[Dixielandjazz] Helping Jazz Musicians In Need

[Stephen G Barbone]

Not specifically OKOM, but OKOM jazz musicians who rely on performing  
for a living have the same problems. For information on organizations  
that offer health care assistance to musicians, see:
http://www.jazzfoundation.org/
http://www.californiajazzfoundation.org/
http://www.jazzbridge.org/  (Philadalphia)

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

February 21, 2008 -  NY Times - By NATE CHINEN
Jazz World Confronting Health Care Concerns

Not quite a month ago the alto saxophonist Andrew D’Angelo had a major  
seizure while driving his elderly landlady to a store in Brooklyn. “I  
was convulsing all over the place,” he later wrote on his blog,  
“grabbing onto the steering wheel violently, biting my tongue and  
basically acting crazy.”

Fortunately, the driver behind him recognized what was happening, and  
after quite a bit more drama — in the ambulance, Mr. D’Angelo  
apparently tore through the straps of his gurney and tried to strangle  
an emergency medical technician — he underwent testing that revealed a  
large tumor on his brain.

Within days he was scheduled for surgery and had started writing about  
the experience at andrewdangelo.com. He was clear about the fact that  
he had no health insurance.

The health of jazz, as a topic of conversation, has long inspired a  
lot of hand wringing among sympathetic parties. When the focus turns  
toward the health of jazz musicians, the discussion assumes a  
different, less abstract character: solicitous and supportive. Most  
people who play jazz for a living are accustomed to self-reliance.  
When that system fails, they lean on one another.

“Since I’ve been on the scene, there have been benefits for musicians  
that were in need, unfortunately, because so many of us are,” the  
guitarist John Scofield said in the rear stairwell of the Village  
Vanguard on Monday night. Along with the tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano  
and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, he was playing a benefit for the  
bassist Dennis Irwin, who has recently been struggling with a spinal  
tumor.

“I’m lucky enough that I can afford health insurance,” Mr. Scofield  
continued, “but a lot of people can’t. On a jazz musician income  
they’re getting by from gig to gig, keeping the roof over their heads  
and feeding a family, and insurance doesn’t happen for them.”

Mr. Irwin, the regular bassist with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and a  
seasoned sideman who has logged extensive time with Mr. Scofield and  
Mr. Lovano, is another uninsured musician.

The sudden struggles of Mr. Irwin, 56, and Mr. D’Angelo, 41 —  
musicians equally beloved in different sectors of the New York jazz  
grid — have abruptly brought the issue of health care to the  
foreground within jazz circles. Their stories have resonated with  
musicians, who tend to absorb news of this sort with a tribal concern:  
jazz is a collaborative art, after all, even if its artists are the  
ultimate individualists. It may seem negligent that so many jazz  
musicians lack basic health-care coverage, but monthly fees through an  
organization like the Freelancers Union easily run to several hundred  
dollars, and these days many gigs in New York literally involve a tip  
jar.

The Vanguard sets were a great success, financially as well as  
musically (it was Mr. Scofield’s first time performing with the  
orchestra, and he nailed it). There will be another, bigger chance to  
support Mr. Irwin on March 10, when Mr. Scofield and Mr. Lovano  
spearhead an A-list benefit concert in partnership with Wynton  
Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center. Proceeds will go to the Jazz  
Foundation of America, a nonprofit organization that provides aid to  
jazz and blues musicians.

Mr. Irwin, speaking this week from his Manhattan home, said he had  
just completed radiation treatments. His ordeal began in December with  
a mysterious back pain. The Jazz Foundation referred him to the Dizzy  
Gillespie Cancer Institute and Memorial Fund at Englewood Hospital and  
Medical Center in New Jersey, which regularly provides free treatment  
to jazz musicians. (Dr. Frank Forte, the institute’s director and a  
jazz guitarist, treated Gillespie there during the final months of his  
battle with pancreatic cancer in 1993.)

The Jazz Foundation does considerably more than steer musicians toward  
services. Its mission also involves protecting musicians from  
eviction, malnutrition and other misfortunes.

