[Dixielandjazz]Professional jazz musicians

Kurt bowermastergroup at qwest.net
Sat Jan 10 08:58:47 PST 2004


Very well put Tom, especially the part about people coming to SEE us.  The
band has to be entertaining and not just stand there like a bunch of deer
caught in headlamps (or spotlights).

<<<<<<<<<And we can't even get a Dixieland or Traditional Jazz Festival in
the USA to
even answer our mail or request a Promotional package.>>>>>>>>>

I'm glad I'm one of the few that has in my possession your CD's and promo
kit.  I do hope to bring you to Des Moines when I get my big festival up and
running again.

Kurt



-----Original Message-----
From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
[mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com]On Behalf Of
TCASHWIGG at aol.com
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 1:37 AM
To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz]Professional jazz musicians



In a message dated 1/9/04 12:10:22 PM Pacific Standard Time,
jpettjazz at btinternet.com writes:

> I decided long ago that this was not for me. If I was to present a quality
> product then the venues would have to pay the right price. I guess Steve
and
> Tom would agree as would Mike Durham.
>

You Bet I agree John:

And I also agree with your fine post earlier about what constitutes a
Professional Musician/Entertainer.

While I admire and appreciate many of the Great Jazz Educators and members
of
the IAJE organization, and have hired a good number of them over the years
in
my bands and shows, I still find a great fault in many of them who are
highly
compensated Educators teaching youngsters how to do what they themselves
have
never done and most likely never will do.  They are great educators of
music,
but most do not know their ass from a hole in the ground about the business
of MUSIC and or how to operate a working Bookable Band for enough money to
earn
a living for themselves and the families of the sidemen they employ.

Having a PHD in music or ethnomusicology will not get you booked as a
professional musician, but a guy or gal who has played their butts off for
years in
funky old barrooms and on concert stages in front of thousands of people for
ten or twenty years can walk on a major concert stage and kick their musical
butts every time.

I took four  technically excellent top educated IAJE musicians on my last
tour with enough Degrees in music to make me a sheepskin overcoat, while
they
played well when called upon for solos and adequatelyu in ensemble work,
they
totally lacked any stage presence whatsoever and did not even know how to do
a
sound check on a major Jazz Festival stage.   These gentlemen consider
themselves to be Top notch Professionals but could not function in a real
touring band,
and two of them freaked out and went home without their paycheck or return
airline tickets.  The only explanation was I can't deal with this.

We performed 80  one hour shows in 40 days living in four and five star
hotels, eating gourmet meals, and had all expenses  and transportation
paid,  and
got paid $100.00  to $300.00 an hour to put up with it.   If anybody on this
list who is not a recognized Star Attraction Entertainer makes a better
professional living playing Dixieland music consistently with a ten to
fifteen member
band I would like to meet them so I could improve my operation.  These are
conditioins that I call professional and successful especially for non star
players.  And if I forgot to mention it all of them are Black American
Musicians
except me of course, I am the token Honkey, well to be honest a couple of
them
are considered to be HIGH YELLOW, or on the Creole side.

I have been fortunate enough to play great festivals with my show like The
North Sea Jazz Festival in the Hague, which hires about 200 acts for 15
stages
over a three day period, Every one of them Top names in Jazz & Blues from
almost every genre of Jazz, except Dixieland that I could see on our last
performance there.  We performed between and alongside the greatest Acts in
the
business and the Festival Directors said to me:

"You Boys Brought a Real Breath of Fresh Air to this Festival, and we look
forward to you coming again."

   We received similar comments from the Fabulous Pori Jazz Festival, in
Finland and Vitoria Jazz Festival in Spain, and headlined Festivals in Italy
on
the last tour.

And we can't even get a Dixieland or Traditional Jazz Festival in the USA to
even answer our mail or request a Promotional package.  Why????  Because
most
of them are operated by amateurs who have done more to destroy the
marketplace
for Dixieland and Traditional Jazz than Rock & Roll and Bebop combined.

Does it not seem strange that groups like mine and Steve Barbone's and John
Petters and Mike Durham, and Bob Craven, and Kurt Bowermaster seem to play
major venues and High profile shows and festivals while many of our beloved
listmates are still trying to find any gig that will let a Dixieland band on
the
stage.   I would also venture to say that any one of us could go into any
reasonable venue between 300 and 3000 capacity and promote our own shows and
sell
enough seats at $15 to $35.00 to make it a very profitable endeavor  and
sell
thirty percent of the audience CDs to take home with them.

No doubt there are others in this category on this great list, but we don't
hear from them because as Bob Ringwald said they lurk and do not often
post. 
Please guys and Gals when you have people like us on this list giving out
everything we can think of to help those that may not have learned what we
have or
have not been fortunate enough to get to the right places at the right time
and become more successful, take the time to participate and talk back to
us. 
We are accessible and so far have been forth coming in spilling our guts to
try
and help any band or musician we can to at least enjoy some of the success
we
have been fortunate enough to garner for our efforts.

And many of the legendary players on this list and the USA Festival circuit
can only get booked in Jam session situations as ALL -STARS instead of
touring
with a well rehearsed hot fire in the Belly Band like the one they earned
their reputation in, that could and would sell tickets enough to pay them
what
they deserve to make as real Professional Musicians.

Perhaps there is a deeper explanation to this burning question of who is a
Professional Musician and who is not.

Well, folks I learned many years ago about a week after I joined the great
old American Federation of Musicians, that Musicians and wannabe musicians
are a
dime a dozen, and usually starve to death trying to be the baddest
technically perfect cat in town, and those who could also Entertain got
booked at all
the better places and made much more money and a living as a Professional
Entertainer/Musician.  

When you speak to the average person on the streets, about being an
"Entertainer" they usually say "oh like a musician in a band that's so cool"
where can
we come and "SEE" you?  

So to sum it up, it is not so much the music, but who and how they play it,
just go to any Dixieland Festival and listen to the bands, it is quite
obvious
to Professional Musicians who is and who is not and usually is expressed in
the level of performance put on in direct correlation to the response of the
audience if they have one.

I personally know some musicians who could be termed Professional Musicians
simply because they have earned a living playing music all their lives,
although never being successful in any one of the myriad of bands they have
played
with or formed and operated.  These same musicians would not even be allowed
to
sit in with my show, and some of them are good personal friends of mine and
they have enough professionalism to not ask to sit in.  Several of these
guys
have played almost seven nights a week and a wedding or two every weekend
with
almost every amateur band in California, for any money that was available,
that
however does not make Real Professional by Professional standards.  And not
one of them could sell two tickets for anybody to see or hear them.

A difficult question to answer by any means.

We keep turning out well trained educated students with music degrees but
nobody has taught them what it means or how to be  Real Professional.  
Nobody
taught me either, I had to go out in the big old world and learn how to do
it
every step of the way.  I have always made my living in this business and
have
been fortunate beyond all my expectations, but I assure you I had no medical
or
law or accounting degree to fall back on, no safety net, I have made a lot
of
money in this business and I have spent a lot of money and will continue to
do so till I am gone to play with the big band in the sky, or the big  OKOM
Band down below. 

So I would conclude that a Really True Professional Musician is one that
makes Music and the delivery of it, his life long work which if done
correctly
will eventually reward him for his efforts and contributions if he or she is
lucky and does not give up and self destruct his life and previous efforts
on the
ladder on the way up or even down.  It also helps if they can avoid the
abandonment of everything they have worked for and keep starting all over
again and
again with three hundred bands.


That's my take on it today folks

Hope it's useful to somebody.

Cheers,

Tom Wiggins
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