[Dixielandjazz] [!! SPAM] Big Business Sucking The Life Out Of Art

[philwilking]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Barbone" <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
>
> The question is not that people in power try to force things down the
> public's throat but what the the heck is the public going to do about it?

In general terms: Nothing except bend over the barrel again and hope it 
won't hurt too much. Effectively, that's all the public ever has done about 
"it" since written records began to be kept 8,000 - 10,000 years ago. Why 
should anything change now?

> More importantly in the music business, what the heck are we band leaders
> going to do about it other than complain about the facts of life? First
> thing might be to generate some MONEY through our own activities by 
> getting
> our music to the public via our own hard work.

I have maintained for years that, here in my home are - New Orleans - jazz 
musicians should stop griping to each other about the lack of venues and 
find a location for a jazz joint.

Just a bar and tables, with a limited food menu and a dance floor. Not in 
the French Quarter where rents are astronomical for filthy dumps, but on the 
streetcar line, so it would be safe, simple, and inexpensive to get to and 
from after dark and the rent would be more reasonable. Then jazz musicians 
could play there on a cooperative basis. I envision this as a true 
cooperative, where all the participants - musicians and service personnel - 
would be shareholders. It probably wouldn't last as a cooperative more than 
a year or two, but it would be a start, and it would prove whether or not 
there really is enough demand for New Orleans jazz to make it more than an 
occasional novelty act or something trotted out by a museum once a year to 
show off its antique instruments.

I believe the market is here to be served. I know a tour bus driver who 
tells me that not a tour goes by without his riders asking where they can go 
for some New Orleans jazz; not rock, not zydeco, not swing, not country, 
jazz. He has to tell them there are only 3 or 4 places where there is any 
chance to do so, and the prices are high.

I know that there was a band 20 years ago, The Louisiana Repertory Jazz 
Ensemble, which played on Wednesday nights in a real dump (Munster's Bar) in 
the stevedores' and longshoremen's neighborhood: the "Irish Channel." They 
filled the place every Wednesday with college students. They did it then, 
nothing much has changed around here since, so I think it could be done now. 
However, all the musicians I have spoken to about this studiously ignore the 
subject and go back to complaining to each other about the paucity of venues 
and the low wages at those few.

So, see point 1 above, and what practical way is there to get around it?


PHIL WILKING

Those who would exchange freedom for
security deserve neither freedom nor security.