Sandy Brown Jazz

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The monthly Tea Break is a series of short, fun items in What's New Magazine
that also gives jazz musicians and others an opportunity to update us with what they are doing.

Matt Fripp graduated from the four year Jazz degree course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London in 2008 where he studied saxophone. He started booking gigs for himself and friends and then organised a small jazz festival and this led to him working for a UK jazz music company dealing with bookings. The work gave him a good grounding in the business side of the music industry booking tours and working with musicians such as Kyle Eastwood, Marius Neset, Empirical, China Moses, Tim Garland and Michael Wollny. 

Inevitably, in 2016, Matt set up his own agency, as well as a website called Jazzfuel shortly after, and established a client base across many countries.  Although born in the UK, he is currently based with his family in Paris, France, but as he explains, the international aspects of his work make little difference to his location.

What is different about Matt and Jazzfuel is the information that he shares publicly on his website. 

Matt says: “In an ideal world, maybe great music would be the only factor that led to a project's success. But in reality, it’s not. You need great content to grab attention, you need to be able to communicate the music in words, you need to build your personal network and motivate more people to join…So Jazzfuel really started as a way of trying to explain, as simply as possible, how you could improve these things, without waiting around for a manager or agent." 

"As an agent, I get contacted by a lot of jazz musicians from around the world who are looking for representation. Signing an artist is a massive commitment of time and, as such, I have to say 'no' (or at least ‘not right now’) most of the time. But that doesn’t mean I don’t see the potential or the creativity in a lot of those projects. By sharing these resources, I hope that musicians will be able to start making faster progress today, to get the gigs and attention their music deserves." 

Jazzfuel is a very valuable website for musicians and highly recommended – you can explore it here. I would also suggest that it is really worth signing up to the Jazzfuel free mailing list for regular updates.

Matt took time out for an online Tea Break:

Hi Matt, thanks for dropping in for a virtual tea break, or are you a coffee drinker?

Hi Ian, right now I'm having a strong black coffee! 

How are things over there in Paris? We are in lock down again, here in the UK, but the days are getting longer now and spring and the vaccine are on their way. Did you ever study Latin at school? I have been telling people that my old Latin master used to tell us “Speramus meliora, lads!” which I think means “We hope for better things” – but then I did fail Latin, so I might have that wrong.

Things are ok here, but really we could be anywhere as it's pretty much apartment>office>supermarket>repeat at the moment! I didn't study Latin (I didn't even study French which would have been useful) but I know they have a lot of great sayings. In this case, for sure: that's all we can do right now isn't it?! Personally I'm feeling cautiously optimistic for Spring onwards... 

Your education was more music focussed of course, going with your saxophone to the Guildhall Conservatoire in London. Did you have a favourite saxophone player  at the time?

I've had a lot of favourites over the years. Being an alto player I guess Cannonball Adderley was an early way in, but Sonny Rollins has probably been the most enduring one. I was also a big Kenny Garrett fan around the time I decided to study music seriously. 

I love some of Kenny's work with Miles Davis. There are several videos of them playing Human Nature at various concerts but I particularly like this outside gig where you can physically feel the close interaction of trumpet, sax and bass guitar on stage:

But what made you decide to go into management after graduating? How did that come about?

I kind of slipped into the management thing; I was already booking gigs for a bit of extra money when I was a student, and at somepoint my good friend Anthony Strong split with his manager and I somehow decided to give it a go. We still work together now almost 15 years later so I guess that was a good decision.  

It must be hard for Anthony at the moment. He has built up a really successful recording and international touring career but I guess that's on hold. When he made this video of East Of The Sun none of us had any idea that a pandemic was going to disrupt our lives a couple of years later:

Did you find that contacts you made during the time at Guildhall helped?

I think the networking side of going to a conservatoire is possibly the most underrated part of it, especially for musicians. You often spend the rest of your career with those people. I'm not sure I made many 'industry' contacts in that time, but certainly it helped in knowing about jazz which is an important part of my work.

And then you started up your own agency and Jazzfuel - that was quite a big step?

Well first I spent 6 years working for a London booking agency, which was a great education. Not only did it help my understanding of the business, but also I got to meet a lot of people much quicker than I could have on my own. I was always motivated by building something of my own though, so setting up solo was a natural progression. Jazzfuel was really only a hobby at the beginning. There are so many great musicians you can't work with directly, so being able to direct them to some content about booking gigs and and growing their career from the point of view of an agent/manager seemed like a useful thing to do. It kind of snowballed from thereand now, with 4000+ musicians involved, I get to hear a lot about what they need and sometimes can offer more concrete services to help with that.  

I’m just going to pour another cup of tea and munch a biscuit – I guess you have all sorts of tasty patisserie over there in Paris – what is your favourite?

Without a doubt the Croissants aux Amandes. It's much more than a croissant with almonds in ... it's part crunchy, part soft, part salty part sweet, with this kind of almond paste going through it...  

We get them over here too - I'm a sucker for the almond paste! Going back to the wealth of information on Jazzfuel, I really liked your advice to musicians who are trying to publicise their recordings (click here). I get many emails asking whether I’ll review an album where clearly the same general email has been sent out and the musician has never looked at my website to see the different ways I promote new work. One or two emails have indicated that they have followed your advice and they immediately get my attention. It always amazes me that a musician will spend so much time composing and arranging music for an album, spend lots of time getting it to sound right in a studio, and then not take the same care with publicity.

