Home » Jazz Articles » Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum » November 2014
November 2014
I got offered a low paying gig through an agent who's been screwing musicians royally for years. What should I do?
—T.W., Atlanta
Think about it: His 15% cut of a low-paying gig is just a fraction of the 15% other agents make booking high-end ones. Yet he books it anyway, taking a passionate stand for the underclass.
He's so committed to the little guy that he'll even offer a band for less than the going rate, knowing that cheaper musicians need the work far more than their wealthier counterparts. And unlike his peers, he understands that long-term relationships, no matter how miserly, mean much more than single paychecks, no matter how generous.
You should thank him, because to "screw" musicians for years is, in effect, to sustain them.
Dear Mr. P.C.:
I recently switched my major from English to Saxophone after learning that my hero, Mark Twain, was a flaming bigot who was always spouting the N word. Now I read that my new hero, Sonny Rollins, hates music. Should I try the visual arts or just kill myself?
—Confused
What you don't understand is that the Sonny Rollins article was satirical, meaning it was funny in a way that almost no one understood. Good satire, including this column, aims well over the heads of its audience.
Work on finding the humor in the Rollins piece, and you may some day become the sophisticated reader it deserves.
Dear Mr. P.C.:
I'm helping book a festival in my city. I emailed a singer and offered her a gig, but then I found out I'd accidentally sent it to the wrong singer. She still hasn't emailed me back, so I'm wondering how long I have to wait before I can offer the gig to the singer I'd meant to hire?
—Better Vocalist Desired
It's easy enough to say you "accidentally" sent it to the wrong singer, but in the world of trained therapists like myself, there are no accidents. So the better question is: Why did you contact the "wrong" singer first?
We could spend a lot of your time and money getting to the root of this, so let's do that. Once we peel back the layers of your carefully constructed psyche we'll find the real you, the one who somehow knows that the first singer is better.
Trust my intuition here—the you deep inside is a better you than the you who wrote this question. And once we've brought that better you to the fore, you'll have booked exactly the right singer. How simple was that?
Get 'Benched!'
Benched, Bill Anschell's debut book of short stories / jazz humor. The stories are interspersed with the very best of Mr. P.C., hand-picked from the 400+ questions answered over the column's 16-year history. Benched is available on Amazon (paperback and Kindle) and most online booksellers.
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