Date:	19-Nov-1999 03:18:31
From:	Ken
	A friend of mine, one hell of a guitar player, one of the unknown greats, was playing at Garden City in San Jose, and someone actually came up to him while he was playing and asked, "do they have live music here?".

 

Date:	12-Feb-2000 00:30:37
From:	Christian
	I've a friend that is a percussionist in a group that plays this regular gig every Friday at a club. There was an evening when he played some of the best stuff I;ve heard in a long time. Needless to say...the audience sat there like pictures on the wall. No one moved.

 

Date:	19-Feb-2000 17:55:45
From:	Jon T-Bone Taylor
	I once played a gig in a boozer (English public house) where, at the end of the evening the highly refreshed landlady came up to us and sais "I 'ate jazz but I like what you lot played." As we say in London, "Fanx darlin'"

 

Date:	24-Mar-2000 05:41:37
From:	mitch (mitchb@vianet.on.ca)
	A few weeks ago, in the middle of a solo, a woman came up to me on stage and said "do you play any Stevie Ray Vaughn" because I want to hire your band. I said I love his playing but no. "Can you play some of his stuff now". I said we're in the middle of a song, and we've already got our set list, I'll talk with you later. After our set, I couln't find her!

 

Date:	16-Apr-2000 00:43:29
From:	RA
	When someone says "Your band sounds pretty good", tell him "Kinda thanks."

 

Date:	25-May-2000 14:48:47
From:	Melinda E. Lopez (melopez@mjazz.com)
	I had a San Jose dot.comer audience who loved the jazz standards...then one bleached blonde asked me to sing during a song...."Crazy or You Are So Beautiful" for her daughter's b-day. I instead sang, "My Funny Valentine"...w/as much sincerity as possible. Daughter and boyfriend appreciated it...Mom just talked throughout the song and didn't say thank you or acknowledge the song dedicated to her daughter. She didn't offer anything $ to sing it. A lot of people expect you to play anything for them..then not even acknowledge for doing it. Common courtesy is to put a tip in tip jar if you can when you ask for a special song. I guess the working musician should have a few pop tunes ready to play during jazz gigs and have a heart of steel when hollow people ask for heartfelt songs. Mel

 

Date:	27-May-2000 00:35:33
From:	Mendes (tcmmello@prolink.com.br)
	A friend of mine was playing guitar in a club. He was playing alone some jazz standarts in chord melody. He had already played 3 standarts when the waiter came to me and asked: "Hey, when is he going to stop tuning up and begin to play?" I just looked at the waiter and laughed.

 

Date:	09-Jun-2000 12:31:19
From:	Robin Hood
	Please add more stories...I'm still rolling on the floor laffin

 

Date:	09-Jun-2000 16:10:25
From:	Henry Warden (hcwarde@juno.com)
	I was playing in a restaurant in Talca, Chile when one night a group of people came in to celebrate one of their birthdays. I usually played jazz standards (guitar) and was using some programmed electronic backup. One of the girls in the crowd asked me if I could play some"danceable" music. Well, thinking she meant some kind of latin rhythm, I played Girl from Ipanema, then Tea for Two in a Cha Cha Cha, then another Bosa Nova. She came up to me and said they couldn't dance to that kind of beat. They wanted "latin rhythm". Luckily I had "Besse me Mucho" programmed, so I did that and they all started dancing. I took a break after that and waited until they left!

 

Date:	30-Jun-2000 07:29:51
From:	Danny Garcia (jazzbo@writeme.com)
	"casting pearls to swine".....its not people so much its "management".....why im retraining in Computing.rather sell music over web,than deal with deadheads! Jazz Piano trio tapes Steel Groove Calypso Hits tapes WebPage: http://www.webcom.com/dsgarcia/home.html MP3 sound samples http://www.bermudamusic.com/dannygarcia/index.htm http://www.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Steel_Groove/ http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/119/steel_groove_.html

 

Date:	03-Jul-2000 12:36:04
From:	Phil Kelly (lonearrngr@nas.com)
	Many years ago, I was playing in a group in a very nice hotel lounge which unfortunately had one serious design flaw from the bands standpoint: The banstand was surrounded by a moat of water which was recirculated through a waterfalldeal down a dripping wall of rocks athe rear of the bandstand.. Very picturesque from the auciences viewpoint, but the constant tinkling noise had an unfortunate side effect upon whomever played there. . no matter how many times you went to the john before each set, you WERE'NT gonna make it through an entire set without having to leave the stand again! Being the drummer, I was unfortunately trapped at the rear ( near the damn waterfall, thank you very much ) and had to just bite my lip or think of deserts until the

 

Date:	03-Jul-2000 12:37:39
From:	Phil Kelly (lonearrngr@nas.com)
	...... set was over.

 

Date:	19-Jul-2000 21:35:27
From:	Nat (n_catchpole@hotmail.com)
	Duo gig, Tenor and Piano. On a Thursday Night at Adnans Jazz and Blues Bar. Let me repeat that JAZZ and BLUES bar. The first request was for Black Sabbath (very politely), the barman said "No-one here likes jazz very much!", when we walked in. And the ten or so people in the audience all had some kind of hair-dye/bodypiercing/leather/tattoo combination. Oh yeah, the owner came in at the end of the gig and said, "you're only gettin' arf pay". The bar is in Colchester, Essex, England, in case you want to check it out.

 

Date:	22-Oct-2000 11:17:57
From:	Al Shepherd (shepzt@aol.com)
	A piano playing mate of mine is doing a solo gig in a restaurant-standards etc. A spotty youth approaches him "Can you play 'Bat out of Hell' by Meatloaf (!!)Doh....

 

Date:	16-Nov-2000 13:42:14
From:	Ben Loy
	I was playing a corporate gig with a band that specialized in swing and big band jazz...after a particularly hot barn burnin' rendition of Louis Prima's "Hey Marie", a drunken old lady weaved her way to the front of the stage and asked "Can you guys play something good, please?" The bandleader replied "Ma'am, I'm sorry, we only play songs that suck."

 

Date:	26-Nov-2000 17:45:41
From:	Matt
	I was playing some music for a church VBS event for a class of little children. One very loud girl walked over to me and said, "Can you play this?" and she proceeded to sing (with no words, just notes, which made no sense anyway) what sounded like a Backstreet Boys song. I said as politely as I could, "No, sorry." "How about this one?" she started singing another one. "No." "How about this one?" I was growing impatient. I said a little more firmly, "No." She returned to her seat, and started talking to her friends, "That guy doesn't even know how to play 'Backstreet's Back'." I laugh at how most children who listen to modern pop music think that a solo piano player can play "Backtreet's Back" and make it sound ANYTHING like the original recording.

 

Date:	04-Dec-2000 02:16:51
From:	Henk Meulstee (lekkerding@aol.com)
	I was fortunate to watch Miles Davis play at the North Sea Jazz festival in the Hague, Holland, when in the break a woman came to him and asked,"Can't you play something I can understand?" Whereto Miles replied: "Lady, it took me 5o years to learn and develop my music and you think you can just walk in here and understand it in 45 minutes?"

 

Date:	25-Jan-2001 01:32:55
From:	rich siegel (richpiano8@mac.com)
	I'm surprised noone has so far mentioned the musician's second (and unintentional) occupation of baby-sitting alcoholics. Here's one of my worst: Must've been twenty years ago (I was playing a fender rhodes) Playing in a night club band on a cruise ship, a drunk passenger decides he wants to dance without shoes on. So he takes the shoes off, and comes up to the band-stand, first puts them in my face to show me what he has done (like it was funny!) and then leaves his shoes on the top of my elec. piano while I'm playing, and goes back to dancing. Probably the only time I ever walked off a bandstand. (The rest of the band continued playing!)

 

Date:	09-Feb-2001 14:24:31
From:	Doc
	The scariest person in the world is a person with a little knowledge and not enough opportunities to use it. I travelled with a Top 40 band in the mid-70's. I'll admit it was sometimes very loud (as bands can be). Well, this night I could see that the customers were uncomfortable with the volume. After 2 songs or so, the club owner came up to the bandstand and said, "You guys really do sound good, but can you turn down an octave!"

 

Date:	03-Mar-2001 01:07:20
From:	Davey Williams (daveywilliams@mindspring.com)
	I had an avant-blues band in early 80s. An acquaintance hooked up a gig for us at a bar in her hicktown hometown, though the bar was way out in the country. I was getting anxiety attacks the moment we arrived. Deeply ignoramous country music scene. Owner looked like some kind of malignant Ben Cartwright. Everybody else just looked sick in the head one way or another. We set up and start playing. Instantly the room empties except for a couple of drunk & slutty teenage girls who come in and dance this hoochie koochie booty thing together, during which they ask, "Whut kind of music is this?" First break comes, that's it, Ben Cartwright says we're out. Got paid in full, however, $200. Last thing I see is that somebody has showed up with an oppossum in an empty Budweiser carton & they're kind of kicking the animal around in parking lot. Later, at some stinker greasy spoon, it becomes obvious that they can't tell the difference between eggs and shrimp. It was obvious that that entire section of rural North Alabama was mentally ill. Well, maybe not the possum.

