It's November 2004.  Heads Up is celebrating its 15th Anniversary.  Wayman Tisdale's Hang Time debuts on Dave Koz's Rendezvous Music label.  Boney James holds down the #1 spot on the Smooth Jazz sales chart with his CD Pure.  Chris Botti's When I Fall In Love, Dave Koz's Saxophonic, George Benson's Irreplaceable, and Tisdale's Hang Time round out the Top Five.  New York City's CD101.9 adds a heavy dose of "Chill" to its smooth jazz line-up and becomes CD101.9 New York Chill.

If you are an avid smooth jazz fan who scours the internet for news and reviews, you may notice this small paragraph on Peter Böhi's site, www.smoothvibes.com:

NEW WEBSITE FOR SMOOTH JAZZ LOVERS
For those of you who like to visit many sites in your quest to find out what’s new in the world of smooth jazz, watch for the debut of www.smoothviews.com on November 1st, where you can read even more concert and CD reviews, as well as artist interviews and lots of other miscellaneous information about this genre of music.  And while you’re over there, say hi to Mary, a smooth jazz buddy of mine!

And other than some chatter on some of the smooth jazz forums, that is the only "advertisement" you see for this upstart web magazine called SmoothViews whose debut edition features Al Jarreau, Dave Koz and Steve Oliver.

Flash forward five years.

It's November 2009.  Head's Up is celebrating its 20th Anniversary.  Dave Koz's Rendezvous Music label, as well as Rick Braun and Richard Elliot's Artizen label have been sold to Mack Avenue.  George Benson holds down the #1 spot with Songs and Stories.  Peter White's Good Day, Richard Elliot's Rock Steady, Paul Taylor's Burnin' and Boney James' Send One Your Love round out the Top Five.  We are all still mourning the loss of Wayman Tisdale.  And CD101.9 is now an Adult Rock station.

If you are one of the 3500 avid smooth jazz fan who scours the internet for news and reviews, thank you for making SmoothViews a regular stop over the last five years!

There have been a lot of changes in those five years.  The music business as a whole is still struggling to redefine itself in a world where hits aren't made on the radio anymore, and didn't necessarily come from a major label.  More people are listening to a self-selected playlist on their iPods and computers than are listening to the radio.  CD sales are staggeringly low. It's hard to find a promoter willing to back live shows unless you are a mega-star.  Artists in all genres are struggling to survive in this climate.  Artists in small niche genres like smooth jazz are struggling more than most.  Everyone seems to be waiting for someone to come up with the golden answer that will push the industry forward and pull it out of the doldrums.

In the long run, this isn't a bad thing.  Somewhere in the 90s, the music business lost sight of the two most important things - the music and the audience.  Motivated by greed, they decided that  the audience was irrelevant, and tried to replace the music with cheap imitations… a business model that cannot sustain itself for long.  This is art, and art is, by definition, all about the relationship between the art, the artist, and the audience.

We went back this month to our "launch angels" – Al Jarreau, Dave Koz, and Steve Oliver – to see what they are doing to survive, and in some cases, even thrive in 2009.

"This time has thankfully unleashed a new spurt of creativity, and one that's not based on radio spins or record sales, but on focusing on the art and coming up with new and interesting ways to reach my audience," shares Koz.

I like to think of it as a caterpillar stuck in its cocoon waiting for someone on the outside to crack it open and free it.  But that's not how it works.  It evidentially has to free itself.  And it will.  

Continues Koz, " …great music will always find its way."

What will it look like five years from now?  I don't have any idea.  But I hope that we will be celebrating our 10th Anniversary.  I know we'll still be celebrating great music – just as we have for the last five years.  We are humbled and honored to be a part of the metamorphosis – small though it may be.

As Shannon West wrote on the occasion of our First Anniversary, "We are grateful to every artist who has done an interview; the management, PR, and promotion people who have helped us schedule interviews and put us on the guest lists for concerts; and, the artists and record companies who have sent us music.   We are grateful to everyone listed on the links page: other writers who have inspired us; websites that have each added their perspective to the mix; broadcasters and webcasters who get the music heard; and, concert venues and festival producers.   We are grateful to those who will be on the links page in the future, because they are creating something new at this moment."