“We get 60 cases a week like this, each having its own urgency and  
desperation,” Wendy Oxenhorn, the executive director, said. Referring  
to Mr. Irwin, she added, “I’ve never seen an outpouring of so much for  
one musician.”

If that’s true, Mr. D’Angelo runs a close second. “I knew that I was  
loved,” he said this week, “and I knew that this musical community was  
close. But I had no idea the compassion ran this deep, and I mean that  
from the bottom of my heart.”

Mr. D’Angelo is a key figure in Brooklyn’s underground jazz scene, and  
part of a peer group that includes the guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, the  
drummer Jim Black and the saxophonist and clarinetist Chris Speed. He  
has a strong new album, “Skadra Degis,” on Mr. Speed’s label, Skirl,  
with Mr. Black and the bassist Trevor Dunn. Its release party had long  
been scheduled to take place Friday at the Tea Lounge in Park Slope.

The gig is still on, but now it will be one of more than a dozen  
benefits for Mr. D’Angelo, spread across the United States and Europe.  
Mr. Black, Mr. Speed and Mr. Dunn will perform, as will the  
multireedist Oscar Noriega and the drummer Matt Wilson, two more of  
Mr. D’Angelo’s close compatriots. A separate benefit is scheduled for  
next Thursday at Barbès, also in Park Slope.

Mr. D’Angelo has received financial support from both the Jazz  
Foundation and the MusiCares Foundation, a program of the National  
Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. His operation was a success in  
the sense that most of the tumor was removed, with no adverse effects.  
But further analysis revealed that he has an especially serious form  
of brain cancer.

“The doctor said that without treatment, I will live for five years,”  
he wrote last Friday, after receiving the news. “Seems dismal and I’m  
unwilling to accept it.” He is likely to begin radiation treatment  
shortly, having ruled out further surgery.

Apart from the dramatic nature of their stories, Mr. Irwin and Mr.  
D’Angelo are sadly not exceptions. A few years ago, for instance, the  
tenor saxophonist Michael Blake had two operations for a ruptured  
appendix. Having no insurance, he chose Bellevue Hospital Center for  
its sliding-scale fee; he also received assistance from MusiCares. He  
still has no insurance, though he is obviously aware of the risks. (He  
just spent the weekend at Bellevue watching over Scott Harding, a  
prolific record producer and engineer who was critically injured in a  
car accident last week. Mr. Harding does not have insurance either.)

The situation is the same for Mr. Speed, who has spent a lot of time  
visiting Mr. D’Angelo in hospitals lately. “A lot of my friends,  
myself included, don’t have insurance, which seems really idiotic,  
especially now,” he said. “But it’s also very expensive to get  
coverage.”

It should be noted, too, that even musicians with health coverage  
encounter serious financial needs; this is one of the major areas of  
concern for the Jazz Foundation. The costs associated with an illness  
can go well beyond the literal costs of treatment, because a musician  
who is not working usually translates to a musician without an income.

Last October the pianist George Cables, who does have private health  
insurance, had simultaneous transplant operations, receiving a new  
liver and kidney. While the procedures were covered, he has not been  
able to earn a living during his recovery. So he was fortunate to have  
two all-star tributes presented in his honor recently, in San  
Francisco and New York. He received about $12,000 from each, he said.

But the money wasn’t the only benefit, so to speak. “One of the best  
things for me was how people came together, and expressed their  
concern, and expressed their support by coming and playing,” he said.  
“That was better than anything.”

Benefits for Andrew D’Angelo: Friday at the Tea Lounge, 837 Union  
Street, near Sixth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn, (718) 789-2762,  
tealoungeny.com; Feb. 28 at Barbès, 376 Ninth Street, at Sixth Avenue,  
Park Slope, Brooklyn, (718) 965-9177, barbesbrooklyn.com. Benefit for  
Dennis Irwin: March 10 at the Allen Room, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz  
at Lincoln Center, 60th Street and Broadway, (212) 721-6500, jalc.org.