Drummer Sean Dobbins chats with the audience during a performance at Cliff Bell's last month. Dobbins and his band, the Modern Jazz Messengers, are set to release a CD on the Detroit Music Factory label. / Jarrad Henderson/Detroit Free Press
By Mark Stryker, Detroit Free Press Music Writer
Pianist and composer Scott Gwinnell has released three CDs on his own label. But his latest, "Cass Corridor Story," was issued on Detroit Music Factory, a new imprint owned by Mack Avenue Records, an important locally based jazz label with an international profile.
During a recent chat on Facebook, a friend in North Dakota told him that she had just heard "Cass Corridor Story" on the radio. That's what a label with wide distribution can do for a Detroit artist of modest means -- get the music into corners of the country where it would be unlikely to land otherwise.
"It's really nice to know that the music is out there, because that's not something I could ever accomplish on my own," said Gwinnell, 39.
Launched this winter, the Detroit Music Factory fulfills Mack Avenue owner Gretchen Valade's desire to showcase more homegrown Detroit musicians on her family of labels. Valade, an heir to the Carhartt clothing fortune, is well-known for channeling her wealth into her passion for jazz. She endowed the Detroit Jazz Festival with a $15-million bequest and remains its primary patron. She also owns the Dirty Dog Jazz Café in Grosse Pointe Farms.
The Detroit Music Factory adds a new wrinkle to her advocacy by creating a megaphone for Detroit musicians. It's a business proposition, not charity: Artists are offered a licensing deal in which they are responsible for delivering a finished master recording (at their expense) while the label assumes production costs, marketing and distribution. Artists are also given 1,000 CDs to sell on their own, keeping all profits. Meanwhile, revenue from the company's sales are split down the middle after taxes and fees.
Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20130317/ENT04/303170115
