Nat Hentoff on efforts to improve benefits for jazz musicians
Acoustic Piano's the Best
07/08/11 • By Nat Hentoff
Seeking Justice for Musicians in Jazz Clubs
Nat Hentoff on New York Local 802's efforts to improve benefits for
jazz musicians
Soon after I moved to New York in 1953, I began to realize how tough
it is for sidemen and some leaders working mostly in jazz clubs to
sustain a living. Although I had helped the American Federation of
Radio Artists organize a radio station in Boston, I’d never been able
to figure out how a musicians’ union could organize players in clubs
who appear from time to time.
Now, however, New York Local 802 of the American Federation of
Musicians (AFM) is engaged in a jazz nightclub campaign that could
expand to other cities around the country by using AFM affiliates
there. Todd Bryant Weeks, Jazz Business Representative of Local 802
and author of the first comprehensive biography of Oran “Hot Lips”
Page, provides the hard truth that hit this jazz fan when I began
writing from New York. “The vast majority of sidemen who appear in NYC
jazz clubs,” says Weeks, “have no protections, no pension, no health
insurance, no social security and receive substandard wages. Busboys,
who also should be paid better, make more money than most jazz
musicians.” Weeks adds this important point: “By law, the musicians’
union is forbidden from discriminating against non-union musicians, so
all musicians—union and non-union—stand to benefit from the Justice
for Jazz Artists campaign.”
The website justiceforjazzartists.org has information on that
campaign, volunteer opportunities for New Yorkers and, as I noted in
the Village Voice, an online petition containing thousands of
signatures gathered from jazz musicians and their supporters since the
campaign began in 2009. Among the writers on jazz: Amiri Baraka,
Stanley Crouch, Gary Giddins, Dan Morgenstern, Dr. Lewis Porter, John
Chilton and this columnist. Among the government officials: City
Council Speaker (and activist) Christine Quinn and former Mayor David
Dinkins. There are hundreds of musicians on the list.
The campaign, now expanding into other dimensions of collective
bargaining, began by focusing on pensions for musicians who make
repeat appearances at a club over time, playing there every week or
month or several times per year. In 2006, Local 802, with the support
of jazz clubs, battled hard and got the state legislature to repeal
the sales tax on the admission charge to jazz clubs. The idea was that
the funds those clubs saved could be applied to make pension
contributions to the American Federation of Musicians and Employers’
Pension Fund.
Unfortunately, jazz club owners have resisted offering pensions to
musicians, even refusing to have a conversation with Local 802 on that
possibility. For years I have been doing television interviews from a
major club, the Blue Note, with such musicians as Ron Carter, the late
James Moody, Jon Faddis, Jimmy Heath, Kenny Werner and others. As I
wrote in the Voice, the boss at the Blue Note also refuses to speak to
me about the Justice for Jazz Artists campaign. I have said publicly
that when and if Local 802 sets up a picket line at the Blue Note,
this former union organizer—I also helped organize the Voice—will not
cross it. What do you know? I haven’t been asked to do another
interview from the Blue Note since I made that pledge. Could there be
a connection?
In the February 2011 issue of Local 802’s Allegro, Recording Vice
President John O’Connor writes, “If there is a picket line in front of
a major jazz club, it will be the first time in memory. But that
doesn’t mean that Local 802 and its members aren’t planning on going
there.”
The union will not only go there. “Currently,” O’Connor continues,
“organizers at Local 802 are talking to scores of jazz musicians about
organizing the clubs, and so far the response has been enthusiastic as
the musicians have brought numerous issues of concern to the table. …
[T]he AFM’s new leadership is quite open to a national campaign.
Indeed, we think one is necessary. Organizing clubs in one city is not
going to do it. It may be one at a time, but eventually we think the
clubs will learn it is more in their interest to talk to us than not.
That’s a strategy we and the Federation are willing to take on the
road.”
Todd Bryant Weeks adds a necessary caution strategy: “For the time
being, the union also recognizes that some musicians need cover—the
ability to be involved in a union campaign while not revealing their
identities to employers who might seek to blacklist them. Dozens of
jazz musicians have been working on Justice for Jazz Artists for years
from behind the scenes. 802 plans to continue to keep those musicians,
when necessary, out of harm’s way, while still doggedly pursuing its
goal.”
But there will be jazz musicians who do not feel they need (or want)
cover. As Weeks also says, “Street-level demonstrations like the one
that occurred in September 2009 show that there is power and safety in
numbers, and that jazz musicians can organize.” This is what happened
in 2009, when Justice for Jazz Artists felt it had to move into the
streets: After a rally at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village—
a continual forum for citizens actively playing the First Amendment—a
procession recalling a New Orleans parade made its way to the Blue
Note. As Weeks reported, the protestors included about 125 musicians,
instruments in hand, along with lay swingers backing them up. They
presented a petition that was summarily dismissed. Said Local 802’s
John O’Connor in Allegro, “We’re not going away. The Blue Note
presence is only the beginning.”
I remember that in storied New Orleans, “When the Saints Go Marching
In” was a test for the collective creativity of the band as well as
the singularity of the soloists. When the Justice for Jazz Artists
come marching to your city, it will be up to local jazz fans and
supporters to prove how essential a role the music plays in their
lives.
Nat Hentoff can be contacted at 212-366-9181
Musically Yours
Mark Eisenman
Toronto, Canada
416 694 6688
visit
www.jazzpiano.ca
joel
<eisenmanjazzpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://jazztimes.com/articles/27873-seeking-justice-for-musicians-in-...
Good luck with that, Nat. Many have tried and failed. Buyer's market,
kids that will play for nothing or even pay to get exposure, and Local
802 has been for many years, sorry to say, a toothless joke as far
doing anything for the single-engagement musician regardless of
orientation.
But I said good luck to Mr. Hentoff, a great man, and I mean it. You
have to keep trying.
Bg
sure, but I believe that all a Union leader has to do is include the
stipulated pension amount on the contract and then send it in to the
pension office on his own or thru his union office, I think that can
be done for teaching as well.
Check with your individual Local.
Bg