IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHN ROGERS
Veteran Jazz DJ and Record Promoter
by Bill Ford (Local 6 member)

Meet John Rodgers, veteran jazz DJ and jazz record promoter at Fantasy Inc. After a tour of the famous Fantasy recording studios, I sat with John in the lobby of the Fantasy complex in Berkeley and talked about everything from the early days of record distribution, to the current state of affairs at Fantasy records.

In the 1950’s, record stores were for the most part either small independent shops, or corner sections of department stores. Records were distributed by relatively small companies and salesmen working out of the trunks of their cars. One such salesman was John Rodgers, a Minnesota native who came to Northern California in the early fifties. Working out of the trunk of his car, he distributed all genres of music including the early Sun records of Elvis Presley. But Jazz was his passion and he soon found his way to legendary KJAZZ, often driving hundreds of miles from his distribution duties to host the Saturday night jazz program.

In the advent of a major shift in the record distribution business and the rock and roll explosion, John got off the road and started a long career of jazz record promotion at Concord Records, London Records and the small Palo Alto Records, where he befriended jazz legend Stan Getz. In the mid 1960’s John began a full time radio show at KJAZZ and soon split his time between there and the up and coming KCSM. In the mid 1980’s John began a now eighteen year relationship with Fantasy Inc., a legendary studio and record label complex, where he promotes jazz recordings to national jazz radio.

What does a jazz radio promoter do exactly? In a nutshell, John calls jazz radio stations nation-wide to get the Fantasy roster their share of radio air play. Because today’s jazz stations are for the most part commercial-free, listener-sponsored stations, John says it’s an increasingly competitive business with other major labels, as well as independent labels and the Artists themselves, vying for attention and air play in an ever shrinking market. John does not see the brightest future for the jazz genre.

Having said that, John says Fantasy has found recent success by reissuing its classic catalogue, which includes subsidiary labels Specialty, Prestige, Milestone, and Stax, to name a few. These repackages include the original album artwork and re-masterings of vintage recordings by artist such as Miles Davis, and Cannonball Adderly. John says The Jazz Philharmonic world tours, produced by Norman Granz of Pablo records, is still unreleased, and laughs about the rumor of sessions of Lester Young and Sarah Vaughn still in the vault . ”There are still gems sitting in there,” he says.

The biggest question on sales calls, John says, is “What’s new?” Because Fantasy Inc. was bought recently by the Concord Label (which had major success with the recent Ray Charles “Duets” CD), John has been at a loss to answer that question. He says that there is a new Sonny Rollins recording still in the can, but as of this interview he has heard no word of a release date.

These days John Rodgers can be heard on KCSM radio 91.1 FM, where he has a soft spot for Bay Area artists.

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