Singing in Boston

I flew in to Boston Sunday and hopped in a cab and went over to Cambridge to rehearse at Richard's house. In a bit of overlap between my day and night jobs, Richard is a speaker at a conference that the magazine I work for puts on, but he's also a bass player and knows some other musicians. We played last year in Boston and this year he put together a slightly bigger band. The rehearsal went well, and I left feeling so good about another facet of living my dream: Meeting and jamming with musicians where ever I go.

Then, Tuesday I had an appointment with Peter Spellman, a professor at Berklee School of Music, about promotion and career planning and how much more marketing to do for my CD before I get started on the next one. He was very impressed with the packaging, quality and eclecticism of Jazzmerica. He felt that that was a strength, so he wouldn't give the traditional advice of doing another follow-up album that was highly focused (say, only salsa). He had a really cool idea: Find a company (not a music company) that I feel an affinity for and see if they want to partner in promoting my music. Some company or charity or organization that focuses on uniting the Americas, bridging the gap between North and South America, or across the languages. I'll have to do some brainstorming on that. So his focus is non-traditional marketing, since, as he says, the record companies are hurting and the usual pipelines are clogged with CDs. "Just because everybody can put out a CD doesn't mean everybody should," he says. "Today, every company wants to be a music company. Look at Apple."

He had some advice for my press kit, radio promotion in 2006, finding corporate gigs (that is a must-do!). I left feeling so happy and refreshed. And it was fun to go into a music school, I always love walking past the practice rooms and hearing people whaling on their instruments, oblivious to the outside world.

So then, last night, we had our little gig here at the Sheraton for the conference folks. I had fun--every gig is another learning experience. We had excellent turnout. I didn't count, but perhaps 40-50? I sold 6 CDs at the end--by normal gig standards, that's above average!