[Dixielandjazz] Re: All Good Things Come To An End

[Charlie Hull]

The repartee about unions reminds me of an event related to Sacramento's 
Dixieland Jazz Jubilee.

A lot of us players were long-time union members, and a lot were 
non-union but very good players, and most bands were a mix of union and 
non. The Jubilee originator and Director, Bill Borcher (RIP) and the 
then-President of Local 12 , Tom Kenny (RIP) had a hand-shake agreement 
whereby the Jubilee paid the union several thousand dollars in 'work 
dues' without any statistical rresearch or support. The union was 
probably getting more than it would have if all that paperwork had been 
done.

Some place in Florida wanted to start a jazz festival but didn't know 
how to handle the work dues situation, so they called the International 
in New York, who then called Local 12 to ask for a copy of the contract 
with the Jazz Jubilee. The President told them that there was no 
contract; just a verbal agreement whereby the union collected a lot more 
that they could with contracts.

New York sent their goons to Sacramento to tell them how the cookie 
crumbles and how this Jubilee was going to be run by union rules from 
now on or they were going to shut it down. The union president called a 
special meeting at the union hall, the grapevine passed the word, and 
the place was SRO with Jubilee musicians. The New York reps said that 
henceforth, until there was a satisfactory contract, no union music 
would be permitted to play in the Jubilee.

To a man, the musicians jumped to their feet shouting, "No problem! The 
we'll quit the union!"

That was the end of the meeting. The reps went back to NY with their 
mission unaccomplished.

As for the work dues, we leaders now submit to the Jubilee a list of our 
personnel with an indication of which are union musicians and their 
union local affiliations. Nominal work dues are sent to the stated 
locals, and I seriously doubt that they're getting anywhere near the 
amounts they were receiving under the informal 'gentlemens' agreement.

Power to the people!

We get forty bucks each for a 70-minute set and most bands get six to 
eight sets. The leader gets a few bucks extra. This will start a new 
thread about exploitation of musicians and how we should refuse to play 
unless we get big bucks and perks, but for the majority of us, that 
ain't what the Jubilee is about. The joy of seeing our old (and getting 
older) friends from around the world, hearing and jamming with them, and 
playing to appreciative audiences who came with one purpose in mind; to 
enjoy TKOM (their kind -- same as OKOM) and reunite with fellow jazz 
fans, is priceless. The Sacramento Jazz Jubilee is barely hanging on due 
to the overhead and the limits on the amount you can charge (mostly 
senior) people to attend the event. They have scaled back significantly 
in the number of performance sites and have dropped the number of 
participating bands, especially foreign bands. If they don't break even 
this year, it could be the last one.

The professionals will be telling us we should strike and demand a 
living wage, but I'm not about to help kill the event, which has brought 
me much fun and many beautiful friendships over the many years.

Believe me; nobody is getting rich off this event, but many lives have 
been ENriched.

Charlie Hull