Why I Love Musicians!
Whatacrok
(from the perspective of a club owner)
Jazz Musicians...
... love to play, and love to talk about their art, but thank
goodness, like most artists are very independent thinkers and never
talk to each other about worldly things, like what we pay them.
Somehow they think that this is demeaning to the music - the music
being a high art and all. What they fail to understand is that we
don't care a rats ass about their art.
... are afraid to turn down ANY job.
Jazz Musicians think that union scale is a MAXIMUM.
Jazz Musicians...
... invest thousands of dollars of their own money in CDs and other
learning materials and in instruments, and the maintenance of these
instruments.
... invest thousands of dollars paying for an education in their art
form.
...invest thousands of of hours learning how to play.
... spend hundreds of hours applying for government grants to pay for
travel expenses to go work for local pay thereby subsidizing us, the
club owners. This also has the benefit of undercutting the local
scene, making jobs even more scarce for local players.
... continue to practice hours a day to maintain their skills and
improve, and have no sense that this is valuable to us.
... spend no time and no money on learning anything about business.
For or all their investments of time and money, expect very little in
return.
Jazz Musicians invest thousands of dollars to put out recordings that
they know will not earn them any money, unless they sell them off the
stage. Therefore, they are happy to play for less money than they
should, with the hope that they'll sell a few of the CDs that are
taking up room in the small hovels they live in. It then becomes
rational for them to beg a room to give them a 'job' that really
doesn't pay, (they play for the door!) As a result, we get free music!
With no risk.
Not only that, but the musician will often pay for the cost of any
publicity, and for the rental of a piano, maybe even paying for a
sound man! THEY'RE KNOCKING DOWN THE DOORS! I love jazz musicians.
Media outlets are struggling to find good content, yet jazz musicians
will provide content to media outlets for no wages just for
'exposure', and seem to have no concept that media need content.
Jazz musicians,
...have no sense of their own worth, and how their experience makes
them more valuable as players and performers.
...have no sense that as they improve they may even have a following
and and fan base and that their value (to us) has increased.
Here's why. In large part, the fact that musicians are always
struggling to be better, demands that they must maintain a modest self-
critical mindset. They must convince themselves that they are just not
good enough. They measure the difference from where they want to be
and where they're at, and conclude they're deficient. This colors
they're self value in the 'real' world. The modesty that improvement
demands, makes musicians weak negotiators.
Jazz Musicians
... are in the moment! That's they're musical modus operandi. However,
this same improvisational approach means that
they have little sense of their place in the community of musicians,
and how their actions and attitudes affect their fellow musicians, the
future of the music and their own prospects and playing conditions and
life. Hell, they're just trying to remember where the bridge goes!
Often musicians never demand a fee, and even more amazing (but not
surprising due to their lack of business intelligence) don't even ask
what we intend to pay them! (This is to our advantage). Also,
Musicians often accept jobs from other musicians without even asking
what the job pays. No other business is like this.
Musicians will play for a wage that will not increase for 10-15 years,
a wage that seems to have no relationship to their level of
experience.
When Business is bad they're our partners, when Business is good
they're our employees.
In spite of their own experience to the contrary, Jazz Musicians
believe us, when we start a new venue or music policy, and tell them
that the initial low wage we intend to pay is merely introductory, but
if things go well the wage will increase. How gullible! They buy the
concept that when business is bad we need them as our 'partners', and
must work for reduced fees. They have no expectation that when
business is good we will share our good fortune with them, and are
happy to be treated as employees, not partners. Even if they expect to
be more fairly compensated they don't get to see our "books"! Perfect.
As a result, Musicians allow us to build a business on their backs,
allow us to keep it running for years using their cheap labour with
this illusory 'partnership' arrangement. But when we sell our
business, we do not have to share any of the capital that we've built
with our musical 'partners'.
OUR FUTURE IS IN GOOD HANDS
Experienced jazz musicians are thrilled to pass the art of playing
jazz on to younger players, but at same time play for the same wages
as a kid who just came to them for a lesson!
Because of their terrible earning power as musicians, jazz musicians
need to teach to make a living. This provides us with an infinite
talent pool of motivated, energetic, youthful, hip, cheap
labo,rec.musicr. Only the best of these students will be the ones who
survive the inevitable cull, and if history is any indication, will
continue to play for hardly any money and follow in the fine tradition
that has been passed down to them by their elders.
The future is rosy for us because even though most parents know that
if they tell their kids not to do something they inevitably will; jazz
musicians strongly discourage their children from pursuing a living in
music.
