Jazz Promotions, Consultancy, Project Management, Agency
About Danielle White
A Canadian native born in Montreal of an American jazz pianist father and a bohemian English mother – it was inevitable that Danielle White would end up working in a creative industry.
Her early career in a variety of sales and advertising positions combined with a penchant for promotions led her into the risky businesses of publishing. With a talented son who was the local rising star jazz trumpeter to promote and it being in her nature to eschew the usual nine to five, Danielle created a local arts publication magazine to effectively kill two birds with one stone.
Danielle also founded an alternative health publication to service the large number of creative healers who practiced in her adopted town of White Rock, British Columbia the sale of which funded her and her son’s adventurous relocation to the United Kingdom in 1999. Ostensibly to pursue her son Jay Phelps’ musical aspirations the move to UK also fulfilled a lifelong dream to live in one of her ancestral homes – and the UK seemed much more accessible than Africa or the Caribbean. A chance introduction to the talented trombonist Dennis Rollins by her English half-brother – also a jazz musician – sealed her fate both personally and professionally
After a brief stint at Dune Records, the music label and promotions agency owned by Janine Irons and her partner Gary Crosby, Danielle established her own management company Raestar Ventures in 2000 to manage her then husband Dennis Rollins and to continue to support Jay as he rapidly began to make a name for himself on the London jazz scene.
Her company provided management services primarily for Dennis Rollins – who went on to win several high profile awards including a BBC Jazz Award; a Parliamentary Jazz Award and a British Jazz Award; In addition Danielle established an indie record label to record her husband’s albums. Currently Raestar Ventures provides booking agency services and has worked with celebrated jazz artists such as Robert Mitchell, Omar Puente, Cameron Pierre, Michael Janisch, Clare Teal, Cleveland Watkiss, Maceo Parker, MOBO award winner Zoe Rahman and the award-winning princes of post bop – (co-founded by son Jay Phelps) Empirical also managed under the Raestar banner (2007 – 2011) and recipients of many awards and plaudits including the inaugural European Broadcasting Union Jazz Competition at North Sea Jazz Festival (2007), Mojo Magazine Jazz Album of the year (2007); the Parliamentary Jazz Award for Best Ensemble (2008) and MOBO ‘Best Jazz Award’ (2010).
Danielle’s collaboration with the UK jazz icon Courtney Pine who produced and recorded Empirical’s award-winning debut in 2007 cemented Danielle’s reputation as one of the foremost jazz managers in the UK.
In the course of her many years of working with cultural organisations Danielle has gained the trust and respect of directors and promoters and has, indeed, cultivated many friendship within the industry. As a result Danielle has been invited to sit on various industry panels and has provided consultancy services on a number of occasions for events and festivals such as Glasgow In’l Jazz Festival; Harrogate International Festival’s Speigeltent programme and the jazz series at The Old Town Hall, Hemel Hempstead to name a few. As a result Danielle holds a large database of personal and professional contacts within the industry.
Established in 2012 Danielle’s E-blast service combines her many areas of expertise: sales, publishing, promotions, marketing, jazz industry knowledge with her hefty contacts list to enable jazz artists to raise their profiles by promoting their projects and new album releases directly to promoters.
For more on this unique and effective concept click right here.
“Within hours of Danielle sending out our E-blast we got the call from The Vancouver International Jazz Festival.” Shabaka Hutchings, Sons of Kemet
