[Dixielandjazz] Strange Gigs

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

This is the most perfect definition and explanation of how to commit 
"Gigacide" that I know.

I don't think that anyone is in the business of insulting anyone's religion 
but knowing what kind of job it is and the Tuba player accepted the gig 
knowing full well that some sort of religious tunes may be played shows a 
serious lack of integrity on the part of the tuba player.  I think it's 
called failure to perform.  That's not a musical term but for whatever 
reason a person doesn't do the job he is hired to do he may be terminated. 
I would think that the leader would be justified in cutting his pay by the 
percentage of the tunes he didn't play.  Such as he didn't play 3 tunes out 
of 10 then deduct 30% from the check.  If this guy is so religious then why 
did he take the money. If you won't perform then it's very close to stealing 
which is generally not sanctioned by anyone's religion.

I think that what you have is a person who wants to call his religion to 
everyone's attention and that he's better than everyone else because he's so 
special.

There is a lot of religious intolerance out there that ends up with negative 
musical results.  For example school bands can't do anything with a 
religious name.  Some of the beginning books has a religious Christian tune 
"Fairest Lord Jesus" or "Beautiful Savior" in it and the title was changed 
to Crusaders March.  This happens with Christmas music and many other tunes 
by the masters.  Too bad.

By the way I think that I could name that church on the first try!
Larry
St. Louis
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve barbone" <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
To: "DJML" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2006 3:06 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Strange Gigs


> Just got off the phone with my pal Pete Pepke (trombone).
>
> Pete: "Hey, I have to share this with you from the August 2004 issue of
> readers Digest." (he was catching up on his reading)
>
> The story was about the former Miss Delaware who was at a funeral where a
> Dixieland Jazz Band had been hired to play. Leader, a Delaware trombonist
> was asked to play "Precious Lord Take My Hand, Saints, etc." He refused on
> religious grounds to play any of the religious tunes. Exasperated the 
> widow
> asked him what tunes he suggested?
>
> "Don't Get Around Much Anymore"
>
> Pete said "can you guess who the leader was?"
>
> No question about it. Though not named in the story, we figured the leader
> was a guy we played with at a political function for Delaware Senator Roth
> (Roth IRA fame) who was up for re-election in the mid 1990s. Gig was
> Dixieland and leader was banjoist Al Smith. Pete was on trombone, and this
> guy, an excellent player on both Tuba and Trombone, was on Tuba.
>
> First off, he refused to wear a red vest because "My religion precludes me
> from wearing "raiment". OK,, so we need to play "A Grand Old Flag". You'll
> have to do it without me as my religion precludes me from paying homage to 
> a
> symbol or country. It offends the Almighty.
>
> OK so we need to play Saints as all the functionaries come marchin in. 
> Nope,
> he can't play that as it demeans religious heroes.
>
> So we played most of the gig without a tuba.
>
> Never hired, or worked with the guy again figuring he should be smart 
> enough
> not to take gigs where such songs would be played. We later figured out,
> because he had given the gig to Al rather than lead it himself, that as 
> the
> leader, he would have had to prevent the band from playing those tunes.
>
> Can't figure out why he chose to lead the funeral band. And wonder in this
> day of political correctness if we could legally refuse to hire a player
> because of religion? Or ask players what their religion is? :-) VBG
>
> Cheers,
> Steve
>
>
>
>
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