Jeff
> X-No-Archive: Yes
> In article
> <a52fd905-5c19-4269-a5ac-8b3e77f82...@26g2000hsk.googlegroups.com>,
>
> Whatacrok <whatac...@mac.com> wrote:
> > Why I Love Jazz Musicians
> > (from the perspective of a club owner)
>
> upholstered toilet of a club in a two-horse
> town, and dealing with musicians who are
> are not true professionals, but probably
> well-meaning kids trying to gain some
> experience. That you take advantage of them
> speaks volumes about your character.
>
> Second, you are a loathsome, self-serving
> reptile of a human being who richly deserves
> the undoubtedly piddling station in life
> you have.
>
> Thirdly, I think I'll memorize your name
> and throw my head away.
>
> Oh wait - you don't have the cajones to
> post your real name. Oh well - at least
> you chose an entirely apropos screen name.
>
> FOAD.
With all due respect, I believe the author intended this to be tongue-
in-cheek.
jazz...@sympatico.ca
I think Jeff is right.
The piece seems to be satirical.
Mark
Stephen Howard
wrote:
Sadly, it's suprisingly accurate.
There's a joke that's been doing the rounds for years...it goes..
Interviewer to jazz guy who's just won the lottery:
So what will you do with your eight million pounds?
Jazz guy: Man, I'm gonna gig 'til it's all gone.
Regards,
--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{who is at}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk
JerseySax
cynical. While some of what he says is true, it doesn't apply to all
musicians. There are still a lot of us out there with some integrity.
Satirical or not, pieces like this needn't be written. Musicians,
particularly jazz musicians, get enough bad press as it is. Everyone thinks
that musicians are drunks and/or druggies. Everyone knows more about music
than the musicians themselves. I get that crap all the time. "You should do
this...", and "You should play that..." and, " I heard this band. You're a
musician. You will like them..." I was playing a jazz club one night and
this guy talked to me on the break. Said he had played drums with Dizzy. My
guess is that he played with Dizzy's records. He kept tapping his spoon on a
dish as if it were a ride cymbal. I had to tell him to stop. the tapping
wasn't annoying enough but he couldn't keep time. So much for playing with
Dizzy.
I've been in the business over 50 years and I really get tired of the crap.
I went out and bought one of those Staple's "Easy Buttons" and when I'm
playing a jazz club and someone asks me "how I do that" I simply show them
the button. I'm sure some of them believe it.
JS
==
"Jeff" <jeff.h...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:a770a85f-8a29-49d9...@z72g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
Whatacrok
> Yes, at first I though it satirical. As I read on I thought it to be
> cynical.
Yeah, it's cynical.
<While some of what he says is true, it doesn't apply to all
> musicians.
Where does it say ALL musicians are being taken to task.
It only takes a few bad apples to spoil the barrel for the apples with
integrity.
It only takes a few ignorant players to get the gigs and undercut the
scene.
WAC
jazz...@sympatico.ca
> particularly jazz musicians, get enough bad press as it is
Well, if one wanted to give musicians "bad press", posting a message
to THIS group or any other of the rec.music. groups wouldn't be where
I'd start. After all, mostly musicians read this right?
On the other hand, if whatacrok was trying stimulate a discussion
among musicians he obviously hit the nail on the head.
You would have to admit (judging by your own jaundiced view of the
general public's knowledge of music) that odds of this thread being of
any interest to non-musicians are infinitesimal.
Mark
Les Cargill
You don't like musicians. You like schmucks.
--
Les Cargill
Henry Salvia
a rant from a cynical jazz musician. Still...
Les Cargill wrote:
>
> Whatacrok wrote:
> > Why I Love Jazz Musicians
> > (from the perspective of a club owner)
> >
> > Jazz Musicians...
> >
> > ... love to play, and love to talk about their art, but thank
> > goodness, like most artists are very independent thinkers and never
> > talk to each other about worldly things, like what we pay them.
> > Somehow they think that this is demeaning to the music - the music
> > being a high art and all. What they fail to understand is that we
> > don't care a rats ass about their art.
Maybe, maybe not. But I know a club owner cares more about the bottom
line
than the art because without a bottom line there is no club, and hence
no
place to be "arty".
> > ... are afraid to turn down ANY job.
Which is typically better than NO job.
> > Jazz Musicians think that union scale is a MAXIMUM.
Because unless you are a draw, it is a MAXIMUM, no matter what kind of
music you play.
