[Dixielandjazz] Programme notes for a nice country hotel gig

[Cebuisle2 at aol.com]

Pleasing the audience is the key, although often one has to swallow some  
pride and conform. Used to do a resort hotel gig all summer in Bar Harbor,  
Maine. The manager was  a great guy who used to play sax with a group. He  was no 
problem, but his bitchy wife was. She RAN the place, and all our trio  ever 
heard from her was "quiet boys, you are too loud."
I used brushes all summer on snare, and we had a sax and piano. Hated the  
gig, but it paid well. After several summers of this the frustration boiled  
over, and on the last night of the season the sax man cut loose with Muskrat  
Ramble. She came boiling down the stairs and complained loudly that we had woken  
guests upstairs! We didn't get asked back again, but it was a relief.
 
Worked a single for three years at an upscale restaurant-customers SAILED  in 
from all over the East Coast on their yachts. Sometimes the manager would  
push a table right up against the Hammond organ I played, and ask me not to play 
 until the party had left. Sometimes he would get a request from a table of  
diners to cancel the music during their stay-if they were numerous and rich  
enough (running up big tabs) the boss would send me to the bar or lobby until  
their stay ended..(The booze was free for me, although the barkeep hated the  
organ and gave me cheap stuff)
This is all part of the game. You have to be thick skinned and realize it  is 
a business, although not much fun sometimes.
 
And then there was the guy who played the washtub bass (or thought he did)  
after he got drunk enough every Saturday nite. We never threw him off the 
stage,  though he never asked if he could join us.But he always returned the next 
Sat,  nite.
 
I'm sure you have faced this stuff also. Hard for some to take  though.
                                                                              
                              tradjazz ted