[Dixielandjazz] Reflections on museum-piece music...impoverished Seniors...nobody likes OKOM but us...etc...etc

[David Dustin]

Larry wrote:

  It is true that some and possibly many seniors are on fixed, poverty level
incomes and need help.  To that end I will give a senior facility a price
break if the majority of the people there are on Medicaid but what about the
upscale senior residences that charge $6K and up a month per person.  They
plead poverty too and everyone knows that by saving a buck they increase
their corporate profits.

I recognize those for-profit ³retirement communities² that can¹t afford to
pay a trad band. I dunno what trad rates are in high population/burgeoning
economies like California and the Brandywine Valley, but up here in the
frozen northeast I can usually get 500-700 for a gig if I market hard but
those $6K/mo/person retirement centers that Larry loves so much won¹t even
return calls unless you¹re willing to give it away. I got $100 from the last
one that actually paid us. In the winter months, to keep us going, we¹ve
found it beneficial to play gratis for a couple subsidized senior housing
places which seem to treat us well. We go back every year and for some of
those old gals (not many guys in them) it¹s obviously the high point of
their existence, which gives us a good feeling.  Like Butch said, I don¹t
care WHY they come to hear us, I¹m just glad when somebody does/did and
enjoys the experience.  We¹ve actually moved the band back to a sliver of a
large round bandstand and invited the 12 young people in the audience (who
wandered by the park in the rain) to come up into it while we played the
last set of a gig that should have been rained out.  We play, they come up
and stay, and we¹re all happy! If we¹re all lucky, the rain will stop by the
time we have to break down and some kids will have heard something in our
trad jazz that touches them in places they never knew they had. This sort of
thing has happened to us twice in our short existence.  One other February
Saturday night we played the back end of a popular small town bookstore,
where they host readings and such.  We were supposed to collect $3 a head,
same as the folksinger acts that play that venue.  Besides the proprietor
and a few band spouses, exactly 2 people showed up!  We played 2 sets with
our usual panache and energy, tried out some new material, and I think those
2 people had a great time!  (I think I actually caught one of them taking a
chorus...)  Such is the hardscrabble trad-jazz life up here in trad New
Hampshire, home of stone walls, maple trees, black bears, real colonial farm
houses, and ski areas which sure could use some snow right now.

Wishing all a jazzy and peaceful 2007,
David Dustin