> > Jazz Musicians...
> > ... invest thousands of dollars of their own money in CDs and other
> > learning materials and in instruments, and the maintenance of these
> > instruments.
> > ... invest thousands of dollars paying for an education in their art
> > form.
> > ...invest thousands of of hours learning how to play.
> > ... spend hundreds of hours applying for government grants to pay for
> > travel expenses to go work for local pay thereby subsidizing us, the
> > club owners. This also has the benefit of undercutting the local
> > scene, making jobs even more scarce for local players.
> > ... continue to practice hours a day to maintain their skills and
> > improve, and have no sense that this is valuable to us.
> > ... spend no time and no money on learning anything about business.
> > For or all their investments of time and money, expect very little in
> > return.
I suppose instead they could collect capital to start a business,
locate a workable site, apply for permits. hire employees, open the
doors, pay everybody (including taxes on everything), all for no
investment
in time or money.
> >
> > Jazz Musicians invest thousands of dollars to put out recordings that
> > they know will not earn them any money, unless they sell them off the
> > stage. Therefore, they are happy to play for less money than they
> > should, with the hope that they'll sell a few of the CDs that are
> > taking up room in the small hovels they live in. It then becomes
> > rational for them to beg a room to give them a 'job' that really
> > doesn't pay, (they play for the door!) As a result, we get free music!
> > With no risk.
And I'm sure they pack the place too.
> > Not only that, but the musician will often pay for the cost of any
> > publicity, and for the rental of a piano, maybe even paying for a
> > sound man! THEY'RE KNOCKING DOWN THE DOORS! I love jazz musicians.
All those kids who played in lab band in high school, then went to
Berklee or North Texas or some other college and got their degree,
have to go somewhere. They can't all get jobs teaching at the schools
they attended, and Wynton only has so many slots in the Lincoln Center
Jazz Orchestra.
> >
> > Media outlets are struggling to find good content, yet jazz musicians
> > will provide content to media outlets for no wages just for
> > 'exposure', and seem to have no concept that media need content.
Media outlets? Newspapers? The host of jazz radio stations? Web sites?
Yep, they're desparate for jazz content, and would be happy to pay top
dollar if only musicians would stop sending it in for free, in hopes of
"exposure" aka advertising.
> > Jazz musicians,
> > ...have no sense of their own worth, and how their experience makes
> > them more valuable as players and performers.
Au contrair, mon freir (excuse my non-existent French). Jazz musicians
like Ornette and Cecil know exactly their worth.
> > ...have no sense that as they improve they may even have a following
> > and and fan base and that their value (to us) has increased.
> > Here's why. In large part, the fact that musicians are always
> > struggling to be better, demands that they must maintain a modest self-
> > critical mindset. They must convince themselves that they are just not
> > good enough. They measure the difference from where they want to be
> > and where they're at, and conclude they're deficient. This colors
> > they're self value in the 'real' world. The modesty that improvement
> > demands, makes musicians weak negotiators.
Yes, jazz musicians are beacons of modesty in evaluating their own
worth.
That's the only reason they can't demand a raise from a club owner who
is looking at the empty seats and bottles of water on the tables of his
club.
> >
> > Jazz Musicians
> > ... are in the moment! That's they're musical modus operandi. However,
> > this same improvisational approach means that
> > they have little sense of their place in the community of musicians,
> > and how their actions and attitudes affect their fellow musicians, the
> > future of the music and their own prospects and playing conditions and
> > life. Hell, they're just trying to remember where the bridge goes!
Yes, the union makes us strong. If only jazz musicians would organize
and
demand higher wages and better working conditions, club owners would
capitulate
immediately or risk losing their highly profitable business model.
> > Often musicians never demand a fee, and even more amazing (but not
> > surprising due to their lack of business intelligence) don't even ask
> > what we intend to pay them! (This is to our advantage). Also,
> > Musicians often accept jobs from other musicians without even asking
> > what the job pays. No other business is like this.
Hmm. I have never met a musician who is shy about asking "what's it
pay?",
other than ones with a day job. I'm suprised that hasn't shown up in
this
rant yet, dilletantes who corrupt and dilute the market.
> > Musicians will play for a wage that will not increase for 10-15 years,
> > a wage that seems to have no relationship to their level of
> > experience.
True. A guitarist I know was fond of telling me of working in Chicago
for $50
a night in the late 50s, while we were playing in California in the 90s
for
guess how much. Come on, take a guess.
