[Dixielandjazz] The daily grind - was - Million Dollar Question

[Stephen Barbone]

Gordon @ GWW174@aol.com wrote: (snip)

"FEELING GOOD... Yes band members have the "daily grind" like we all do.
It's  a job.  They have wifes or girlfriends, children, etc... and the
challenges  of life we all have.  But IMHO, a truly professional
musician (or a  professional in any occupation) can bury the daily or
momentary problems and  rise to the occassion of performning their job
to their utmost ability.   Sounds old-fashioned, I know - yet true."

Listmates

One of the hardest gigs in the world is to be a creative jazz player on
a regular basis. Especially one who does all those visual and aural
presentations that make him/her/the band great. It is not quite as easy
as it sounds for an emotional musician to put aside the rigors of
successive performances or those daily rough spots in life and go out
there that night and CREATE. Playing is not the problem, but creating
is.

So jazz musicians rely on a host of stimulants, mind exercises, tricks,
etc. (you name it) in order to keep the creativity going and turn on the
audience and themselves night after night. Some succeed, some fail, some
go crazy, some quit and the rest are somewhere in between.

A for instance?   (this weekend) Barbone Street Performs:

Friday: night jazz restaurant gig 10 PM to 1 AM.  3 sets High energy,
audience of 250

Saturday: Private Event gig Noon to 5 PM. 5 long sets, outdoors, general
audience 25,000

Sunday: Music Festival outdoors Noon to 1:30 PM general audience 5,000

Sunday: Concert in the Park, outdoors 6:30 to 8:30 PM general audience
1000.

Average age for the band version performing these gigs is 69. Travel
time between gigs or to gigs averages an hour and a half. The private
event gig Saturday requires that we be there at 10:00 AM, after playing
the night before till 1 AM. That means a sleep time of less than 6 hours
for all players the night before. Etc., etc., etc.

This is a normal life style for many professional musicians and so you
get an idea of why creativity might suffer, or the band may be a little
tired, or we might wear ugly, but comfortable shoes. We may not be at
our best creative level on some of these gigs, but then again, it may
just be extraordinary too. Am I complaining? Heck no, we're the luckiest
musicians in the world to be doing this and we know it.

Cheers
Steve Barbone