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AAPRC Weekly: J'ai St. Laurent-Smyth

J'ai St. Laurent-Smyth
National Director of Publicity
Verve Music Group
NYC


What's a jazz label publicist to do when the mainstream media is only interested in the pop flavor of the month? For J'ai St. Laurent-Smyth, national director of publicity at the Verve Music Group, it means it's time to get creative. "The jazz press you're going to get, but trying to go beyond to the mainstream has always been a challenge," she says. "Like one of our artists is a big wine connoisseur and has a wine cellar. He also designed his own home, so I've been trying to get architectural and wine publications interested in his story...The music kind of gets thrown into the story like that."

St. Laurent-Smyth, who's been with Verve for ten years, says when it comes to jazz artists or mature artists, that's the lay of the land, no matter how big the name. "Just because I have Al Jarreau doesn't mean that Good Morning America is going to want to book him," she says. "I mean this is a guy who's sold millions and millions of records, but getting him on Good Morning America or The Tonight Show with Jay Leno is the most difficult thing in the world. We find that we have to be really, really persistent."

Fortunately for the artists at Verve--which include George Benson, Joe Sample, Will Downing, Gerald Albright, Lizz Wright, Natalie Cole, Diana Krall, David Sanborn, The Crusaders, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Roy Hargrove, Shirley Horn and Abbey Lincoln--St. Laurent-Smyth is fiercely loyal to the music. "I've been trying to change people's minds," she says." Jazz was first and the rest of this stuff came later. Jazz is cool and hip. It's the music of Miles Davis and Coltrane that started this whole thing. I mean, young musicians today are still feeling that stuff."

In addition to fighting an uphill battle against the limited interests of mainstream media, St. Laurent-Smyth is also feeling the effects of the music industry's current economic downturn. The executive lost two publicists to cutbacks/life changes and these days handles Verve's 50 or 60-artist roster with just one other publicist and an administrative assistant. Her office does everything from setting up advance press and working promotional and concert tours to getting exposure at award shows and special events to even getting involved in some marketing projects. In spite of the pressure, St. Laurent-Smyth manages to stay cool, siting her previous experience at labels like Warner Brothers Records for helping her develop sound professional habits. "I got a chance to work with some of everything. It gave me a chance to really see how rock and pop and a lot of that stuff is worked...you've got to really fly fast," she says of her experience at Warner Brothers. "If I made a call to pitch a new project, I would say to the writer and/or booker: 'look, I know your time is short...Are you interested? Did you hear it? Did you like it?' If you didn't, thanks. And I used to get off the phone. I didn't waste people's time."

St. Laurent-Smyth has been involved in music her entire life. She began playing classical piano when she was five, and grew up around musicians. She was born in Paris, where her mother worked as a seamstress for a couturier. "She was sewing and I got to watch the models and we used to go out at night and listen to the music," she remembers. "My mom took me to a lot of jazz clubs, even as a kid, so I got a chance to meet a lot of musicians. My godmother, Vivian Carter, started one of the first African-American record companies in the U.S.末Vee-Jay Records. When the Beatles first came to America, her label signed them. I got a chance to meet The Dells, Jerry Butler and all these people, so I grew up with a love of music. I grew up with a love of jazz. I got a chance to listen to everything. I think it made me a little more well-rounded."

St. Laurent-Smyth's family left France when she was five or six and she grew up in Chicago. Even though she'd played classical piano for more than a decade, when it was time for college she didn't study music. Instead, she majored in communications with a minor in advertising and marketing at Clark Atlanta University. "I was good as a classical pianist, but I don't think that's where God wanted me to go. My mother probably would have been thrilled, but, no, it wasn't for me."

At Clark, St. Laurent-Smyth was involved with the committee that brought concerts to the school, and interacted with artists such as Ashford and Simpson and Gladys Knight. She remembers the performers being supportive and encouraging. "They sat down and talked to you and spent the time saying 'make sure you stay in school and get your degree. This is all exciting and it looks real glamorous and whatever, but get your degree.' I always remembered that."

She didn't just remember the advice; she acted on it, moving to New York right after graduation. "I knew nobody in New York City, and said 'I'm going to go work for a record company.' Didn't have a job, nothing," St. Laurent-Smyth laughs.

She'd never even had an internship. In 1983, after a year or two in New York, she finally got a receptionist gig at RCA. "I got a chance to work at the black music department and they were the nicest people you ever met," St. Laurent-Smyth says. "They made sure I got the chance to learn. They made sure I got the chance to participate in whatever the black music department was doing. If it was conferences or parties, I got to host, do the door, and I was thrilled. I was happy just to be there."

Her break into publicity work came a few years later when she was holding another receptionist position, this time at BMG International. She became friends with Nile Rogers (of the classic 70s group Chic) while he was in and out of BMG negotiating the startup of his own label. Rogers and his business partner, Tom Cossie, were so impressed with St. Laurent-Smyth that they promised her a job once they got their label, Ear Candy Records, up and running. And sure enough they did. They hired her as a manager of publicity. "I couldn't believe it," St. Laurent-Smyth remembers. "I got my own office. I got a chance to travel and work on the urban music conventions. I got a chance to work my first couple of acts. I learned by trial and error. No one taught me jack."

At Ear Candy, the neophyte publicist worked with the vocalist Audrey Wheeler and a young rapper out of Cincinnati called Jibri the Wise One. They had one more act to sign but it never happened because the company only stayed in business a year. Still, it was a valuable experience for St. Laurent-Smyth, who learned how to put together promotional tours and budgets. The budding publicist moved on to Warner Brothers as a junior publicist, where one of the vice presidents took her under her wing. "She was a veteran of the music business--25, 30 years," says St. Laurent-Smyth. "She was at that point in her career末even though she was an excellent publicist末she felt she had 'been there done that.' She'd worked with everybody. She'd hung out with Miles [Davis]. She would say J'ai, here are our acts, you go for it." Among Warner's 600 artists, she worked with pop acts like Madonna and REM and jazz acts such as Joshua Redman and Al Jarreau. She worked Grammy parties and worked on her writing and pitching skills. After four years she was laid off and made the move to Verve.

Starting at Verve was like starting over for St. Laurent-Smyth. The only opening the label had was for a coordinator. Her bosses were reluctant to hire her, pointing out that she was overqualified for the position. "I said yeah, that's true, but you have to look at it as an asset," she recalls. "Here's somebody that's come from the pop world, and I can put all those pop connections, all those pop sensibilities and ideas into helping you see if we can make jazz a little bit cooler and more mainstream. They said 'hmmm, maybe so,' and they gave me a shot at it." She was named a national director in 1999.

After more than 15 years in the music industry, St. Laurent-Smyth sees the end in sight. "Unfortunately, the business is not fun anymore. It's lost that excitement," she admits. "It's because, I guess, now the business is run by suits as opposed to creative people. I'm looking at maybe in the next year or two doing my own thing...getting into learning how to cross market the music with products. I think there is a great future in that. I also love real estate."

St. Laurent-Smyth says she and her husband hope to start a family within a year and a half, and she guards her offhours fiercely, most days leaving the office at six o'clock. Both of her parents passed away recently, and the loss of her mother, especially, was a turning point. "My mom was my best friend so that was a tough one," she says of her mother's death in 2003. "Last year was kind of like an epiphany on what is really important in life. If you can't be really happy then maybe you need to think of something else to do. Like I said, I love music. I love the artists. And I love jazz. And I love all types of music. I'm just not crazy about the music business anymore."

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