Post 269: POLICIES AND STYLES FOR TRADITIONAL JAZZ

Art Work by my friend Peter Bunney
www.peterbunney.com

Is it better to have a small repertoire and to play all the tunes really well or to aim at a wider, more adventurous and more risky repertoire? What makes the range of jazz bands so appealing is that every band has its own policy on repertoire and style of presentation. 

For example, where I live, I get to hear five local bands and there are big differences in their policies and styles. Let me tell you about them.

BAND A

This long-established six-piece band has a wide repertoire. It plays many 'easy' standards but it also likes to include rags and classics from the early 1900s, and Jelly Roll Morton and Sam Morgan numbers. So some of its tunes are complex and require all the musicians to know the structure, with the various strains and key changes. The players dress in casual clothes. Typically, you can catch the band playing, for example, Hiawatha Rag, Blame It On The Blues, Ory's Creole Trombone and Big House Blues. The musicians get together to rehearse - but only three or four times a year, as they are scattered over a wide area. The band attracts a fair number of gigs, including some at jazz clubs.

BAND B

This six-piece band (sometimes five-piece) keeps the repertoire simple. The players wear black shirts but no ties. It specialises in easy numbers - mainly using basic chord progressions, pulsating 12-bars and tunes such as Make Me a Pallet on the Floor, C Jam Blues, Don't Go Away Nobody, Georgia Grind and Redwing. It has a rocking rhythm section including a powerful four-to-the-bar young string-bass player. There is much use of simple riffs by the front line. The music is often entirely improvised - the leader suggesting a theme for a 12-bar - and away they go. The band attracts very few gigs (perhaps it should market itself better), but audiences love it. Feet tap, people dance and nobody goes to sleep while this band is playing. From the musician's point of view, the music is not much of a challenge, but they make people feel they've had a good night out.

BAND C

This Band always dresses smartly: DJs and bow ties. For public performances the band (five-piece and sometimes only four-piece) always picks its playlist from the same forty 'simple' songs, such as Bill Bailey and All of Me. It's easy for the musicians: they know the tunes so well that they play on automatic pilot. You can count on them always to play When You're Smiling, Five Foot Two, Doctor Jazz, Down By The Riverside - in the most familiar keys. You don't hear them play anything fresh or complex. I bet the playing has become stale for the musicians. But the band is marketed well and gets some of its bookings through an agent and probably attracts more private gigs than the others. Maybe that proves something. 

BAND D

This six-piece band (with a regular monthly pub gig but not much else) never has a rehearsal and never prepares a playlist. It dresses casually. It offers a mixture of jazz standards and ballads (sung usually by the trombonist - a decent singer), mostly in the conventional keys. It's the kind of band that might play Indiana, St. Louis Blues and Fly Me To The Moon but never Chrysanthemum Rag or Kinklets. It's a typical English pub jazz band - experienced elderly musicians making reasonably good music but not getting many gigs and certainly not making any money!

BAND E

This band is distinctive in that it has a very talented lady singer as well as five accomplished instrumentalists. The band dresses smartly, in white shirts and bow ties. The leader seeks out music that is harmonically challenging and more interesting than run-of-the-mill traditional jazz tunes. Of course, the band nevertheless plays a few simple jazz standards (certainly no multi-theme pieces) but mostly it backs the singer - often in sophisticated songs with rich harmonic progressions and in 'awkward' keys - to suit her. You find them performing Blues in the Night or Black Coffee or Every Time We Say Goodbye or What a Difference a Day Made. It's hard work for the instrumentalists but more rewarding than playing on automatic pilot. I believe this band does not have many gigs but it is usually well appreciated.

I could try to draw conclusions from all this but I think you can draw them easily enough for yourself. Repertoire, costume, marketing, style of playing and of presentation: all bands have to make their own choices.

Post 240: WHAT IS THE PAY-RATE FOR PLAYING JAZZ?

Should traditional jazz musicians be paid for giving a performance?

If so, how much? What a thorny question this is.

In New Orleans and Chicago during the 1920s and in England during the 1950s, traditional jazz musicians were young people (mostly men) playing for large, excited young audiences, usually with many of the customers vigorously dancing. Provided that the musicians worked hard and took plenty of gigs, they made a living - enough to support a family. Jazz was their full-time career.

But in the last fifty years, with the oppressive rise of other forms of popular music, only a small number of 'big names' have continued to make a living by playing traditional jazz.

However, traditional jazz has continued to be played by hundreds of amateur musicians, mainly in pubs and clubs. The musicians have had to earn their living from 'day jobs'. Jazz has been to them a wonderful hobby, not a profession. Once a week, they have turned out with their pals to practise their craft in such places as the back-rooms of pubs. The audiences, like the musicians, have grown ever older and their numbers have dwindled.

