Anyone can make an album these days, using a good mic, a laptop or tablet or even phone. And with platforms like Bandcamp and YouTube, musicians can stream into the eardrums of potentially millions of listeners. 

So, who needs record labels anymore? Especially in a relatively marginal musical field like jazz. And especially a label dedicated solely to the original jazz music of one corner of the United States? 

For over a decade, Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble (PJCE) Records has demonstrated the contemporary value of exactly such a seemingly outmoded institution. Over several dozen releases, it’s opened new opportunities for emerging Oregon artists, and helped put 21^st century Northwest jazz in the national spotlight. The success story of PJCE Records also tells us a lot about how enterprising musicians can bring original sounds to wide audiences in the streaming era.

At last weekend’s Montavilla Jazz Festival, PJCE celebrated its latest tranche of new releases, including one of the best jazz albums I’ve heard all year–Green in Grey, by veteran drummer/composer Chris Lee with an all-star lineup of Northwest jazz pros–and impressive debuts from two rising stars: trombonist/composer Chris Shuttleworth and drummer/composer Rivkah Ross, with live performances by the artists. The festival lineup also included PJCE Records artists Kerry Politzer, Jasnam Daya Singh, DoubleDash (Dario LaPoma and Machado Mijiga), Dan Balmer with Gary Versace, and Adriana Wagner. They and other PJCE musicians have cooked up some of the finest jazz I’ve heard this year — on any label. 

And even though there’s indubitably too much music around, on this Bandcamp Fee Free First Friday, why not take advantage of the pro-artist terms to explore a few dozen of PJCE’s releases — and give the maximum benefit to the home state artists who created it? 

Legendary Labels

Although jazz, famously created spontaneously in the moment, seemed to be the quintessential live phenomenon, record companies played a crucial role in its development and propagation. From early labels like Okeh, Decca and Black Swan through golden age companies such as Prestige, Riverside, Impulse, Verve and maybe the most famous of all, Blue Note, to later legends like ECM, specialty jazz labels provided a stepping stone for some jazz giants to major general interest companies like Columbia, Capitol, Atlantic, and more. During jazz’s mid-20^th century heyday, they also provided a steady income for at least some of jazz’s brightest lights, supplementing their often meager and unpredictable gig paychecks. (Admittedly, they could also mercilessly exploit vulnerable, sometimes addicted artists desperate for money for rent, food, or a fix.)

Still, for awhile, getting signed by a major jazz label could help musicians reach new audiences and, in the luckiest cases, find a modicum of stability in an inherently unstable artistic existence. 

All that changed with jazz’s declining prominence in the popular music mainstream, and then even more as streaming replaced record or CD sales as the main recorded outlet for music. Where live performances were once the path to scoring that all-important record deal, in the 21^st century, the script flipped. Sales plummeted so that hardly anyone made much money from selling records. Instead, recordings became a calling card, rather than a major income stream, for musicians looking to snag live gigs. For many artists, records became a means to an end — getting more live performances — instead of the ultimate or even penultimate (money being the final) destination. Cart became horse. 

But what technology (streaming) took away with one hand, it bestowed with another. Precisely because it became so much easier to make records with free software and cheap computers, gatekeeping legacy record companies lost their stranglehold on the means of production, opening the door for smaller outfits and even individual musicians to cut their own albums at acceptable quality levels for many listeners. 

Origin Story

That included Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble. In 2013, PJCE’s pianist Andrew Oliver, who’d co-founded the organization in 2007, and its original label producer, guitarist Dan Duval, decided to boost the emerging sound of a new generation of Portland jazzmakers beyond the clubs where it was beginning to bubble up. Declaring a mission to “to document and promote Oregon and regional Northwest-based composers and their original music,” in the words of current PJCE Artistic Director and Director of PJCE Records Ryan Meagher, the nascent organization decided to create “essentially a lo-fi budget record label.”

They weren’t alone, even in jazz. One role model for a modern, regional record label was Seattle’s much-admired, musician-run Origin Records. “We’re a lot like them, but smaller,” Meagher explains. Sometimes he’ll recommend the label to qualified Oregon jazz artists seeking a bigger partner.

Perhaps a tad over-ambitiously, PJCE initially began recording monthly live sessions at southeast Portland’s Tango Berretín studio, and issuing the results online, soon accompanied by podcast interviews with the artists.

That barrage of early releases opened listeners’ ears to the surprising breadth and quality of the musicians associated with PJCE. But Meagher says that the work involved, unsurprisingly, also burned out Duval, and when Oliver departed for London not long after, and PJCE chose new leaders, the record label’s management passed first to Lee Elderton and then, in 2015, to another sterling jazz guitarist, Meagher, who continues in that role. 

Since then, the label has won increasing awareness for Oregon music in the larger jazz world, in part by keeping a tight focus on its home territory. “Brand recognition is helpful,” Meagher says. “You’re not gonna hear New York-based artists on our label.” 

It all seems to be working. By year’s end, PJCE Records will have issued 69 recordings, spreading the sounds of Pacific Northwest improvising musicians to listeners everywhere. And the label’s roster has expanded far beyond that initial group of up and coming artists to also include some of the most revered names in Northwest jazz, from Darrell Grant to Dan Balmer to Gordon Lee to George Colligan and many more. 

Modern Model

Unlike those hallowed past eras when record companies boasted their own studios and characteristic sound (think Rudy van Gelder’s famed intimate Blue Note studios, or in the pop world, EMI’s Abbey Road, Motown, Stax et al), PJCE artists record their own albums and bring the company the finished product.

