Richard Elliot Quotes

That's why we started ARTisan Records. We wanted to kind of create a kind of haven for ourselves to start with, but also for other artists who are friends and colleagues to come on board and just be in a more conducive environment with people, not just Rick and myself, but our partners. People like Steve Chapman and Al Evers, who are people who are not musicians, but very plugged in to the smooth jazz arena. They understand that smooth jazz for a lot of people represents a lifestyle, not just a type of music that they enjoy. We really want to kind of take advantage of that and really make sure we can cater more to the listeners of this music then maybe some of the large labels are.
Richard Elliot

Ironically, most of us who make this music consider ourselves more contemporary instrumentalists. In my case and a lot of my peers, we were influenced more by R&B music than jazz as we grew up. Elliot says that smooth jazz radio stations use that name to identify themselves. For marketing reasons, what was needed to kind of get a bit more focus, for lack of a better word, and that's fine. I am happy with, call it polka music if you want, I just know that I enjoy playing the music and making the music and as long as people seem to enjoy listening to it, then I'm happy.
Richard Elliot