[Dixielandjazz] Jazz musicians and health

[Norman Vickers]

To:  DJML and Musicians list

From:  Norman Vickers

Jazz Society of Pensacola

 

Here’s an article from NYTimes 2-21 of concern to us all.  Outlines how many
jazz musicians lack health insurance, frequently because it isn’t affordable
on meager incomes.

 

Nate Chinen is a jazz writer who collaborated with George Wein on the
latter’s autobiography.

 

 

 

February 21, 2008

Music


Jazz World Confronting Health Care Concerns 


By NATE CHINEN

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
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/l/joe_lovano/ind
ex.html?inline=nyt-per>  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
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/wynton_marsali
s/index.html?inline=nyt-per>  and Jazz at Lincoln Center
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/j/jazz_at
_lincoln_center/index.html?inline=nyt-org> . 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
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/dizzy_gillespi
e/index.html?inline=nyt-per>  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.

 <http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html> 

 

 

F. Norman Vickers

3720 McClellan Road

Pensacola, FL 32503-3412

850-432-9743 (home)

850-324-5022 (cell)

850-433-8382 ( Jazz Society of Pensacola)

nvickers1 at cox.net ( that's ONE not L)

www.jazzpensacola.com