[Dixielandjazz] What is a job worth?

[John Farrell]

Bill Sargent said :

" Case in point: I have been working for several years with a name big
band that is run by someone who can be cheap past intelligence. With this
guy, money can and does win out over musical quality. In the past year,
there's been this drummer in our genre who is also a farmer in a state
hundreds
of miles from our area. This guy makes good money with his farm and also
can afford to be away from it for periods of time.

He took a cruise from me that I should have played because he bribed his
way onto the gig by helping to sell several cabins for the cruise . . .
then played for zippo. Just took another cruise from me because he
offered to drive halfway across the US to the five day gig for free. Then he
took 2 nights last weekend from me here in Wisconsin, because he offered to
drive up from Nebraska for free as a "vacation"."

Bill - are you saying that your band was engaged to play these jobs? If so,
how is it possible for the farmer guy to take them from you? If you were
booked to play the jobs presumably you had enforceable contracts in respect
of them, so redress is available to you if the other parties to the
contracts subsequently dumped your band in favour of the farmer's.

Or are you saying that your band was not engaged to play these jobs because
the farmer undercut your prices? In that case the jobs were never yours,
consequently they could not be taken from you.

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