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

[tcashwigg at aol.com]

Hi Elazar:

 the same can be said for your 2 shekels worth mate:


Here folks is an example of what One person can do with this music, and 
expand the audience for it.

As  listmates Steve Barbone and Bob Romans and Johnny Wilder and myself 
have previously stated about our wonderful reception in Israel earlier 
this year, where we found a fantastic HUNGRY AUDIENCE FOR THIS MUSIC 
that not only embraced it but devoured it nightly with passion that I 
can only imagine happened to the founders of it in the golden days of 
Jazz.

My only disappointment of the adventure was getting to meet Elazar in 
person and not getting the opportunity to see and hear his Local show 
on that festival which certainly could have afforded to find a suitable 
place for them to perform and help further stimulate the music in the 
region.   Seems maybe Politics has a lot to do with all Festivals 
worldwide, and I am certainly thrilled with my acts being accepted into 
the circuit of major Festivals that we have been fortunate enough  to 
be invited to over the past 10 years.

I work hard every day just trying to expand that and go to even more 
exotic places and spread the music and goodwill of all of us, in the 
hopes that we will do a good enough job that they will invite us back 
or at least invite others to come and play.   So far as I have been 
able to determine over the past ten year of touring it is actually 
happening, even if it may be slower than I would like to see it happen.

I will say this however that the invitations to play major 
INTERNATIONAL JAZZ EVENTS HAS BEEN A DAMNED SIGHT EASIER TO BREAK INTO 
THAN THE TRADITIONAL JAZZ SOCIETY EVENTS in the USA.  And I am certain 
that the primary reason that Don Mopsik declared that the Jim Cullum 
Band will be doing fewer Trad. Jazz Society events and more of their 
own bookings is based upon the same economic reasons.   I wish them all 
the luck and success in the world, and I believe we will soon see many 
other successful acts doing similar things folks, they simply can't 
afford to stay in business at 1930 wages and promotion.

I look forward to Elazar getting to the place where he can organize his 
own OKOM festival in Jerusalem and expand it to other areas as well.

If anybody in Israel can do it he can, go get em Elazar.

Cheers,

Tom Wiggins

-----Original Message-----
From: jazzmin at actcom.net.il
To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Sent: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 11:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Spitting in the wind? The OKOM jazzer's 
quandary

   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


_______________________________________________
Dixielandjazz mailing list
Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz


________________________________________________________________________
Check out the new AOL.  Most comprehensive set of free safety and 
security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from 
across the web, free AOL Mail and more.