The kind of chaps I have known in such bands over these years include a plasterer, a dentist, an electrician, two doctors - one of them a heavy-smoker(!), two maths teachers, a laboratory technician, a car dealer, a builder, a construction engineer, a music shop salesman, a school caretaker and a telephone engineer. On one night a week, they would come together and make pretty good music. Their reward? Nothing, other than a 'first drink free' from the bar.

But wait! Being a traditional jazz musician requires hundreds of hours of learning, of practice and of perfecting your art. A competent traditional jazz musician is a highly-skilled craftsman. And you wouldn't expect a highly-skilled craftsman such as a plumber or car mechanic or doctor to spend three hours working for you in return for one glass of beer. So why does this fate befall jazzmen?

Alas, the laws of the market place apply. You can't expect a pub or club to pay musicians a decent fee when there are fewer than 20 paying customers on the premises, as is often the case.

Here in England, the gigs that survived month after month were those where the musicians were happy to play just for the love of it. The gigs that did not last were those where the musicians asked for a fee of, say, £25 or more each and this proved to be unaffordable.

Many of the pub and club musicians of the 1970s and 1980s are still alive and still playing - though long into retirement from their 'day jobs'. So playing traditional jazz has become the major pastime of some elderly pensioners. Some are devoting more time and effort to it than ever and a high standard is being achieved. But there is still no money to be made. Their bread and butter are paid for by their pensions, not by their music.

I recently heard a band playing at a pub in the English Midlands. It was a six-piece and the pianist - now well into his seventies - was a man who in his prime had been famous as one of the best in England. He was still playing brilliantly. But there were only 15 people in the audience. How sad. Money for the band was raised by passing a collecting box among the customers. The bar manager himself made a decent donation. £72 [making £12 for each player] was raised for the band. When the pianist had received his £12 [that's about 19 US dollars or 16 euros], I asked him why a great musician such as himself had been willing to work so hard for so little.

He said playing the music was what he loved and that he would rather do it - even for a sum that would not quite cover his travelling expenses - than sit at home in front of the TV.

Of course, it's not all bad news. Occasionally bands attract bookings that bring in more than enough money to cover travel and related expenses. Bands can and do charge more for weddings, where they have to be flexible about timing, music styles, costumes and venues; and where they will often have to shrink into the role of 'pleasant background music' during a drinks reception.  And there are in England still plenty of rich people who like to give garden parties. Jazz bands are sometimes invited to play and of course can expect an appropriate fee.

There are also jazz festivals. I have spoken to several musicians who have played at these and what I learned is this. The headline acts can attract quite a high fee. But most of the other bands taking part - though reasonably well rewarded - end up out of pocket after forking out for travel expenses and at least one night's hotel bill. So musicians who play at the festivals tend to do so for the prestige and for the camaraderie with other traditional jazz groups.

One of the very best bands in England has a leader who - when asked to quote for a 'serious' gig - replies '£450 negotiable'. [This is to cover his six-piece band.]

I think this is quite clever. He is saying in effect, 'We would like to receive £450 but if you can't raise that amount and want to offer us - say - £300, we may possibly accept it.'

That would give each of his players £50 [79 US dollars or 70 euros] - not too bad, perhaps, but no great reward for giving up a day of your life to travel 50 miles to the venue and working hard for three hours when you get there.

Sometimes a person who wants to book a jazz band (perhaps for a wedding) has no idea how to find one, so he approaches an agency. Through the agency, he books a band. The agency adds its own commission (typically 25% more than the band would normally charge). So it's not a good deal financially for the customer; and it puts the band at the disadvantage of having to communicate through a third party with the client - and perhaps having to wait for quite a while after the event to be paid. However, ultimately the arrangement benefits the customer, the band and the agent.

Should traditional jazz bands register with such agents? On the whole, I think they should, provided that the agency is reputable. From what I have observed, the best agencies are small businesses (a husband and wife, for example) and they set up very effective interactive web-sites with plenty of information about the artists available - usually including videos. The agencies also advertise in Yellow Pages. They supply very detailed contracts for both the booker and the band to sign: this ensures clearer and firmer arrangements than those under which most bands usually operate. For example, the contract may stipulate how the band should dress, what breaks the band will be allowed to take, and whether drinks and other refreshments will be supplied to the musicians.

A flourishing agency will represent many musicians and other entertainers - not just from jazz - so it is the size of its portfolio that keeps the agency in business.

A typical traditional jazz band in England will not get many bookings through its agent (perhaps half a dozen in a good year) but they may be its only lucrative gigs.

If you are a jazz band looking for an agent, do not assume the agency will automatically take you on. The agency has its own reputation to consider. It will need first to be convinced that your band is good, smart, well-behaved and reliable. But once a band has been accepted and a rapport has been established, the relationship between the band and the agent is likely to benefit both sides for years to come.

