[Dixielandjazz] Taking the week off...

John Farrell stridepiano@tesco.net
Thu, 8 Aug 2002 07:01:41 +0100


In one of his highly entertaining posts Charlie Hooks said :

" We've considered moving out to Bismark, No Dak.  State capital.  State
library is there.  Beautiful clean small city.  Computers don't care where
you live.  Bank says my house in Chicago (suburb) is worth $800,000.  I can
buy a much better house in Bismark for just under two grand.  (snip) But the
music is the Great Problem.  All country-western.  No OKOM.  No
classical players, let alone a symphony.  Forget the Opera.  Umm..."

23 years ago something similar happened to me. Most of my younger adult
years were spent living in and around London where I played piano with quite
a number of bands, mixing with and getting to know many musos, becoming
involved with all kinds of jazz projects and generally leading a very
fulfilled musical life.

Then an opportunity arose on the job front which, because of the money it
offered,  I couldn't turn down. However it meant that I would have to move
quite a distance from London to a tiny village way out in the sticks. For a
while I kept my current band job going - it quickly became obvious that I
would have to relinquish the piano chair because of the hours spent
travelling to and from gigs. I was lucky to get to bed by 3 a.m. most
nights.

Apart from one awful outfit there were no OKOM bands locally. I tried to
live without it but the withdrawal symptoms became too painful to bear. The
only alternative was for me to start my own band - it took quite a while to
find 16 competent local musicians interested in playing MKOM but with
perseverance and luck I got there in the end. You should hear us now !!

Charlie - why don't you move to Bismark and do the same thing?

John Farrell
stridepiano@tesco.net
http://homepages.tesco.net/~stridepiano/midifiles.htm