[Dixielandjazz] What *IS* our problem here in NorCal?

[Edgerton, Paul A]

For all you faithful listeners, please skip this message and we'll see
you at Giovanni's tonight. For the debaters -- you all know who you are
-- read on:

Maybe we're just too damn lazy...

Who wants to buy and haul a PA, drive for hours in heavy traffic, deal
with a club manager who wants you to be peppy -- but not too loud, deal
with conflicting requests from the customers...  All for a sum that
sometimes doesn't cover the cost of getting to the gig or even having
dinner in the same club! (Sure, it's great exposure -- but then, so is
standing up there naked.)

For this we go to music school, practice long hours for years to hone
our craft, and for some of us, put up with an unfulfilling day job so
that we might be able to all of the above.  You want to tell me this is
a business -- when a club owner is willing to pay a DJ double what he'd
pay a live band?  A reasonable businessman would find a different line
of business and quick!

Another way of looking at this is that some of us love the music so much
we ignore all the BS and just do it.  We show up and give 'em all that
we've got every time.  Some of us *aren't* retired; we have day jobs and
families.  We don't have regular practice hours or students to help us
keep our chops up -- we just gotta pull ourselves through, hour after
hour.

We'll never be as good as the Louis Armstrong All-stars, or one of Eddie
Condon's mobs.  We're not cool enough for the cognoscenti, or play
enough Turk Murphy for the San Francisco fans.  But in our favor, we
ignore nearly all that the debaters and advisors here have said, and
just show up and play some pretty good music.

Yeah, we're just too damn lazy...

-- Paul Edgerton