If you listen to the Decca recordings and compare them with the EMI stuff that George Martin did the difference is huge. When putting out good records/CDs an excellent producer is almost more important than the talent. There is a reason they call him the fifth Beatle, and its not just because he played on a lot of those tracks either. Music is product, the talent is only materials, its the producer that makes it product. First of all, any good producer could take that mp3, and bend the pitch so its perfect, and that's just the beginning.
Thirty years in the music biz and I'm pretty sure musical talent has little to do with it. Its like all the kids on UTube who are killer at shreading in their bedroom, but the bedroom is not the concert stage, and it takes more than riffs to be a real performer.
And there are a few A Capella groups, the Bobs, there is one from Canada I think, and Choirs. But for the most part its not very commercial - of course neither is jazz. DK is one of the few jazz people that can sell more than a few hundred tickets per night. I've watched McCoy Tyner and Stanley Clark and many other good people play to a about 125 in a major jazz club, in a jazz town. If you can do jazz and sell 150+ a night you are a major star.
