[Dixielandjazz] THE GIG

[Stephen Barbone]

Way to go Bob. Yeah, there is a VERY VIABLE, LARGE, YOUNG MARKET for this
music. We've already been booked into several High Schools for 2003. These
performances are open to the public at no charge. Are sponsored by various
organizations that use their bulging endowments to "support the arts". And the
local high school and college music classes bring all their kids to these also,
to see the "survivors" of 20th century jazz. Yeah, see the real thing, kids,
before they die. The older folks come automatically, from my promo mailers, and
advertisements the the sponsor pays for.

The "arts" organizations just love to support a non controversial program these
days. They've had enough of the BS that surrounds all that "garbage art" out
there. All a band leader has to do is seek them out, talk to them and the gigs
flow almost automatically. At above union scale wages.

Re your copying the check and sending out to the folks who wouldn't let you
play jazz 50 years ago, remember: "The best revenge is living well."  ;-)

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Bob Romans wrote:  (polite snip)

> I was born and raised in the Seventh-Day Adventist church. NO Dancing, NO
> jazz, NO dance music !!! I almost got kicked out of a SDA Academy for trying
> to get the concert band to play "Always", by Berlin!! In 3/4 time for god's
> sake! But it was a "Dance band" arrangement!!! That was in 1949....
> Segue to 1957...I'm a junior in an SDA college in Chattanooga...I'm on the
> 2nd floor of the men's dormitory playing The Saint's with a piano player and
> drummer, the men's dean comes upstairs LIVID!!!!! The three of us are taken
> before the Faculty Board of Ethics!!!!!! Hell!! I'm 25 years old, a Korean
> veteran, and I can't play the SAINTS!!!???
> Segue to Dec. 5, 2002. my band, Cell Block 7, is booked to play at the
> annual banquet of the LODI SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST ACADEMY at the River Mill,
> a very up-scale venue outside of Stockton, California! The school principal,
> the faculty advisors who were there, AND THE STUDENTS loved us!! Accolades
> and kudos all around!! GOD!! Do I feel vindicated!!! I copied the check, and
> I'm going to send copies of it to all of the former faculty members of the
> schools of my youth who are still living and I can find addresses for! The
> main thing...the HIGH SCHOOL KIDS LOVED US!!! Amazing!!