I agree 100%! Whether it's booking gigs or getting press, my opinion is that everything should be personalised. It gets better results, as you said, but also it just makes a more positive experience for everyone.  Press and promoters spend less time listening to music that's not relevant for them, and musicians can get a much higher proportion of positive feedback. It's just better all round! It sounds simple, but that's because the results don't come from the idea, they come from putting in the hours that it takes to do that highly personalised work. But time and time again I've seen musicians commit to doing that and getting a great selection of press reviews or gigs.    

There is so much information on the Jazzfuel website from suggestions for instruments and information about musicians and jazz styles to ‘cheat-sheets’ on publicity and presenting yourself to promoters. How many people do you have writing or working for Jazzfuel and do you have to spend a lot of time on the website?

Until last year it was just me writing for the site, but when lockdown #1 hit and all my agency work disappeared, I decided to double down on publishing more content - including pieces for fans and students. Since then, I've been slowly growing the list of people who write for the site; it's mainly musicians, but some industry people too. A couple of them have really contributed a lot, whereas others dip in and out when they want. It's been fun because I've ended up listening to so many 'classic' albums that I haven't really sat down and listened to in years. 

Is there a jazz musician you have come across recently you think we should listen to?

Wow, that's a hard one because I work with so many great musicians, and hear even more from inside the Jazzfuel community. Maybe the most surprising one in the last few weeks was a young Israeli pianist called Eden Giat; he joined one of my programmes and our first contact was a Zoom call where he was very modest and discreet.

Eden Giat
Photograph by Yoel Levy

After the call, I checked his website and the first thing I found was a video of a him performing with the great Avishai Cohen who'd invited him as a special guest. That video has now been moved to Instagram and can still be viewed from Eden's website, but alternatively, there is a nice video of him playing his arrangement of Atur with his father, drummer Doron Giat, and bassist Avri Borochov:

Yes, that's really impressive, Matt. Looking at Eden's story on his website - click here - his biography shows just how talented he is in both classical music and jazz. Certainly someone I shall listen to more.

And I discover that Avishai Cohen is not just an outstanding bass player, but I respect the way he supports a particular charity each year - in 2020 it was a cluster of kindergartens for children with speciall needs in Jerusalem and the surrounding region coming from diverse backgrounds: Jews, Arabs, secular and religious. The children have cerebral palsy and other complex motor and language impairments which result in learning disabilities as well as difficulties in speech and language that require therapeutic intervention - the details are on his website.

Looking at the current situation from a 'manager / agency' point of view, what do you think musicians could be doing while public performance is pretty much on hold?

Things can be really tough at the moment but I think it's a great opportunity to lay some strong foundations for the next steps in a career. Firstly, when possible, creating new music that will really help you make some noise in the coming months. But also taking stock of your contacts, expanding your list of promoters and journalists, thinking about how you're presenting your project. All those things seem secondary to the music - and they are from an artistic point of view - but you can't get a gig if you don't ask, you can't get a review if you don't pitch it, and having those contacts to hand, as well as brilliant content to share with them, is vital. 

I have noticed how musicians are supporting each other too during these times. There are more than 1,500 professional jazz musicians inside the private Jazzfuel Community Facebook Group, has the Group been a source of support for them do you think?

I'd like to think so! I know plenty of musicians have connected inside there, whilst others have been able to get opinions and feedback from those in a similar situation, so it seems positive. 

Although you are based in France, the internet is a great resource in being able to reach people everywhere. What do you have planned for Jazzfuel for 2021? Are there parts you would like to expand or new ideas?

Yes, ironically I don't actually do much work in France with any of my projects. Not by intention, it's just worked out that way, so that would be nice to improve. I'm running a series of events soon for the French export bureau so that's already progress. 

Aside from that, I'm working hard to bring more industry guests into the Jazzfuel community, either via the interview series we run on the website, or as more in-depth livestream sessions in my private membership site Jazzfuel Manager. The goal is not that people come and get *my* point of view, but a range of opinions. That way, they can try out the things that feel right for them. 

One big goal would be to expand the ways we can help musicians release music. We already offer a limited number of press campaigns, but I still feel there's a need for low cost 'label services' type support. I still see far too many musicians signing away a big percentage of their music to a 'label' - as well as funding other areas of the release - without really getting much value in return.  

Of course the music that is at the heart of all this – how about choosing a piece of music to finish off our tea break, Matt?

Hmmm - The last article we published on the site was about the music of Charles Mingus. One album that I hadn't heard in full since my student days - which I'm now playing on repeat - is Changes One. How about something from that?

Great! We can listen to the whole album here, but what about this video of Mingus playing Sue's Changes from the album live at Montreaux in 1975, it is a section from the tune that features amazing work from pianist Don Pullen. There are videos of other sections on YouTube - it must have been an incredible concert.

Thanks for stopping by, Matt. Take care, stay safe and well, and best wishes for Jazzfuel in 2021, it will be interesting to see how things develop as the year goes on.

Thanks Ian - same to you!  

Click here for the Jazzfuel website and for more information.

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