 

Date:	03-Mar-2001 04:26:37
From:	jazzhound
	A good musician friend of mine shared this "classic" line he once got from an employer. His was a duo gig - easily disrupted by the overly loud TV set on the opposing side of the bar. When he (extremely diplomatically) asked the manager if he could turn down the TV just a bit, the manager replied "I like to keep the set at that volume so that the customers feel comfortable talking over the music." (We laugh to keep from crying!)

 

Date:	12-Apr-2001 11:31:48
From:	Joel Glassman
	We played a dance in Lawrence MA. held after the Gay Pride Day parade. As I arrived, a couple of local churches were emptying and marching in protest. At the site of the dance, anti-gay religious types were picketing, protesting, reading the bible, "laying hands" on the building... Inside there was an intense party scene of folks dancing to disco. Many of the men were dressed in wedding dresses, and there was a Liza Minelli lipsync contest. The band, which played a rockabilly cajun gumbo, was totally inappropriate for the party. We played two tunes and the room emptied. Everyone went upstairs. Someone rushed up with our money and turned the disco back on. The room filled back up. We drank a bit and went home.

 

Date:	13-Apr-2001 02:41:32
From:	Charles H. (charlesmjr@yahoo.com)
	2 years ago I was hired to play in a small combo for a local Elks Lodge. (2 trumpets, 2 saxes, T-bone and rhythm) The band arrived but had to wait until a ceremony was over before we could set up. It took about half an hour between the end of the ceremony and when we started to play, and the Elks begin a pot luck dinner. I had never been in an Elks Lodge and was suprised to see a full bar with a hired bartender in a tux serving drinks at a pot luck. Right before we started to play, we were sitting in a room to the side of the main hall and a woman in her 60's walks up to the band. I imediatly move away because her selection of perfume was by Jack Daniels. She then asked who the leader was. When loacating him she has to anounce that she had just spilled her wine all over her dress. Why she had to find the band? Why she had to tell the leader? How many drinks had she consumed in the last 30 minutes? I really didn't want to know the answers to these questions. At the end of the 1st set we played Chatanooga Choo-Choo and the group formed a conga line and choo-chooed aournd the room. We finished and went to that same small room to take a break. This woman and her equally drunk husband will still in choo-choo mode moving past us and out to the car where we witnessed both try to get in the dirvers seat.

 

Date:	22-Apr-2001 12:23:42
From:	Scat
	We were playing standards on a boat, with a contract suggesting we should play standards. The audience requested som music they could dance to, so we played it all... "Dindi", "The girl from Ipanema"... any kind of swing. And so we learned that swing and bossa nova music wasn't dance music. Later on when we went off, the audience danced swing to a Enrique Iglesias record. sheeesh

 

Date:	03-May-2001 06:40:18
From:	Jim Wallace (wallace53@yahoo.com)
	We were playing late in our final set at a small intimate jazz club, when two guys came stumbling through the front door and proceeded to plop down at the horseshoe shaped bar and ordered a pitcher of draft. After downing the pitcher in near record time they requested a subsequent pitcher. The bartender, recognizing their condition and the fact that his butt was on the line, removed their empty pitcher and refused to fill a second pitcher for them - merely stating that there were no more pitchers and that they might consider placing a donation in the band's tip jar before they exited the establishment (which was another way of saying that I'm not going to serve you and that it is time for you to leave). He then turned away to tend to some customers on the opposite side of the bar. Since his previous statement to the intoxicated patrons was fully translated into "wait until my back is turned and you guys help yourself", one of the guys proceeded to retrieve the tip jar, stretched over the bar counter, and topped off the tip jar with his favorite brew (which appeared to be the closest tap at his reach). I'm still trying to get that smell out of my wallet.

 

Date:	10-May-2001 12:14:20
From:	John Raczka (JohnnyRoma@aol.coom)
	Many years ago I was working a duo (Hammond B3 and drums) with a new drummer. He was considered one of the better drummers in town, but I noticed that his time was a little off. On the break I tactfully suggested that he might pay more attention to it. His response was "Hey man, I'm not into time!"

 

Date:	01-Jun-2001 23:42:47
From:	mark (marksjohnston@hotmail.com)
	Once while playing a trio gig in Newport RI, the owner , upon noticing that people were leaving during our set breaks, suggested that we take our breaks one player at a time!

