The most popular jazz guitarists according to Spotify statistics

[Litterick]

On Reddit, an American social network, can be found a group called r/jazzguitar. In a post to this group, a user known as CaseyMahoneyJCON has listed the twenty-seven jazz guitarists who have over 100,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, a Swedish audio streaming and media service provider. George Benson (5.3 million monthly listens) is by far the most heard, although not necessarily for his jazz guitar. The others have more modest achievements, listed here in order:


Wes Montgomery 804K

Pat Metheny 600K

Jim Hall 530K

Django Reinhardt 518K

Charlie Byrd 478K

Charlie Hunter 471K

Kenny Burrell 362K

Gabor Szabo 357K

Norman Brown 352K

Julian Lage 329K

Joe Pass 318K

Earl Klugh 317K

Grant Green 324K

John Scofield 270K

Al Di Meola 269K

Les Paul 261K

Bill Frisell 247K

John McLaughlin 214K

Kurt Rosenwinkel 197K

Johnny Smith 154K

Pat Martino 160K

Barney Kessel 128K

Larry Coryell 115K

Tal Farlow 115K

George Van Eps 115K

[ThatRhythmMan]

Interesting, but oddly skewed stat. This is looking at jazz guitarists as solo artists which is pretty far from determining a “most heard” since the majority of many of their recordings will be in band and combo settings. Think of how many listens someone like Freddie Green or Herb Ellis likely have. Barney Kessel’s numbers would be way higher.

Not to knock an amazing talent like Charlie Hunter, but most of those listeners are only paying attention to one or two songs. He has one done with double the listens of the next somg and then it falls off a cliff to number three. Granted, his studio work for other artists would skyrocket his number of listens.

Benson has those vast numbers largely because of his R&B work. Nothings Going to Change My Love for You has nearly 200M plays. The other top songs are mainly R&B.


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[princeplanet]

Interesting, but oddly skewed stat. This is looking at jazz guitarists as solo artists which is pretty far from determining a “most heard” since the majority of many of their recordings will be in band and combo settings....

True, still, allowing for all that, I'm still surprised to see Jim Hall so high up, and players like Barney Kessel and Pat Martino so low.
Many notable omissions on that short list, how long into such a list before we see Herb Ellis?

[AllanAllen]

True, still, allowing for all that, I'm still surprised to see Jim Hall so high up, and players like Barney Kessel and Pat Martino so low.
Many notable omissions on that short list, how long into such a list before we see Herb Ellis?

I would think Herb's most popular takes are on Oscar Peterson records.

[pamosmusic]

I would think Herb's most popular takes are on Oscar Peterson records.

Ed Bickert and Jim Hall on Paul Desmond records too.

[Doctor Jeff]

No offense to Wes, but I have to think most of those are algorithm-generated playlists (e.g., "Relaxing Instrumental Jazz). I can't imagine the vast majority of Spotify users even know who he is compared to Pat Metheny and other more contemporary players.

And Charlie Bird...Gabor Szabo...Norman Brown...not a reflection on their talents, but they're not exactly household names to your average music streaming service listener.

Billy Strings btw has 1.6 million monthly members. I would bet he is one of the more streamed guitarists out there who is actively touring.

[AllanAllen]

No offense to Wes, but I have to think most of those are algorithm-generated playlists (e.g., "Relaxing Instrumental Jazz). I can't imagine the vast majority of Spotify users even know who he is compared to Pat Metheny and other more contemporary players.

And Charlie Bird...Gabor Szabo...Norman Brown...not a reflection on their talents, but they're not exactly household names to your average music streaming service listener.

Billy Strings btw has 1.6 million monthly members. I would bet he is one of the more streamed guitarists out there who is actively touring.

Billy Strings isn't jazz though.

[Doctor Jeff]

Billy Strings isn't jazz though.

No but he is a guitarist and is one of the most streamed actively touring guitarists out there.

(Note I am not including Benson, who doesn’t tour much these days and is probably streamed much more for his vocal pop songs than his jazz stuff. Nor people like John Mayer with 15 million monthly streams—most popular songs by far are his pop songs.)

[Kirk Garrett]

“Most popular jazz” is a funny phrase these days.

[Alter]

One million Spotify streams pays 3-5000$ usually. Artists get from 14-20% up to 50% of that if they have a really good contract, write their stuff etc. So it would be anything from 450-2500$ per month. And music streaming is 84% of music industry revenue today, so basically that's about it.

[mr. beaumont]

For perspective, I'm about 320k of Grant Green's monthly listens

[AllanAllen]

For perspective, I'm about 320k of Grant Green's monthly listens

Last year I was in the 99th percentile for Chet Baker and Ahmad Jamal listeners. I heard a lot of good music that year

[ruger9]

No offense to Wes, but I have to think most of those are algorithm-generated playlists (e.g., "Relaxing Instrumental Jazz). I can't imagine the vast majority of Spotify users even know who he is compared to Pat Metheny and other more contemporary players.
.

+1

[voyage]

I don't buy that. I hang out with Pandora. Many of the smooth or contemporary guitarists exceed West Montgomery and most traditional Jazz guitarists.

[voyage]

You're not allowed to say Billy Strings on this forum.

BZZZTT!!

OUCH!


See what I mean?

[voyage]

Musicians have contracts with Spotify? Who makes the contract happen the musician or Spotify? I thought with Spotify and Pandora they just stream musicians. I never thought about the selection process happens. So I could just approach Spotify and say hey I want my songs on Spotify let's work out a contract?

[Alter]

Doesn't work that way. There are companies like CDBaby, Orchard, Distrokid that do digital distribution, meaning you upload your music to them and they upload it to every streaming service on the internet. Some of them charge an one time fee and take percentages of your digital earnings, others charge per year, etc. For reference, CDBaby charges an one time fee 10$ for an album and takes 9% of your digital earnings.

[AllanAllen]

Musicians have contracts with Spotify? Who makes the contract happen the musician or Spotify? I thought with Spotify and Pandora they just stream musicians. I never thought about the selection process happens. So I could just approach Spotify and say hey I want my songs on Spotify let's work out a contract?

Beyoncé and Taylor Swift get Spotify contracts.

Nobodies like you and me are allowed to pay for our songs to be uploaded.

[pamosmusic]

Beyoncé and Taylor Swift get Spotify contracts.

Nobodies like you and me are allowed to pay for our songs to be uploaded.

Yeah more medium (or less enormous) artists it would probably be the label working out the contract.

[Litterick]

Musicians have contracts with Spotify? Who makes the contract happen the musician or Spotify? I thought with Spotify and Pandora they just stream musicians. I never thought about the selection process happens. So I could just approach Spotify and say hey I want my songs on Spotify let's work out a contract?

You pay a fee to a distributor, such as DistroKid, which will handle the licensing and distribution to Spotify and other streaming services, and pay you the royalties. Artists and labels can pitch a song to Spotify's playlist editors, seven days before release, in the hope of the song being added to a playlist.

[P.J.]

Sonny Sharrock?