Colorful music for the soul. Heavenly Sweetness is a young Parisian label specializing in jazz in all its forms, favoring recordings in one take only, with no overdubs, the 60s way. Their playlist will make your weekend a pleasant one for sure. Enjoy!

Hi, how are you doing?

Feel great, ready for the weekend !!

What’s goin’ on in Heavenly Sweetness’ world right now?

Wow, many things…busy time. We just released a 7inch by Doug Carn, with an amazing remix by Fulgeance, a young French producer we just met. Great guy and great musician.
We will release another 7inch next month (and digital as well) with saxophonist Byard Lancaster playing a cover of « Blue Train » (one of our favorite jazz songs) and a beautiful remix by Le Professeur Inlassable (from « Bibi Tanga & Professeur Inlassable »). SOON ON FAIRTILIZER, DON’T MISS IT!

What’s the roster of the label?

Heavenly Sweetness is a jazz label open to all kinds of spiritual music. No boundaries, we just produce the music we love.
We recorded our albums like in the 60’s : ONLY ONE TAKE, NO OVERDUB.
Our first album is a Doug Hammond record. Doug is a legendary drummer who played in the 60’s with Nina Simone, Sam&Dave etc. In the 70’s he founded the cult label TRIBE RECORDS in Detroit and after that he played with Mingus. In the 80’s he settled in Europe and played with Archie Shepp in Family of Percussions. This album is his first record in 15 years. We are really proud of it.

After that we produced a jazz vocal album with Anne Wirz, her first recording. Nice and spiritual.

Our first reissue is the John Betsch Society album, originally released in 1974 on Strata East. This album was a forgotten gem and is our best seller. That’s the only album cutted by John Betsch under his name. John now lives in Paris and plays on several of our productions.

Our fourth album is RONGETZ FOUNDATION. Stephane Ronget is a trumpet player and was part of Metropolitan Jazz Affair (MJA). This album was first released (with success) in Japan and was supported by jazz DJs worldwide, like Gilles Peterson for example.

Our most recent album is a reissue of one of our favorite artists: DOUG CARN. Doug recorded the album « AL rahman » just after his four records for the label Black Jazz. Doug converted to Islam and mixed jazz, soul and Arabic music on this album. An incredible record.

And for each album, we release one 7inch with one song from the album and a remix by another artist.

What are you currently listening to?

On the jazz side: the jazzman compilation « Spiritual Jazz » and a beautiful album by Grachan Moncur III on Actuel.
Otherwise: the incredible sound of DJ Mujava (I’m listening to Township funk all day long !!), the new Fulgeance EP, Carlos Nino « Elevation », Wiley, Count and Sinden, Mickey Moonlight.

How is the scene in Paris at the moment?

Oh it’s complicated. Paris is actually an incredible place for electro/rock but for jazz labels and artists, it’s a real nightmare.
The jazz scene in Paris is really closed, people are not open minded and if you’re not part of the « inteligentzia » or the main jazz school, nobody shows interest for your music.
We have enthusiastic reactions from all over the world but really few from Paris.
But we don’t care , we just try to produce music we like.
Paris is still an amazing place for musicians.

You are releasing albums in a difficult moment in the music industry: how do you see the future?

Yeah that’s really hard but that’s a really interesting time if you are a music lover.
You have easy acces to all the music, all over the world, you just have to be curious and open minded.
For labels, it’s more complicated because you need to earn money from your productions. And now you don’t earn much money from the physical sales and digital as well for that matter.
I hope that in the future digital will bring enough money to allow small labels like us to produce and record artists.

Do you take your artists on the road?

We are two in Heavenly Sweetness : Antoine and Franck. Antoine is a booker, so our artists can find some gigs and play live.
Jazz music is a live music, so our artists all play live as often as possible.

How important is the internet for you?

Internet is an essential tool, we can spread and share our music with many people through our myspace or Fairtilizer.
We can easily get in touch with artists, Djs, people who support us.
Antoine, who is the A&R guy, discovered Anthony Joseph on Myspace. And we are still actively looking for new artists on the web.

We are in a world with a lot of different models on the net: what kind of services should be brought to the table?

To be honest, I’m little bit confused with all the services…
I believe that community websites like Fairilizer are the best service, people can share music with other music lovers worldwide.
After that, the main thing is to create an economic system which allows producers/labels to earn money for their work.
Without it, musical production is really threatened.
Just to clarify things, I’m not defending major companies but indie labels like us.

Where do you see this whole internet thing going?

To the future of music.
At Heavenly Sweetness, we are both big record collectors, so we still purchase LPs, 7″s etc and we will continue.
I believe music will still survive in parallel in physical shops (indie dealers dedicated to vinyl) and on websites.

Anything to add?

THANK YOU FAIRTILIZER FOR YOUR SUPPORT !
Let’s share music and discover new hits

Check their podcast too!

Visit Heavenly Sweetness’ profile
Visit Heavenly Sweetness’ website