Managerobit: Jazz Summers

Jazz Summers, manager and label owner, has died.

There's a statement from his company, Big Life management:

Jazz Summers, the legendary music manager, has died aged seventy-one. He had been living with lung cancer for over two years. The music industry has lost one of its most vibrant, most notorious and most brilliant characters. A champion of new music, a non-conformist and a visionary, Jazz Summers will be greatly missed.

Jazz Summers was a master of artist development. His ability to hear a song and recognize its power and potential brought him huge success across several decades.

Jazz managed Wham!, Lisa Stansfield, Soul II Soul, The Verve, Badly Drawn Boy, Snow Patrol, Klaxons, La Roux, Scissor Sisters and London Grammar among many others.

His artists have sold over sixty million albums and seventy two million singles around the world including over one hundred Top 40 hits in the past forty years.

Jazz was born on March 15th 1944. He enrolled in military school aged twelve and joined the army aged fifteen. He served as a radiographer, spending time in Hong Kong and Malaysia.

In 1985, in partnership with Simon Napier-Bell, Jazz helped Wham! to become the first western pop group to tour China. Summers was crucial in breaking the band in America and established a reputation as an expert in the American market. A reputation that would be strengthened by his work with Snow Patrol and La Roux.

Summers formed his own management company Big Life in partnership with Tim Parry in 1986. They also ran Big Life Records, which featured hundreds of releases from artists including The Orb, Yazz, Coldcut, De La Soul and The Soup Dragons.

In 2003, Jazz was awarded the prestigious Peter Grant Award and in 2007, the Strat Award at the Music Week Awards.

Big Life will celebrate its 30th anniversary next year. It continues to prosper.

Summers was an active campaigner for artists’ rights. As chairman of the MMF (Music Managers’ Forum) he was vocal in many issues affecting artists, including the extension of copyright, secondary ticketing, and VPL. He was also prominent in setting up the Featured Artists’ Coalition and Julie’s Bicycle, a not-for-profit organisation working on sustainability in the creative industries.

In September 2013 Summers’ autobiography ‘Big Life’ was published to critical acclaim.

Jazz is survived by his wife Dianna, his daughters Katie, Rio and Georgia, his granddaughters Claire, Lila and Rose and his brother Don.

It wasn't, naturally, all clambering up the ladders - in 1999, the Big Life record label went into receivership and was eventually purchased by Universal. But before they folded, they released Mega City 4 and KMFDM records, and anyone would be happy with that.

And while 'taking Wham to China' might not sound very much of a big deal, it's worth recalling what a huge coup that was at the time (one minute in):

Bookmarks: LaRoux

In The Guardian, Matthew Horton wonders what the synth-pop class of 2009 has in store:

La Roux's route looks darker. Her first album plumped for rinky-dink early Depeche Mode – an innocent pursuit on the face of it, but grim passions lurk beneath. Three years is plenty for Jackson to gain a taste for leather perv-breeks and clanking S&M pop, but she might want to pause for thought before diving headlong into smack addiction and pretending to be Trent Reznor.

Listen with No Rock: Elly Jackson/Chromeo

A liberal splashing of La Roux over the top of Chromeo's Hot Mess. Enjoy responsibly:

Listen with No Rock: La Roux / Kanye West

Obviously, you can see the marketing potential in getting Kanye West in to do stuff over the top of La Roux. But it still feels a bit like selling the South Downs by building a theme park on the top of them.

Next time, baby, I'll be Lazerproof

Tomorrow, for 24 hours, Mad Decent will be flinging a mixtape at you. Not any old mixtape, either, but one lovingly prepared by Major Lazer and La Roux.

This is what they're saying about it:

Lazerproof plays on both groups' styles and the result is a project that is only vaguely recognizable as the sum of its parts- ska, dubstep, hip-hop and pop stars aligning to create a synth-Britania meets dubstep dancehall gem. Guest appearances from Gucci Mane, Drake, Gyptian, Rusko and Amanda Blank add the infamous Mad Decent touch.

Synth Britaina? Oh, dear. Still, I'm looking forward to it.

Adieu, La Roux

Somewhat oddly, La Roux has pulled their album and mostly everything else from Spotify. Except for the very few premium subscribers. Music Ally, which spotted the move, reports the tracks have also gone from We7, too.

The working-against-Spotify stance is puzzling as La Roux has helped promote the service in the past.

We7's Steve Purdham suggested to Music Ally that this might be an attempt to try and work out what impact the move will have on the market. Perhaps, in the same way that tugging wings off flies is a useful experiment to find out if flies enjoy being dicked around with.

Decade Null: 2009 - La Roux

How can you not love someone who does jokes during interviews where Hadouken is the punchline? Trapped in a small glass box by Jo Whiley, it's La Roux doing one of the fine tracks off the self-titled debut:



[Part of Decade Null 2009]

Downloadable: La Roux

What are bands doing with all the emails they harvest in return for free music? Are they simply building up a marketing database, or do they sell them on to V1agr/\ salesmen?

Still, some things are worth the risk of a flurry of emails telling you "She hate your tiny man-gizzard -be virile with blue pill". Like, for example, a free digital bundle from LaRoux. Get across to the website, click on the bottom right and before you know it, you'll be taking delivery of a couple of demo tracks.

There's also a live session, which will be appearing on Spotify this afternoon. But - hold on! - only for premium users. The rest of the world will have to wait until next week to be able to hear it. (In passing, looks like Spotify have come up with a new way of persuading people to shell up for an upgrade.)