[Dixielandjazz] Goodbye, Mr. Hammond

[pj.ladd]

 and charging more wouldn't have seemed right.>>

Hi Randy. I enjoyed your poetic piece but `an evenings music for the price 
of a pitcher of beer"  and `charging more wouldn`t have seemed right` 
explains perfectly why jazz joints are folding. You gotta make a profit. 
Music is a business and you have to charge what the traffic will bear or the 
music will stop. You cannot go on getting something on the cheap for ever

Its great when an afficionado owns a place and can afford to run it at a 
loss. Marvellous.  We have had one such in Bath where I used to play. The 
guy has supported jazz at various pubs which he owned ever since the war. 
He would have a different band every night and he subsidised it. You have to 
sell  a lot of extra drinks, ABOVE WHAT YOU WOULD NORMALLY SELL,  to pay a 
band.. Even in the days when we were playing for peanuts the bossman would 
need to sell perhaps 500 EXTRA pints to break even..He never charged extra 
for the beer or put on a cover charge or even allowed a band collection.
Regularly the guys accountant would come in and say `this has to stop` and 
he would sack a couple of bands. He would then rebook them  a few weeks 
later.
Supporting jazz must have cost the guy thousands of pounds but that was his 
hobby. Unfortunately that can`t go on for ever and in our case it has 
finally  stopped.. Sad, perhaps if he had charged something it would still 
be going.

Cheers

Pat.