[Dixielandjazz] Spitting in the wind? The OKOM jazzer's quandary

[Ministry of Jazz]

Well said, Tom and David,

I'll just chime in here with my 2 shekels' worth. Having moved to Israel from southern California about 10 years ago with the goal of promoting Dixieland and trad jazz in Israel, I have learned a few things along the way myself. I was never a professional player in the US. Never had the training or the credentials or the drive to try it. But Israel being a small country and just emerging from the 3rd world in many ways, I had the additional motivation of wanting to do something meaningful to boost morale and to make a contribution to the life of the people. It also seemed to be one of the ways I could try to make a living as a new immigrant.

My first business day in the country I took my banjo out to the pedestrian mall in downtown Jerusalem and played my heart out for 2 hours. I came home with 11 shekels, or about $3. Figuring I could probably do better than that, I went back the next day, and came home with 45 shekels. After a few weeks of modest progress, I decided I could do more to gain the appreciation of the crowds in town. I started wearing costumes. I started singing. I started standing up -- even in the hot summer sun -- rather than sitting in the shade. People not only began to stand and listen, they brought me cold drinks, and before long I was making 100 shekels a day, playing in the afternoons after my Hebrew language classes. That was already close to enough to make a minimal living.

In time people began asking if I play for parties, if I have a band, and so on, and I started to get small gigs. I met other musicians, and we mixed and matched instruments and talents to take whatever gigs came along that we could handle. I used to be happy to play for 100 - 150 shekels for a 2 hour gig, roughly $30 to $50. It took 5 years to find the young fellow who learned banjo from me, and together we started the Doctor Jazz band, which is now 5-6 players and has a CD (did I mention we have a CD for sale? -- only $15 postpaid). We are getting jobs that pay $100 to $150 per player. We have 3 different band uniforms and hats, and some props for atmosphere when the gig calls for it. The City of Jerusalem, who used to call us to make balloons for kids on holidays, is now booking us for serious music events. Whenever we did the balloons, I always reminded them that we have a jazz band, and I gave them a disk and pictures and business cards. It takes awhile for it to sink in.

Of course we are careful to deliver the goods whenever we get a job. No unhappy customers. We also play on the pedestrian mall, in costume, whenever we can, for additional exposure. Now we are getting gigs from people who heard us on the street, sometimes a couple years ago, and they liked us and saved our cards until they had an opportunity to hire us. I'd like to get that to where we're getting hired by people who heard us last week! We're also getting gigs from people who heard us at other gigs. We put business cards on all the tables at weddings and bar mitzvahs, and have CDs displayed. We give a CD to every customer as a gift, and of course it has all of our contact info on the cover. You need to exploit every avenue of visibility to get people's attention. I now have a car for the first time since I moved here -- a white Volvo station wagon.  The first thing I did before I filled the gas tank was to get stickers made for the doors and the rear windows that say "Doctor Jazz" in big colorful letters in Hebrew and English, with pictures of the band and our phone numbers, large enough to be seen and read while on the road. The other day I was driving near Haifa, 100 miles from my home, and drivers of other cars were giving me a big smile and thumbs up. I hope they wrote down the phone numbers! I gave a CD to my mechanic when he asked about the stickers on the car. I'll bet good money that I will get gig referrals from this guy. I also gave one to the guy who installed my new CD player in the car, and to the contractor who did the renovations on my apartment...

December has been a busy month for us this year. We have 2 gigs a week, and that's almost enough to cover monthly living expenses. Doesn't happen every month, but it's getting more frequent. I also have 2 new trumpet students and a new trombone student. I encourage the students to progress, and I use music from the band repertoire as much as I can so they'll have the possibility to perform with us. When a gig can handle it, I'll give promising students an opportunity to appear with the band. I am also working on building a brass ensemble that does light classical, pop, swing, movie and TV themes, and such. It might take another year or so to get it off the ground, but we are building a repertoire and the quality is improving, and our trio version has done a couple of freebie performances just to start letting people know we exist. This kind of group, as soon as we have an hour of decent repertoire, can start performing for the cocktail hour at wedding receptions or other short events, and Jerusalem has tons of ceremonies where a bunch of trumpets and maybe other brass could be an impressive addition.

As Tom and Steve and others keep saying, you have to get out there where people can see and hear you. They're not going to come knocking on your door. Big companies spend huge amounts of money on advertising, because they know how many times someone has to see or hear about a product before it will occur to them to think about buying it. You can't expect to make a living on one ad or mailing. It takes effort to work up to critical mass, and then you have to keep it up once things get going. This is a big world, and there is ALWAYS a market for nearly ANYTHING. You have to locate and reach your market and let them know you exist. My best customers are not the Americans living over here. They always want us to play for free, if they want us at all. The best customers have been the native Israelis and non-western immigrants -- people who don't even know about our music, but they like it when they hear it. I just have to make sure they have ample opportunity to hear it.

Happy holidays,

Elazar
Dr. Jazz Dixieland Band
Tekiya Trumpet Ensemble
Jerusalem, Israel
www.israel.net/ministry-of-jazz 
+972-2-679-2537