[Dixielandjazz] Re: Definition of Professional Musician

[Stephen Barbone]

Absolutely agree with Kurt. "Successful" is most accurately defined by the
person it applies to. So, your own definition of success is what counts.

Individual success may be:

fame and money . . . so Kenny G is successful. or

mastery over the instrument . . . so Cecil Taylor is successful or

audience popularity . . . so Michael Jackson is successful or

being a change agent . . . so Louis, Bird, Miles and the Beatles were all
successful.

IMO success is what ever YOU want it to be. You set the goal and if you
achieve it you are successful. What everybody else thinks is immaterial. If
Van Gogh saw himself as successful with his creations then he was.  If that
was the case, then the fact that he only sold one painting during is life
time was meaningless.

I was merely trying to take the "Monetary" aspect out of the definition of
"What is a 'professional' musician?" IMO, Whether one makes a living at it or
not is immaterial, because many professionals, especially in jazz, do not
make a living at it, yet they are extraordinarily talented and quite
professional. Van Gogh is the perfect analogy in visual art. He never made a
living at it, and was subsidized all of his life by his brother and friends.
Yet he was an artistic genius. Certainly we could not describe him as
anything other than a professional artist.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Kurt wrote:

> Define the word "Successful".
>
> I just heard an interesting NPR story about Vincent Van Goh.  Was he a
> professional painter?  Would he be considered successful?  Apparently his
> paintings didn't really start to sell until about 30 years after he killed
> himself.
>
> How many professional musicians who died broke do we idolize?
>
> "Success" comes in many forms and packages.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
> [mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com]On Behalf Of Stephen
> Barbone
> Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 10:13 PM
> To: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Professional Musician
>
> My Friend Tom Wiggins said (polite snip)
>
> ..."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"...
>
> ***
> There is one word that I think Tom left out,  That word is "Successful"
> and should perhaps replace "True" in the above definition.
>
> I asked members of my band tonight how they would define "professional"
> musician. They said we'll be seeing one who represents about 90 percent
> of the professionals, right after the gig. He'll be the one that says:
> "How would you like your burger cooked?"
>
> Cheers,
> Steve (Reality Check Time) Barbone
> BA, MA LLD, PM, CAH, ;-) VBG