[Dixielandjazz] Sit Ins

[Steve Barbone]

Here's my 2 cents, once again, on this subject:

I neither allow, nor recommends that anyone else allow, every Tom Dick or
Harry to sit in with my/your band. I categorically refuse strangers who
bring their axe into the venue and ask to sit in.

What I do is invite folks to sit in, whom I know can play, when I feel like
it. Or friends of the client when he asks us to let "Joe's son sit in." In
those cases we have a one tune rule, explained in advance, and then will
extend that if we feel like it, and the person can play, to a second tune.

That being said, I will invite YOUNG wannabes to sit-in if I know that they
have sharpened their axe skills by wood shedding, playing with records,
taken advice and/or lessons from a professional mentor and know how to play
or sing. WHY?

Because that's how I got started as a teenage wannabe. I sat in with Pee Wee
Erwin, Chuck Traeger, Billy Maxted, Tony Spargo, Sal Pace et al at Nick's
and Condon's. And later with Bechet, Hawkins Eldridge et al. And then I got
invited on paying gig with them. Those gentlemen, REAL PROS, all of them,
extended me every courtesy when I was a kid, even though I was no where near
their league.

After a musician has learned his axe, and about jazz, the best way to
sharpen his skills and become professional is to sit in with professionals.

And that's how Jonathan Russell got started playing PROFESSIONALLY. SITTING
IN with Ed Polcer and then with Dick Hyman, Bucky Pizzarelli, Les Paul,
Svend Asmussen et al. To the point where I paid him to come down from NYC
and play professional gigs with us when he was 8 years old, and I pay him
well these days to continue. (like $200 an hour in some cases)

I don't sweat what the client thinks, because we are not getting paid to
play arranged music. We are being paid, on one hand to play jazz but more
importantly to entertain the client's audience. I have not forgotten what
happened to Artie Shaw on his first gig as a leader. He was extolling the
expertise of his band, his musicians, how they played top drawer music, how
great they were, etc.  The Venue manager said something like this:

"Look Shaw, I don't give a shit how good you think your band is, or how good
you are, or how good your arrangements are. I am paying you to keep the room
full and the customers happy. If they will pay to come in here every night
to see you drop your pants and take a crap on stage, then I'll pay you to go
do it." That is the reality of the "music business".

Regarding sit ins not knowing arrangements etc, well we view jazz as a
language that good jazz musicians all understand and speak. And a sit in
jazz musician, if he is good, can come in and speak with us, or we with him,
with no trouble what so ever. I wish I had a dollar for every time I went to
a Jazz Club in NYC in the 1950s and saw Pros sitting in with other Pros.
Like Buddy Rich with Basie. Didn't bother Rich at all that he couldn't read
music. He knew where the breaks and fills were. Etc.

My band does not get all worked up over arrangements in jazz.  I wish I had
a dollar every time I worked in a pick-up group with guys I had rarely
worked with. Like Hawkins, Eldridge, Erwin, Traeger, Bechet, Jon Erik
Kellso, Randy Reinhart, et al. We worked without charts, without
arrangements, without music stands and we blew the doors off the venues.
The music wasn't always clean either, but then, that's jazz IMO. The
excitement carried the day.

In my experience clients have no opinion one way or another about sit-ins.
They do have opinions about the bottom line and how well we entertain the
audience. That's why I do not allow sit ins whom I do not know. And it is
also the reason why I do invite young players to sit in. Partly to pass the
torch to the younger generations and partly to pay back the kindness that
some real Professional jazz musicians extended to me when I was a kid. And
partly to entertain the audience.

And why, if Tony Scott (or other top flight pro) had walked into a place
where I was playing, I would, like Kash did, break my own no sit in rule and
invite him to sit in.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone