The Wolfgang's Vault blog

Nearly a year ago Wolfgang’s Vault purchased the audio and audiovisual archives and all related intellectual property of Festival Network. Included in this remarkable archive are many years of Newport Jazz along with concert recordings from other Jazz Festivals throughout the United States. There were more than 2,000 tapes in this archive which represent more than 1,200 live performances. At this moment, we have inventoried about 50% of the Festival Network Archive.

Shortly after the acquisition we commenced the transfer of all these master tapes, a majority of which were 40 to 50 years old. We needed to repair many of these tapes and then carefully and painstakingly transfer them, uncompressed, into a digital format. We then hired Grammy award-winning sound engineers to mix and master these live recordings. Between nine and eleven Wolfgang’s Vault employees and outside consultants have been working on this project nearly full-time for ten months. Wolfgang’s Vault has invested millions of dollars in this effort and less than one-quarter of these performances are in a finished state. It will be at least five years before Wolfgang’s Vault breaks even on this investment.

Most of our very capable and professional staff is between the ages of 25 to 35 and I have had the privilege of watching these young people become thoroughly enamored with great Jazz. I am even more convinced than I was at the beginning of this project that Jazz has a bright future and legacy if we can but present these great, high-quality recordings to a new generation of fans in a manner that those many years younger than I demand. That is what Wolfgang’s Vault has done and is doing with other live music genres from rock to country to bluegrass and is what we intend to do with Jazz.

We will offer free low-bitrate streams and lossless paid downloads to listeners. We pay full mechanical rates to publishers and a royalty that is higher than the norm to performers for all downloads. I would note the royalty here but performer compensation is a confidential matter. We pay royalties every month and provide performers with online up-to-the-second reporting of download sales if they want it.

I am a Jazz fan, not a Jazz expert. I know what I like and I like Jazz broadly and improvisational, live Jazz best. I have been told by labels and performers that Jazz CD sales have been and continue to be weak and that the sales future is not bright. Wolfgang’s Vault has spent millions and will spend more to bring these great live Jazz recordings to old and new fans. We do it in the manner that the younger generation understands and requires — streaming and downloads — at a fair price to consumers, timely and frequent payment to performers and publishers and in a manner that values high quality above all else.

Bill Sagan