you do them right, you cannot go broke and you sell records.

The Creative Tip

Few folks in jazz, except those who have lived off-planet, are unfamiliar with Guy Eckstine's accomplishments. They include music publishing at Virgin and A&R at Columbia and Verve, where, as VP/A&R, he signed such luminaries as Herbie Hancock - with whom he co-produced The New Standard - Jeff Lorber, Art Porter and Chris Botti.

He also did a stink in new media as Sr. VP/Development at MP3.com. Among his countless credits is co-producer of Brian Culbertson's 2003 disc Nice & Slow, which includes the No.1 track "All About You."
Eckstine introduced vocalist Carol Welsman, whom he heard sing at one of Botti's gigs, to Bob Beldon, who had a connection to Steve Backer at Savoy. The label signed Welsman, and, subsequently, Backer asked Eckstine to produce Hubert Laws, then hired Eckstine as Savoy's VP/A&R.

Eckstine is enthusiastic about Law's record Moondance. "It's a great record," he says. "I certainly have all the right guys on it - Culby, Herbie, Botti and Lorber - and all the songs are great. Hubert is one of the greatest flute players in the world, and if you can count his CTI stuff from the '70s, he's a pioneer, a core artists in this format before it was called smooth jazz.

"It's hard to believe he's not played as a heritage artist. Ironically, satellite radio is all over his record, and some terrestrial stations are too. I like to take chances to pique listeners' interest, just as I would imagine programs directors do."

Artist Mission

Eckstine explains that his artistic mission at Savoy resembles one he put in place at Verve/Forecast. "My job is to sign acts - to find them and produce or executive produce them - and, along with Steve Vining, build the creative vision for the label," he says.

"It;s like building a baseball team, it's a three-pronged approach. You want a blend of veteran artists with a touring base, like Jeff Lorber, exciting developing acts, like Chris Botti, and baby acts. It is unfortunate so many artists are being dropped, but this is a good time to cherry-pick and build a roster.

"Given Savoy's history with people like Bird and my father [Billy Eckstine] and John Coltrane, it's been cutting-edge; but at the same time we have to sell records and be mainstream, so it's a very fine line we have to toe between art and commerce.

"I keep going back to Chris Botti as the best example, because he's doing something different, yet accessible - something that gets radio airplay and sells records but is not so out there that it annoys people or alienates them.

"I'm looking for artists along that edge who are unique but still commercial. They aren't easy to find, but they're out there somewhere. As an A&R person, I'm interested in discovering new things, but I realize that Smooth Jazz is a brand-name format, and we need known acts to create attention for the label and build critical mass at radio.