[Dixielandjazz] Our audience

[LARRY'S Signs and Large Format Printing]

I thought this post was great and I sent it out to my musician friends with the following:

Thought you all might like the thought.  We should remember that there are people that enjoy us and want to meet and know us as performers.  Not is it only good PR but most of us have heard from the old timers how they danced to Goodman or Miller in some ballroom somewhere.  Those fond memories were made by players just like us.  Someday, hopefully, someone will go up to a band and will say .... when my wife and I were young we used to dance to...(your bands name)...and you should have heard.....your name here .....  Even if that doesn't happen you will be the topic of conversation for many people in your audience in the next several days.  Talking to your audience is worth it's weight in gold.
Larry 
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Night after night, the old man comes.  Nodding low, the music fills him.  Doesn't blow, no, but listens like nobody before or since.  Scotch and water, cap pulled way down, he's good to go.  Once he hears that mellow sax, doesn't need his cane--he's flyin'.  See him tap that foot, "Blue Train" in his veins.  Or give him a slow, rocking blues, and watch him close his eyes and shake his gray head, 'cause it's so sweet! he just doesn't know, he just doesn't know.  Every moment is the music, every waking moment, and you better believe it.  Play a tasty lick and watch him chuckle and reach for his drink.  The jazzman is pleased.  

At home he is just a man, old and tired, surrounded by records and newspapers.  But at the clubs...  At set break, he holds court, and the band and the regulars rise from their tables or step down from the stage and come to him.  They pay respects, share a joke, have a drink--but mostly pay their respects.  And that's all he needs--that and the music.  King of the night, the jazzman smiles and nods.  -- By Duante Beddingfield