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Help me keep Smooth Jazz ALIVE!

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Hello, I am DJ Sapphire, a DJ specialising in Smooth Jazz. I have been listening to Smooth Jazz avidly since 2002. I have been uploading Smooth Jazz mixes to Soundcloud since 2013 and the response has been phenomenal. The first mix I uploaded in May 2013 has had over 800,000 plays from listeners all over the world and it still gets played everyday. 

In 2015, I launched the Smooth Jazz Lounge at a venue in Tottenham, London which was a place for people to attend to meet up with family, friends, meet other music lovers, be wined and dined and enjoy the live music.  I reached out to Jazz Saxophonist, COURTNEY PINE MBE to help promote what I was doing at the time and he was impressed that I was giving a platform to artists to showcase their musical skills and agreed to do help - see the promo video I put together.  Sadly, this weekly event ended in August 2017 as the venue decided to host a night similar to mine and said my night would clash with theirs. I found other places to host the event, but it sadly lost that "vibe"!

In May 2017, I  became a radio host and now do 3 weekly shows on The Soul of London (Mondays and Thursdays) and a show on 1XL Radio (Sundays) which is based in Atlanta. 

In these unprecedented times, I am grateful that my love for music is taking me in many different directions. By doing my radio shows on Facebook Live, Mixcloud Live and YouTube, people get to see me in action and this has increased my listenership; I have been offered radio slots on other stations which I sadly had to turn down as I do not have the time. I have been asked to host an event in America, when things get "back to normal' which is exciting.

Discovering new artists all over the world and communicating with them has been a joy! What I do is not only because I love Smooth Jazz; I want these artists to be seen and heard which is why I am now hosting the Smooth Jazz Lounge online via Zoom (the new norm) with these artists which I launched in June 2020. I get to interview the artists, people attending the event get to see and listen to the artist as they perform live too.  Due to the current situation, artists are unable to perform at concerts, which is how they make a living, so by giving them a virtual platform here in the UK, their music is being heard by a wider audience and that audience will support the artists by purchasing their music. 

So far, I have had the pleasure to interview Peter White, Oli Silk, Judah Sealy, J White, Dean James, Taddy P, "Robert Dubwise" Browne, Mariea Antionette, Travis Bridges, Mark Adams, Temmi (13 year old saxophonist), Eddie Bullen, Mo Pleasure, Chris Godber. Dean James, Nick Colionne, Zach Sanders, Janardo Laporte and Bob Baldwin.

Having a full time job as well as doing the Smooth Jazz projects and radio shows, which I do voluntarily, it can get overwhelming, hence the reason why I am reaching out to you. 

With your help, I can pay the artist something for their time at the Smooth Jazz Lounge, I can purchase more music by established and upcoming artists to promote on my platforms.

I require assistance with website designing, monitoring my emails (I get sent a lot of music as my show is monitored by SmoothJazz.com), sending emails to the artists’ management team, someone to co-host my Smooth Jazz Lounge with me (as the host, I converse with the attendees and have to also act as the moderator, allowing people into the event AND play the music). Assistance in creating events on Eventbrite, Facebook, Mailchimp, promoting the events on social media, marketing, etc. I have had to purchase new equipment too as my equipment was getting used more frequently and on occasions, it had stopped working whilst on air!! I also pay monthly subscriptions to various websites in order to stream my shows, etc. And finally, I would like to send merchandise to my listeners and artists as a thank you! 

When things are "back to normal", the event will be in a venue too and this is something I need to start looking into - finding a suitable classy venue to host the Smooth Jazz Lounge at in 2021!

Smooth Jazz is a genre of commercially oriented crossover jazz that became dominant in the 1980s and early 1990s. Smooth Jazz, Soulful Jazz, Cool Jazz, Reggae Jazz, Latin Jazz, Chilled Jazz is relaxing and very pleasing on the ears! 

I appreciate you taking the time to read about my project and I do sincerely hope you will help in anyway you can and I hope to see you at one of my events!

LET'S KEEP SMOOTH JAZZ ALIVE AND BE SAFE!

Thank you, 
DJ Sapphire x

Organizer

DJ Sapphire
Organizer

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