> >
> > When Business is bad they're our partners, when Business is good
> > they're our employees.
> >
> > In spite of their own experience to the contrary, Jazz Musicians
> > believe us, when we start a new venue or music policy, and tell them
> > that the initial low wage we intend to pay is merely introductory, but
> > if things go well the wage will increase. How gullible! They buy the
> > concept that when business is bad we need them as our 'partners', and
> > must work for reduced fees. They have no expectation that when
> > business is good we will share our good fortune with them, and are
> > happy to be treated as employees, not partners. Even if they expect to
> > be more fairly compensated they don't get to see our "books"! Perfect.
> > As a result, Musicians allow us to build a business on their backs,
> > allow us to keep it running for years using their cheap labour with
> > this illusory 'partnership' arrangement. But when we sell our
> > business, we do not have to share any of the capital that we've built
> > with our musical 'partners'.
This is farily true, though I have never met a musician over the age of
18
who believed a promise of a raise when things "get better".
> >
> > OUR FUTURE IS IN GOOD HANDS
> > Experienced jazz musicians are thrilled to pass the art of playing
> > jazz on to younger players, but at same time play for the same wages
> > as a kid who just came to them for a lesson!
Thrilled, huh?
> > Because of their terrible earning power as musicians, jazz musicians
> > need to teach to make a living. This provides us with an infinite
> > talent pool of motivated, energetic, youthful, hip, cheap
> > labo,rec.musicr. Only the best of these students will be the ones who
> > survive the inevitable cull, and if history is any indication, will
> > continue to play for hardly any money and follow in the fine tradition
> > that has been passed down to them by their elders.
You're sort of getting it. When jazz stopped being the popular music
form
in the mid 60's, and the bread-and-butter work in corner bars, high
school
dances, hell, dances anywhere, gradually disappeared, jazz musicians
found
the only reliable work in teaching music. With the development from jass
to
swing to bebop, a curriculum developed that could be taught as a formal
methodology that could compliment and eventually replace "classical"
music
education in schools as the default "music education".
This created a self-perpetuating culture. Jazz musicians teach kids who
grow up and find they need to teach to make a living, just as the
"classical"
musicians have done for generations. There's some factiod about 3000
college
graduates a year with a major in performance, and 3 symphony openings a
year.
Guess what 2997 of them do if they don't abandon music as a career?
> >
> > The future is rosy for us because even though most parents know that
> > if they tell their kids not to do something they inevitably will; jazz
> > musicians strongly discourage their children from pursuing a living in
> > music.
And Charlie Parker told jazz musicians to stay away from heroin.
>
> You don't like musicians. You like schmucks.
He doesn't like jazz musicians who won't "organize" and demand "better
treatment".
He thinks club owners are making money hand over fist off of combos
playing
bebop heads and trading solos (in the same order on every song,
including
trading 4s with the drummer after all the other solos) all night.
Jazz musicians have a host of problems to deal with, but rapacious club
owners
is pretty far down that list, unless you think that you're going to make
a
living playing jazz in clubs without a "major label" (whatever that is
anymore)
record deal and touring most of the year. Even then, unless your the
Golden
Child of the year annointed by critics (and written about in all those
media
outlets desparate for jazz content), you won't be making much of a
living.
Henry Salvia.
ty
I've been fighting this mentality with all sorts of players for years.
They just don't seem to grasp the concept that if you play for free or
reduced wages, you are in effect saying that your music isn't worth
anything. I would like to find a plumber with this mindset.
ty
St. John Smythe
> The thing is, these observations are *not* limited to jazz musicians -
> I've been fighting this mentality with all sorts of players for years.
> They just don't seem to grasp the concept that if you play for free or
> reduced wages, you are in effect saying that your music isn't worth
> anything. I would like to find a plumber with this mindset.
I know one, now retired. Would you believe, he's a trumpet player.
--
St. John "I am not making this up" Smyths
jazz...@sympatico.ca
> ty wrote:
I would like to find a plumber with this mindset.
>
> I know one, now retired. Would you believe, he's a trumpet player.
> --
> St. John "I am not making this up" Smyths
Now that's funny! Or it would be if there weren't so many examples of
people playing for "fun", dabbling in the business (such as it is).
Mark
ty
him...
ty
Greg Evans
>>> I would like to find a plumber with this mindset.
>> I know one, now retired. Would you believe, he's a trumpet
>> player.
>
> Does he live in Tennseess? If so, I've got a *couple* of
> proposals for him...
Either way, it probably involves him using his plunger...