 

Date:	13-Jun-2001 10:57:14
From:	Henk Meulstee (lekkerding@aol.com)
	We were playing in Graz, Austria, about twenty years ago. Before we set up, we had to wait until the previous group tore down their equipment. They already warned us that the owner didn't pay them their full wages after the month ended. But they had another gig, so they had to leave without getting paid. We discussed the pay schedule with the owner before starting to play and he agreed to pay us weekly, for sure. We played two weeks and got paid after each week, we thought things went well. After the third week he told us he didn't have enough cash to pay us, could we wait a couple of days. We said okay, but at the end of the third week, there was no money. And we hadn't seen the owner for four days. His wife said he had to go out of town on business and would be back in town at the end of the month with the money. We played halfway into the fourth week, when the wife disappeared. Meanwhile we contacted the band that was going to play this gig after we finished and told them what happened. They thanked us and booked themselves another gig for the following month, instead of playing at the club where we were playing and not getting payed. We then talked with a waitress and she told us that the owner pulled this kind of thing with modt of the new bands. We decided to pack up immediately, to the surprise of the other club personnel. But before we left we got some raw fish, which we stuck down the heater and ventilation ducts without anyone noticing. Then We drove to the owneers place, out in the country. He had some very expensive automobiles in an unlocked barn. While some of us kept the hired help distracted, we opened up the gas tanks of these expensive cars and poured sugar into them. Months later we heard via the grapevine, that they had to close the club down, because they could not get rid of the smell. And the owner had to put new engines in all of the expensive cars he owned, trying to sell them at a loss. Needless to say it put a smile on many a musician's face who played and didn't get payed at that club.

 

Date:	07-Jul-2001 17:35:23
From:	Ellen
	I'd like to relate this story a friend of mine posted on our High School's forum. I worked at a Restaurant that was adjacent to a Jazz club while in High School. One Saturday Night there was all kinds of commotion in the entry way of the club---Count Basie was in town for a concert at the Music Hall and he had made a special trip out to see Ursula Walker who was the house vocalist at the Club. The place was jammed and the hostess called back to the office and told the Owner "Mr. Jarrus, Count Basie is here with about 8 people and there is not a seat to be found here. What should I do?" Sam Jarrus --who was from Lebanon said "Count Basie? What country is a he a Count in?" Didn't have a CLUE who he was. Well we decided to get one of the tables out of the Dining Room and put it smack in the middle of the dance floor and the Count graciously gave me the hat off his head--one of those signature Basie hats. 3 or 4 years later the Count was doing a concert in Ann Arbor and went to the concert and wore the hat he had given me. A friend of mine was the music critic for the U-Michigan Daily and I got to go backstage after the show and meet the Count and he looked at me and said "I gave you that hat, didn't I?" Oh, BTW - the author of the story is 6'8" so it is easy to understand how he stood out in the Count's memory.

 

Date:	30-Jul-2001 10:38:16
From:	Magnesium
	I just played a gig this Saturday evening in the local metropolitan center at a recently opened "jazz/live music" cafe. I'd been really looking forward to this because it was a chance to play music for people who would actually be listening and would enjoy it. We arrived an hour early (8:30), and the place was empty, except for the staff. So we set up (piano, trombone, drums) and then chilled until 9:30. Still empty, except for the drummer's parents. We started playing anyhow, but no applause for solos, tunes or sets. Eventually in the second set, when there were about ten people there, there was some token applause after tunes. But no one stayed very long, and I don't think they were listening at all. But what really gets me is that between the second and third set (I think), I sat down at the piano and played "It Never Entered My Mind," one of the most beautiful ballads in the world. I didn't notice it at the time, but the drummer informed me afterwards that when I started to play, the bartender just turned up the background music more. Finally, around 1, the bartender (who had never been too friendly to us from the start) said we could leave early, since there was no one there. At least we got paid.

 

Date:	09-Sep-2001 11:40:13
From:	Teppo
	A duo gig from hell. Bar Elington Tampere-Finland.Nice atmospheric sośndscaping by two guitar players for and midnight audience of four.The bartender got bored with it and somwhere near the end of the first set put on Iron Maiden!!! The guitar players got off stage without blinking an eye,I was in the audience looking,in total dismay,at these guys calmly putting their instruments on their stands and going to the corner table. To make it worse a Jesus choir came in and asked if they could sing some words of praise...and the bartender let them. They finished and blessed everybody. The duo got back on and played an amazing jazz version of Iron Maidens "Hallowed Be Thy Name" I needed another drink.