Talk of new CDs.

How does an artist decide what they want to record and release when they have lots of choices and can do whatever they want?

I look at online traffic flow, online search topics, forums and myself. I wouldn't release something that I had little interest in doing in the first place. But that leaves a little research needed to get the direction needed before investing great amounts of time and energy into a project that does nothing.

I have begun website direction and development numerous times following this concept. The idea is to be aware and involved enough to take a few cues from your environment. 2 great examples would be Sax Reviews and Saxophone Pictures.

I found people searching for Reviews and Pictures and could not find much online that seemed to answer that query with much accuracy. I decided to post more pictures of saxes on my Greg Vail site, then posted a gallery or 2 and beefed up my Pictures pages overall. I see thousands of sax or musician related searches every month now. Smart move.

One day I realized I was running #1 for Sax Reviews on Google with articles I had written on Trade Shows. Did a little research and realized there was little available on this topic online and most the returns on review searches came up with stores selling the sax. These sites had the lamest information, mini sales bits that told the buyer absolutely nothing about these products. With an increase of emails from the online community asking referral questions because of my trade show ranking, I saw a need. I then looked for help from other sites and started a dedicated site for Sax Reviews. www.SaxReviews is one of my most successful new sites because it met a need.

I also had a point when I realized a #1 search return for Sax Reviews giving my trade show articles as a result, seemed like a bad use of that #1 rank and I felt like that high a rank should answer the questions and needs better. Now www.saxreviews.com and my Trade Show Articles are #1 and #2 on most engines. I even located the Review link on the top of the Trade Show pages so people could get what they were looking for faster. Meeting needs is what successful business development is all about.

Back to New CDs -

My web traffic is very Gospel / Christian related with my Gospel Truth CD pages showing top 3 placement in the web stats every day. With interest showing higher for the Christian CDs than the Smooth Jazz CD, I did a little research and decided to produce a few new CDs for the growing Inspirational Jazz Genre.

Growing - more Gospel Jazz Shows, radio air time, and formates open to this nitch market. With Pod casts popping up everywhere and Internet radio adding great new venues to online air time - Gospel Jazz / Inspirational Jazz is growing where Smooth Jazz seems to flounder and Contemporary Christian Music growth has been big but has slowed as of late.

Gospel Jazz - Love the music, already have 1 CD in the genre, could call my Christmas Hymns CD a nitch of Christmas Gospel Jazz. The whole CD is Hymns. So, I started a NEW CD of old Hymns recorded in the Smooth Jazz Style with my good friend Bobby Cruz.

I also took a hard look at the Gospel Truth CD and decided it needed to be revamped. The first incarnation met its goal and fulfilled my goals as planned. As time has gone by, I decided this CD needs to be all Christian Songs and should have at least 1 more vocal track to cover the Gospel vibe. The goal is a Church resource. The original Gospel Truth CD will have 1 track removed and 3 new tracks added, new artwork design and more specific marketing thru Saddleback Church and Encouraging Music - Rick Muchow, worship pastor from Saddleback has his own label for Church Resources at www.encouragingmusic.com. 3 new tracks and pulling off the secular love song - Europa, getting some help from Rick Muchow sequencing the tracks so the Gospel Truth Revisited should be a great resource for Churches for background between services, behind videos, production use, and personal enjoyment for Purpose Driven Church folks.

All this serves as background for this new area -

New CD Progress and Updates.

I have 1 song done so far; news and updates to follow.