Several bandleaders have told me they frequently receive invitations to play for nothing at events which are 'for charity'. The bandleaders regard this as unreasonable. Would you expect six plumbers to travel a considerable distance and then work for three hours 'for charity'? Or six doctors? Or six bus drivers? So why make such a request to six musicians?

This is not to say that bands are unwilling to play once or twice a year free of charge in aid of good causes. Most of them undertake an occasional engagement of this kind - but it is for a cause of their own choice. An example is the Prostaid Cancer Fund-Raising Jazz Day in Leicester, England, when bands throughout the day play for nothing. This annual event was started as a tribute to a local popular jazz musician, who died of prostate cancer.

I'm not arguing that traditional jazz musicians should be paid more, even though I think they deserve more than they get. (You could say the same about people in many other jobs.) I am simply describing how things are.

I must finally mention the horrible 'Pay To Play' system. The Musicians' Union is vehemently opposed to this; and rightly too. What happens is that a venue invites a band to come along and play and then reveals that it expects THE BAND TO PAY for the privilege of 'hiring the floor space' on which to perform! I have come across only two examples of this and I'm pleased to say the bands firmly refused the invitations.
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I have received this email in response to the above by a man I greatly respect and admire, Fred Burnett.

Hi Ivan

Interesting blog about payment to musicians.

Not sure it’s fair to compare trad jazz musicians with doctors or plumbers.  You mention two doctors who you have known could play jazz, but how many full time experienced jazz musicians have you known that could do the job of a doctor or fix their own plumbing?

"A competent traditional jazz musician is a highly-skilled craftsman."  So tell me?  How would you describe a competent brass band musician, and how much do they get paid? How much does a  skilled St John’s Ambulance volunteer get at a football match, or a cave rescue or mountain rescue member get?  Surely they are as skilled in their own field as a musician, they turn out in all weathers and face incredible danger too.

Is it fair even to compare hobby musicians with full time professionals?  I’m reminded of a band leader who was complaining to his wife about how much they’d been offered for a gig, so she turned round and said, “You only do it for a hobby, if you were playing a round of golf and someone stuck a tenner in your pocket for doing it, you’d be over the moon!”.

How many full time professional musicians whose livelihood depends on music lose work, because some people on Company pensions plus old age pensions do it for a hobby and can undercut them and do it for beer money? 

I’m not trying to state an opinion one way or the other, I’ve no axe to grind, and I’m not a musician, but just trying to show that there’s more to it than a simple comparison of a part time musician and a highly paid full time professional worker.

Fred

Post 211: TELEPHONE BANDS

Maybe you have heard the expression 'telephone band'. Even if you haven't, you can probably guess what it is. There are plenty of telephone bands operating in the field of traditional jazz.

What happens is that a bandleader builds up a list of traditional jazz musicians in his region (several for each instrument) but does not decide on the personnel for a particular gig until after he accepts the booking.

He then phones round among the musician contacts, taking into account the need to have a balanced band, with the appropriate range of instruments, and also considering which musicians live nearest to the venue, thereby avoiding long-distance travel. The chances are that all the musicians on his list are already players in other bands, so he can book them only if they do not already have a gig on the date in question.

Such bandleaders and agents are in a sense 'fixers'.

Even some well-known bands are in effect 'telephone bands'. You may notice frequent changes of personnel. This is because the leader has a pool of musicians from whom to choose.

Usually it is musicians who have gained wide experience and met many players over several years who decide to run one or more telephone bands. One - or more? Yes, we have a famous fixer in England who sometimes puts out two or three telephone bands to play in different places on the same date - for example on New Year's Eve, when there is great demand.

Obviously a telephone band is a strange animal, because musicians can find themselves playing a gig with others they have never met before.

Such bands will not have had a rehearsal and the tunes they play will probably all come from the straightforward core repertoire. It is unlikely that any of the musical arrangements will be very complex. But audiences tend not to notice these things.

However, the standard of a telephone band can be high. This is because such musicians are usually very experienced and competent. With a few brief words, they can agree the way a tune is to be treated. (For example, the leader might whisper: 'Play A - B - C - then back to B and stick on B').

They can even look like a regular band, especially if the leader requests them all to turn up in shirts of the same colour.

The musicians themselves derive pleasure from meeting, listening to and working with each other. They can learn much and also with good teamwork produce some high-quality music.

There are dozens of telephone band performances in England every week; and I guess the same must be true of most other countries where traditional jazz is played.

If you are thinking of setting yourself up as a bandleader, this is one way of going about it.

By the way, a telephone band is in some ways similar to a 'pick-up band', though not quite the same. Pick-up bands are put together for special projects, such as a providing a backing group for a recording, or accompanying a singer on a tour. They are likely to be technically highly-skilled; and they are also likely to rehearse seriously together before undertaking the work.