Joe Roberts
Education: Bmus(hons) in Jazz from the Guildhall School of Music
Industry speciality: booking gigs
Area of expertise: saxophone
Hi, Matt Fripp here.
I’m British but currently based in France, where I live with my wife and our two sons.
I’m a jazz fan who became a musician before moving onto the ‘business’ side of the music industry. I’ve been working as a booking agent and artist manager for jazz musicians since 2008, representing more than 40 artists for more than 2,000 club, venue and festival gigs in Europe, North America & Asia. I talk about it in this interview for US publication All About Jazz.
I graduated from a 4-year jazz saxophone degree at The Guildhall School of Music in London back in 2008 and, about a year later, started out working for one of the UK’s leading jazz music companies, which dealt with bookings, management & publicity.
It was there that I had the chance to learn about the music business, booking tours for band and musicians including Kyle Eastwood, Marius Neset, Get The Blessing, Empirical, China Moses, Tim Garland & Michael Wollny – as well as developing my own management roster featuring Anthony Strong (UK) & Hailey Tuck (USA).
After about 6 years of that, I left to set up my own agency – and started writing articles which I posted here, at Jazzfuel.com…
- 1995: began learning piano
- 1999: began learning saxophone
- 2004: started a 4-year degree in jazz [saxophone] at London’s Guildhall School of Music
- 2008: graduated music college with a BMus(hons) to work as a freelance musician & teacher
- 2010: started working as a booking agent for a leading UK music company
- 2016: set up a booking & management company and launched Jazzfuel.com
- 2017: launched the How To Get More Jazz Gigs online course
- 2019: began working album release press campaigns for independent jazz artists
- 2020: started writing and sharing articles for people who want to discover more jazz music
I now host Jazzfuel.com full time, sharing tips, tools and resources with both professional jazz musicians and serious jazz fans around the world.
Whilst we have some super talented musicians and journalists writing articles for the Jazzfuel site (find out more about them here) I still love writing content myself; below are some of the latest ones.
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- Breaking into the Jazz Promoter Inner Circle
- DC Jazz Festival: Interview with Sunny Sumter, President & CEO
- Philip Watson – Bill Frisell and other music
- Interview with Hilary Seabrook
- Neal Hefti – From Basie to Batman
- Jazz Promotion Network Conference (UK)
- Smoke Jazz Club NYC: Talking with Co-owner Paul Stache
- Murder & Music: Unravelling Mack The Knife
- Fast Jazz? The 10 Speediest Songs EVER!
- Queer Jazz: Interview with Tina Edwards
- Stella By Starlight
- Getz/Gilberto – The Story of an Iconic Bossa Nova Album From 1964
- Web3 For Musicians with Alex Roth
- The art of cold emailing (for musicians)
- 12 Things I Wish I Knew Before About Booking Gigs…
- 9 Types of Jazz Promoters
- Jokes about jazz: The best (worst!) of all time
- The Best Bossa Nova Albums of All Time
- Reviewing jazzahead! 2023 – The Musician’s Survey
- Interview with The Jazz Session’s Jason Crane
- Watford Jazz Junction: Interview with Festival Founder Chris Newstead
- Record Store Day
- Mission Statement: Audience Development
- Pitching to Booking Agents: 8 Things