Jazz against the machine

André Guess who acts as manager for Grammy Award winning bass player Christian McBride has gone to the length of starting an online petition over the use of a web domain name.

The renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) in New York has always used used the web domain  ‘jalc.org’ however last year they aquired ‘jazz.org’ and began using it for their website. So what’s in a couple of letters? Well Guess believes the organisation should revert to the old name because in his words, “In making this move, the organisation has intentionally or unintentionally branded and positioned itself as the very art form that it was founded to uphold and support.” 

Executives at JALC insist it is merely a search engine optimisation move, the sort of thing that happens all the time.

Further commenting Guess, the organistaion’s former Vice President, said, “While this is a noble gesture and on one level I applaud it, Jazz at Lincoln’s view of jazz at jazz.org could never be truly inclusive of the art form because they are but one of many organisations and voices in a much larger and broader jazz community. Furthermore by making this bold move Jazz at Lincoln Center is violating it’s own mission statement.”

Design agency Pentagram Design, one of the world’s largest, was recently brought in to overhaul their image. What resulted is the logo now says just the word ‘jazz’ which has left some of the jazz community worried. Their concern is the apparent conflation by JALC with the music genre is is meant to serve to promote.

JALC has $190 million in assets and in 2012 reported revenue of $30 million, making it the largest jazz organisation in the world.