Meagher then arranges for the accompanying artwork, provided from the outset by Portland designer Dylan McConnell’s Tiny Little Hammers. It’s reminiscent of ECM, Blue Note and the old Impulse! records’ striking graphic identity. Meagher admits that it can require “a little dance” to find a design that balances the needs of the label, the musicians, and the graphic designer, but to my eye, PJCE’s designs imbue releases with an aura of quality and professionalism and serve the music well.

The label also handles promotion, including issuing press releases and contacting other media outlets, with Meagher leveraging his long experience as an indie artist who’s released nine albums himself since 2007, on PJCE as well as other labels. Artists putting out their own records independently would have to handle and pay for all those services themselves. Instead, they pay PJCE to do it for them.

“They pay roughly $600 for digital distribution,” Meagher explains. “If they also want vinyl or CDs, they pay for that. They’re paying us for the work we do. At the end of the day, we keep 25 percent of net [earnings] — and we don’t keep any of the intellectual property,“ such as royalties.

Meagher compares that arrangement to his own next record, which is coming out on another label. The proprietor pays him some upfront money to allow Meagher to book studio time. After that, though, “I have to take care of the musicians. And he owns the intellectual property. There are plusses and minuses to self releasing, or choosing this label vs that one. Different labels have different arrangements.” 

From the get-go, PJCE distributed its Northwest sounds across the intertubes via Bandcamp and Portland-based CD Baby, which conveys music to all streaming and download platforms, and another local partner, Cravedog, for its physical products available directly to customers and media. For the first few years, most of the catalog also included limited releases of CDs sold at Music Millennium, Meagher says, but that ended a decade ago. PJCE just issued its first vinyl release, Jack Radsliff’s engaging Barefoot, and more are likely.

“Our record label adjusts to how the landscape is evolving,” Meagher says. “It wasn’t until the pandemic when we stopped making physical copies mandatory for our artists. There’s the extra cost, the environmental impact, the storage issues, and quite frankly, the return on investment. People aren’t buying CDs like they used to. We knew that from the beginning, but there are a number of reasons why physical products help artists more than it solely being digital. Alas, that option is now available and some of our artists choose to go the digital only route.”

That route brings their music out to listeners worldwide — and as a nonprofit dedicated to advancing artists’ profiles, that’s the organization’s main goal.

“We’re here to give artists the exposure they need,” Meagher explains. “Revenue can be sort of a measure of success, but that’s not our motivation. We’re a not-for-profit business that’s here to reflect our community. We’re more affordable than most record labels because we just have to cover our costs and man-hours. An artist pays for the bare minimum to put out their album.” 

Then what happens? Meagher looked up some of the label’s recent numbers. “In the last 90 days our artists have had 15,000 streams on Spotify, including 14,250 unique listeners in 85 countries,” he wrote. “We’ve only had 25 downloads on iTunes and I can’t really see the Apple Music streaming numbers.”

Artist Advantages

Given how easy it is to self-release albums these days, and the choices among record labels available to Oregon jazz artists, what draws so many to PJCE? 

“Artists come to us all the time and ask, ‘Why would I want to be on your label?’” Meagher says. “We offer a different kind of support. If you’re an emerging artist, now you’re associated with musicians that other people know. If you’re an established artist like Darrell Grant, Dan Balmer, or Gordon Lee, then [PJCE Records is] taking a lot of work off of their plate. Artists are finding support they need.”

For example, Colligan is so prominent in the larger jazz world that he has a choice of labels for his frequent releases. But he’s also a busy music professor at Portland State University and bandleader, and he’s worked often with his hometown record company, so for his next album, coming out in December, “he wants to do it quickly,” Meagher says. “He doesn’t have to think about it.”

Given how marginal jazz has become in the larger record biz, Meagher thinks the label offers a valuable service to many Oregon jazz artists. 

“Because we’re not in it for financial gain, we serve the artists more to their interests than most record labels,” he says. “We don’t try to control the story of the album. The vast majority of  artists have expressed that they’re happy with what they’ve gotten from us and are behind what we’re doing. Our records have gotten strong Downbeat [the leading jazz magazine] reviews, including being listed in top albums of the year. As more people know what PJCE Records is, that helps an emerging artist get to the top of the pile, because it’s easier to notice [an unfamiliar] band when you recognize [the label].”

Northwest Sound

For all of the label’s solid branding and recognition, its releases do lack the signature sound of some of those classic labels. That’s because we’re in a different era, where the artists themselves do the recording, not label-provided studio engineers. 

The upside: PJCE’s releases cover an admirably broad range of styles, from various classic jazz forms (postbop to rock-influenced to a few avant-jazz releases like Meagher’s own thrillingly free improvised Evil Twin) to forward-looking hip hop- and electronica-informed sound to the sheer radiant beauty of Ezra Weiss, Jon Shaw and Tim DuRoche’s recent Amazing Life and more. Meagher sees that stylistic diversity (also notable across his own impressively varied releases) as authentic to the music’s geographical origins, which prize individuality and diversity. 

PJCE releases are “a lens of how wide a variety of music we have in this region,” he says. “From established Portland jazz legends like Dan Balmer and Darrell Grant to emerging artists like Chris Shuttleworth, large ensembles like Jasnam Daya Singh’s Ekta: The Unity Project to small groups to even solo releases like George Colligan’s King’s Dream solo release — we’re proud that we don’t have an identifiable sound, sonically or aesthetically. If there is a sound of jazz in the Pacific Northwest, we’re capturing that. Straight ahead, hip hop, free jazz — they’re all over the map, and that’s a good thing. We want to reflect our community.”