[Dixielandjazz] What is a job worth?

[BillSargentDrums at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/9/03 3:48:13 PM Central Standard Time, 
stridepiano at tesco.net writes:


> 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.>>

The answer was in the above: "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."

I, in addition to being a bandleader, also play drums for several other 
bands. I actually look very much forward to that because it gives me an 
opportunity to shut up and concentrate on playing my drums . . . in addition 
to making the load in and out that much easier.

Thanks for asking!
Bill
414-777-0100
BillSargent.com
BillSargentBands.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://ml.islandnet.com/pipermail/dixielandjazz/attachments/20030309/5c44ee0e/attachment.html