I am ever diligent and continue to push forward with both my artistic and business endeavors. I often think about the story of the crow dropping pebbles inside the water bottle to be able to raise the water level to drink. In my mind, I am that crow dropping pebbles one by one. Eventually something will just have to give with all that energy piling up in the Universe. I want to begin this week with the ongoing effort to get my music heard far and wide. I’ve been dedicated to submitting my tracks to various radio stations globally and this week, I sent my EPK (Electronic Press Kit) to 12 more targeted jazz radio stations. This brings my total number of submissions up to 54 radio stations worldwide. I have a goal of 100 radio stations. I feel like I’m slowly but surely building a solid presence in the jazz community. The initial feedback has been encouraging and I’m hopeful that this continued consistent outreach will lead to more opportunities for airplay and greater exposure for SoulePhix.
Along with the radio submissions, I’ve been staying connected with and slowly building my audience through consistent social media posts and my website’s weekly blog. Last week, I wrote extensively here about my trip to El Paso, where I had the chance to meet with my former guitarist, Curtis Edwards. Upon my return, I found that the trip sparked some new ideas for the future, including a discussion about possibly building a recording studio in El Paso under the Cinco Verde Publishing LLC umbrella. This would be an exciting expansion of the business, and I’m already starting to envision how it could grow into something really special. To that end, I began searching for real estate investment opportunities in the El Paso area. My new friend, Hector Miranda from last week’s jam session turned out to also be a real estate agent in that area. We have been communicating regularly with more news to come in the following entries I am sure!
As part of my ongoing efforts to expand SoulePhix’s reach, I’ve been diving into specific international markets. This week, I published a Facebook ad campaign aimed at regions in northern France, where Dutch is spoken. France is famous for its love of longtime love of jazz music. I’m always looking for new ways to get my music in front of more people and I thought this targeted approach could help connect with an audience that might appreciate what I’m doing. Sadly, I had to pull that ad after only one day because I had to deal with a hacking incident that created much confusion. It’s taken nearly all week but I think I have it sorted all out. Next week, I will try again with this ad. The ad will run for nine days, linking to the Spotify Spotlight playlist I’ve curated, so I’m eager to see what kind of response it generates.
I’ve also been working hard on remastering the tracks for my upcoming vinyl LP and digital album. This past Thursday, I had the pleasure of working again with Jason Richard, my talented longtime producer and sound engineer over at ClockRight Studio in Austin, Texas. Jason has an incredible musical ear for identifying individual sounds and instruments within a song! I really am so lucky to learn more about both the equipment and sound engineering itself from one of Austin’s very best. We were able to remaster three of the ten songs for the album that day. It was such a productive and inspiring session! Jason is truly incredible at what he does and I’m thrilled with how the tracks are sounding! We were even able to go back into “Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered” and create the radio version from the extended version we recorded back in 2018. That has been a project that has been waiting to get done for all this time and I am so excited with the final edited version!
As I look back on this week, I can’t help but feel proud of the steps I’ve taken toward growing Cinco Verde Publishing LLC. From the international ad campaigns to the music submissions and the new partnerships I’m cultivating, I’m creating a foundation for something much bigger than I could have imagined when I started this journey. It’s one thing to release music into the world, but it’s another to actively build a business that supports and nurtures that art. Those are two completely separate activities and that’s exactly what Cinco Verde Publishing LLC is growing into —a platform where creativity can thrive and where not only my music but other’s work as well can be shared with a global audience.
The journey is far from easy, but every pebble I drop, every song I submit, and every new partnership I build brings me one step closer to the vision I have for SoulePhix and Cinco Verde Publishing. I am excited for the future and grateful for the progress made so far. There’s so much more to come, and I am eager to see what the next week holds. Thanks for following along with me on this journey—it means the world to have your support.