As the school year is wrapping up I am excited to devote more time to this blog and what I wanted to say about music and life here at Some Other Stuff.
First and fore most I would like to recognize a fellow musician who I feel is doing all the right things with maintaining a working, positive and creative career as a jazz musician. His name is Jason Parker, trumpeter, composer, educator and band leader from Seattle. He has a great sound, excellent band and full schedule. He is always blogging on his own site and I strongly recommend you go check it out: www.oneworkingmusician.com.
My quartet just had an excellent weekend this past, working at the Old School Saloon in New Haven and Park Central in Hamden. These are both my favorite places to gig. The crowd is always welcoming and even a little rowdy when we play. Park Central in particular loves those funky hits from the 60's Blue Note catalog: Watermelon Man, Red Clay, Cantaloupe Island, Mamacita, etc. If I added Song for my Father and Funji Mama to the book I will be all set. We actually get people turned in their chairs and bobbing their heads to the music. Not to forget we get applause!! Not polite applause from my mom in the audience, but the audience actually listens enough to clap after solos!! Very rare in jazz outside a NYC club.
Finding gigs is hard, any musician can tell you that and its even harder for jazz musicians. I am seriously cherishing the opportunity to play at these two venues. There are other places in CT where jazz is showcased but most places are exclusive for ridiculous reasons. One venue in particular is in Bethel and only accepts "famous artists." Famous?? Give me a break. Who does this guy think he is? Does he think Herbie Fucking Hancock is going to book a Sunday afternoon? I want to call the owner and say that I play with all the cats. "Oh yeah man, I have a regular gig jamming with Dexter Gordon every afternoon when I put A Swingin' Affair on my CD player." Or "I said hi to Roy Haynes once." "You haven't heard of me? You must not be too into the scene man, I am a cat!"
Its club owners like that who alienate a local working musician who hurt the music just as much as the club owner who advertises jazz as a rich delicate music. Wine Tasting gigs are horse shit too, no one plays those gigs other than the chance to make some bank. The point here is that there should be more showcasing local cats. There is a lot of talent here in CT and if you want to work here you should be able to.
Stay tuned.
Hey Nick,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind words. I'm always grateful to know that folks are finding something useful in what I do. I truly believe we are stronger together than we are individually and need to share info, help eachother out and stay positive!
Speaking to that last point, I hope you don't mind some unsolicited advice...
First off, it's great that you've found two clubs who support what you do. It's a treat to find places that get it, treat musicians fairly, respect the music, etc. That being said, I don't think we can ever assume that this will be the case, and I don't think it's helpful to expect anything from clubs. Their job is to make money and satisfy their customers, not to book our bands, support jazz etc. As soon as we start thinking that the clubs somehow owe us something we're setting ourselves up for negative feelings, which don't really help anyone. We start to approach them with a mindset of "what can you do for me", which is not an effective way to go about it. They don't owe us anything. We are not entitled to play anywhere.
What we can do is approach all situations with a "what can I do for you?" attitude. I have found that even the most ornery of club owners will still come around if you can show them that booking your band will benefit them. That's our job as booking agents. To make them see that what we bring can help them in their mission to put butts in seats, make them money, or in some way add to what they are already doing.
I talked about this a lot in my recent Ustream seminar on touring, which you can find at http://oneworkingmusician.com/the-nuts-bolts-of-touring-free-video-seminar.
If it's not a win-win, everybody loses. And the musician who approaches booking with this attitude is 10 steps ahead all the rest who are still asking "what can you do for me".
Give it a try and let me know if it works for you!
Cheers,
Jason