[Dixielandjazz] Club & Restaurant Jazz Gigs

[Stephen G Barbone]

Top Ten Facts of Life for Playing in Clubs and Restaurants

1.  Unless you are in a concert situation, most of the people are not  
there to hear you. Your music is incidental. People go to restaurants  
and bars to eat, to drink, to socialize, do business, or maybe to be  
alone in a crowd. So if you reach some of them and entertain them,  
you've done a hell of a job.

2.  In most restaurants, your main objective is to try to entertain  
without bothering anybody.

3.  Any volume is too loud for someone.

4.  The talent of anyone who wants to sit in is inversely proportional  
to how insistent he or his friends are about his sitting in. The most  
talented musician that you would really like to play with will be  
sitting there quietly and will have left his axe in the car.

5.  The crowd would rather hear a terrible rendition of "Bill Bailey"  
than the tastiest arrangement of a song that they've never heard before.

6.  The customer who asked for "Bill Bailey", his favorite song, won't  
realize you're playing it unless you sing it.

7.  Someone in the crowd will have halfway heard you play "Bill  
Bailey" and it will remind him of the song so he'll request it right  
after you've just played it.

8.  Unless you want to marry her and be the one who takes her home  
every night, don't hitch your star to a girl singer.

9.  Smooth jazz players who wants to sit can't suggest a tune to play  
that you know.
.....And the number one fact of life in playing in clubs and  
restaurants:

10.  Your slowest night, with the most obnoxious crowd and the worst  
response, is immeasurably better than the best day you ever had at a  
day job!!!