Soundscan and jazz sales question

[GA Russell]

Our Sunday paper lists the top ten sellers in both contemporary jazz and smooth jazz, but never for modern jazz (the sort that we like). As far as I know, Billboard does not have a chart for it.

Does anybody know where, preferably on the internet, one can look up the sales chart of the sort of music we like?

I ask because today is the CD release date of Sonny, Please. I'll be curious to see how the sales are for this album.

I read recently (I think it was in the lengthy Houston newspaper article that was linked in another thread) that almost all of a CD's sales occurs in the first two months of its release. Of course, the article was about music in general, so that means pop music. It doesn't surprise me that teenagers want a new album right away or not at all. Adult fans of modern jazz I assume are much more willing to wait. I say that because of the great number of us here who will wait until an album is available at Your Music.

The release of Sonny, Please has been the nuttiest thing I've seen about this. First it is available from the fellow's website without advertising at a price ten dollars over the eventual list price. Then it is available for about two months only as a download, and then not even from eMusic. Finally it is available today at stores.

So this policy has flown in the face of the industry's experience of promoting a new release and getting all of the sales proceeds promptly.

I imagine that Sonny, Please will do well on the Soundscan chart, but I have to think that they have missed out on sales because on the first day of its "release" it is no longer a new album.

So anyway, anybody know where to look up modern jazz sales?

[Matthew]

To get SoundScan you have to pay big-time bucks to subscribe. Maybe someone here is on the inside of the industry and can access the figures. The figures would probably be surprising as to how few units are sold for straight-ahead jazz. I remember from the old BNBB that Blue Note would delete a cd if it didn't sell 500 units in a year. I doubt that Sonny, Please sold more than one thousand. Compare that to the Bee Gees box set, which according to someone who had access to SoundScan sold over four thousand units in the first couple of weeks.