A Documentary-style Podcast Covering Jazz artists, Venues & Events

My name is Darren Harper and I’ve been involved in music and performance for most of my life.

I really started getting in to Jazz music about 10 years ago, but found it really hard to discover up-and-coming artists. I also found a real stigma surrounding the music, with people making assumptions that they “don’t like jazz”.

So, I decided to start a Twitter feed (@mattersjazz) to start showcasing great music and to make jazz feel more accessible to more people. This soon turned in to a bigger project and I now present a weekly radio showcasing the amazing talent on the London Jazz Scene, I promote live jazz events and I produce the Jazz Matters Podcast. This is a documentary-style podcast that tells the stories of new and established jazz artists and venues from all over the world.

I wanted to help show that many people have a misconception of jazz. I strongly believe that saying “I don’t like jazz” is like saying “I don’t like food”. Sure, you won’t like ALL jazz (there loads that I don’t like!) but I believe there jazz out there for everyone.

In addition to this, the jazz industry doesn’t have the huge corporate machine behind them that pop music does and most jazz artists rely on themselves to promote their music. Another reason for the podcast was to give artists another platform to shout about what they do. I also interview well established artists to show that they came from the same place and faced the same struggles as everyone else. A sort of “if they can make it, so can you” sort of thing.

Initially, I wanted to release episodes weekly, but it’s just too much work, so I settled on for nightly episodes.

Each episode takes about 6-8 hours to produce and I have to find the time for this on top of producing a weekly radio show and a full time job! Most of the work is done late in the evenings.

The podcast is completely self funded. The good thing is that it is aimed at helping the jazz community, who are incredibly good at promoting things. So, thanks to their help, the podcast does pretty well well without having to spend much money (if any) on marketing.

I get no financial gain for the podcast. It was set up through a love of music and a desire to help musicians.

That said, as I have also moved in to radio and live events, I have started to look at sponsorship and have received some financial support for live events from local authorities and local businesses in the areas the event are being held.

I’d love to expand the commercial side of things to allow me to spend more time producing the podcast and to help grow the wider Jazz Matters project.

I record and edit entirely in GarageBand.

I start with a standard interview with an artist about their career. I then use this to write a voice over script and create a narrative for the episode.

I then edit their interview to create sound bites to drop in to the show, allowing them to tell relevant parts of their own story.

This is then underscored with a mix of their own music and royalty free music, to create a 30 minute documentary.

The podcast is hosted on Simplecast and distributed to all the major platforms.

It is also shared with an international Jazz radio station, where it plays every week to a global audience of around 80,000 people.

Most of the marketing is through social media. Twitter and Instagram work best for me. I don’t get a lot of movement on Facebook.

I do have an email mailing list of a few hundred people, but most of the listeners seem to find the show from social media.

Obviously, with a weekly radio show, I get to promote it there, too.

About 50% of people listen on Apple Podcasts, with Spotify a fairly distant 2nd place. The biggest surprise to me has been the global reach. Despite being UK based, 40% of my listeners are based in the Far East and 20% in the USA.

My biggest piece of advice is “just do it!” There are a million reasons not to start, but it all seems insignificant once you publish your first episode.

Another really important point, in my opinion, is to find you style, or ‘USP’ (unique selling point).

There are loads of music podcasts out there that are presented like radio shows, or that are full-length interview (which is fine!), but I love podcasts like The Dream and Serial, as well as TV documentaries like Making A Murderer, so I wanted mine to have that documentary-style feel. This makes it quite unique in the music podcast world.

Once you find your identity, stick with it. People like something that feels familiar. They like to know what to expect from you.

Finally, have fun! Very few people make a living out of podcasting. So you have to love doing it!

All the information on everything to do with the Jazz Matters project, including the podcast, can be found at www.JazzMatters.net.

The podcast is on all major podcast platforms and you can find me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Just search for “Jazz Matters” and look for the blue logo.

If you do want to make a small donation to help keep the podcast running, that would be amazing! You can do this at PayPal.me/JazzMatters