48 JAZZTIMES SEPTEMBER 2019
P
asquale Grasso has a reputation
among New York guitarists and
guitar geeks for his technical
fluidity and incorporation of classical
techniques. (He’s a particular favorite
of Pat Metheny’s, performing for him at
the 2018 NEA Jazz Masters concert.) The
30-year-old, Italian-born bebop specialist
often performs unaccompanied. “It’s one
of my favorite things, to play solo,” he says.
That specialty makes Grasso unusual.
But it’s the bare fact of his being a jazz
musician that made his January 2018
signing by Sony Music an unlikely prop-
osition. For there’s one skill that even
the most virtuosic jazz musicians strug-Jazz on the Installment Plan
A new online strategy—releasing music piecemeal—is taking hold
in the jazz world BY MICHAEL J. WESTCHOPS
gle with mightily: how to sell records.
Sony has an idea of how to change that.
Shortly after his signing, Grasso recorded
51 tracks with producer Matt Pierson.
Pierson then organized the tracks into a
series of five-track, themed EPs.
“I thought that was a great idea of
Matt’s, to put it out this way,” Grasso
says. “He worked with so many great
artists, so when he told me this I was
thinking, ‘I’m gonna listen. He knows
what he’s talking about!’”
The first two EPs, Standards Vol. 1
and Ballads Vol. 1, appeared in June
and August, with Solo Monk slated for
October. Sony plans to release tidbitsof new material—including Elling-
ton, Charlie Parker, and Bud Powell
mini-collections—every two months
over the next year.
“We realize that jazz in the mod-
ern age is commercially challenged,”
says Josh Lerman, vice president for
the international division of Sony
Music Masterworks, “and we’re using
Pasquale to try to change things up.”
The revenue for physical music
releases has been in decline for nearly
a decade, and musicians haven’t reaped
the benefits so far from the rise of on-
line streaming platforms; currently, the
highest royalty rates are less than $0.02Pasquale GrassoDENEKAPENISTONx Q&A: Esperanza Spalding on the process of recording and releasing her Exposure album