Miscellaneous Is live Jazz a viable undertaking for a club?

[skeller047]

I played last night (as a guest, sitting in, no pay for me, 2 of 3 sets) at a small saloon in San Francisco. The main band (a quartet) worked for the tip jar. Not even a cut of the bar or door. This is in a major night life area (North Beach, a block from the world famous Condor). We played straight ahead jazz, tunes from the Great American Songbook, and a few actual jazz tunes from the 60’s. Pay came to about $50 a person.

Most of the audience was either tourists or young-ish professionals out for a Saturday night. The music was well received, with enthusiastic applause. Still, it’s a bar that serves food, and it was noisy.

This place has a mix of music during the week, folk, pop, cabaret, jazz. There are over a dozen small joints like this in San Francisco proper, and probably a dozen or more along the peninsula to San Jose, with another dozen or so there. East Bay, similar. Some of the places charge a door or cover charge, depending on the act.

It’s impossible to make a living playing these kinds of places, even if you play bass or keys and play in many different bands. All the musicians I know have other jobs; teaching, high tech, insurance, CPAs, etc. - one the guys in the band last night is a policeman. Or retired, like me. But the audience is there, and it’s fun to play.

It seems to me there is more live music going on in the last couple of years than in the previous couple of decades. (Or maybe I’m just noticing it more, but I don’t think so.) I think that’s a good thing.

 

[JayeNM]

I played last night (as a guest, sitting in, no pay for me, 2 of 3 sets) at a small saloon in San Francisco. The main band (a quartet) worked for the tip jar. Not even a cut of the bar or door. This is in a major night life area (North Beach, a block from the world famous Condor). We played straight ahead jazz, tunes from the Great American Songbook, and a few actual jazz tunes from the 60’s. Pay came to about $50 a person.

Most of the audience was either tourists or young-ish professionals out for a Saturday night. The music was well received, with enthusiastic applause. Still, it’s a bar that serves food, and it was noisy.

This place has a mix of music during the week, folk, pop, cabaret, jazz. There are over a dozen small joints like this in San Francisco proper, and probably a dozen or more along the peninsula to San Jose, with another dozen or so there. East Bay, similar. Some of the places charge a door or cover charge, depending on the act.

It’s impossible to make a living playing these kinds of places, even if you play bass or keys and play in many different bands. All the musicians I know have other jobs; teaching, high tech, insurance, CPAs, etc. - one the guys in the band last night is a policeman. Or retired, like me. But the audience is there, and it’s fun to play.

It seems to me there is more live music going on in the last couple of years than in the previous couple of decades. (Or maybe I’m just noticing it more, but I don’t think so.) I think that’s a good thing.

Nice, which club if I may ask (I lived in SF for 25 years). North Beach was always the funnest place to gig.

Not Nice: pay absolutely ABSURD.
SF one of the most expensive, highest income per capita cities in US.
$50 for a gig literally was the pay scale..... in 1987, when I arrived there.

Another example of USA's race to the bottom (bottom actually has fallen out, now). But not taking away from your positive experience, it was always fun to play out in SF

 

[JayeNM]

I wonder how many jazz clubs (that are commercially viable) aren't historical artefacts. If they have anything more modern than the 1950s (bebop, hard-bop, post-bop whatever) I imagine they won't get as much audience unless it is some kind of crossover such as smooth/fusion jazz.

All those bop and swing genres are now historical artifact being about 70 years old so in the same boat really as the Preservation Hall stuff.

Obviously there would be exceptions for big names in any genre, but I'm thinking more of the local scene and jazz clubs in general as opposed to big city clubs - London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, LA etc.

Interesting point.

Would most think of "Trad Jazz" (loosely... Dixieland and other pre-swing era jazzy-type genres) as more of an 'artifact genre' than be-bop ?

Most jazz players probably would, right ? They would consider the former 'hokey', "pandering"....the latter.... 'serious', elevated.

Yet if a "Jazz Club", labeling themselves as such, today, would book solely bop acts....that would likely literally be suicide, methinks (me-knows, actually, at least on the regional level....nobody gonna draw well for 3-4 nights/week of solely be-bop, outside possibly of an established club in NYC). All other cities here, and this includes Chicago, LA, SF, KC, etc....you better diversify that plan if your desire is to succeed, IMHO....(and of course, they do...some bop, some post-bop, some blues, some even leaning motown/soul, then occasional fusion, some 'smooth jazz', and certainly some acts with vocals fronting...)

 

[Pete Thomas]

Would most think of ":Trad Jazz" as more of an 'artifact genre' than be-bop ?

Certainly I thought of it like that back in the 80s. I see both trad and bebop as hugely important in the evolution of music but here we are now with bebop close to 80 years old and I view both genres as sort of artefacts now.

Most jazz players probably would, right ? They would consider the former 'hokey', the latter 'serious'.

I think it is true, but I wonder what the general public would think about it if confronted with examples of both.

 

[JayeNM]

Certainly I thought of it like that back in the 80s. I see both trad and bebop as hugely important in the evolution of music but here we are now with bebop close to 80 years old and I view both genres as sort of artifacts now.

I think it is true, but I wonder what the general public would think about it if confronted with examples of both.

a) completely valid

b) the public tastes have spoken, at least based upon what I see here.
"Trad jazz" (outside of a place such as NOLA) may have initially come into being thanks to college music majors completely nerding out - who started playing it perhaps for academic reasons, but it didn't fizzle, it continued once it was discovered it could be a viable "change of pace" gig genre (certainly, this coinciding with self-promotion thanks to the advent of internet platforms...something which pre-1995...such musical endeavors had no access to for distribution...helping the "Trad Jazz Renaissance" (too lofty a term for it, but you get the gist), get some sorta foothold (if in only a small gig niche) here.

When I moved here 8 years ago, Trad Jazz was super-ascending in Seattle and Portland. When I would use the term with players down here, then - they had NO CLUE what it even meant; even college instructors here. Today, nationwide, every jazz musician and I'd say a majority of jazz fans are familiar with the terminology.

Took me 30 years of gigging bop and hardcore-classic fusion to realize that Jazz players are never gonna "educate" the casual music listener and switch them over to coming out for 3 hours of bebop, or free jazz, or even just INSTRUMENTAL-lead jazz (no vocalist in sight) played by local or regional (IOW non-stars) players. The "just build it and they WILL come" notion was, and is, hooey.

"Roaring 20's" event nights at clubs here, with live music, are always super well-attended.

General live music fans, casual listeners, open to various genres of shows, would far likely choose to see a Trad Jazz show here, as opposed to a hard-bop one. They'd certainly sit thru 3 sets of the former, and very likely leave before the third set of the latter...There is at least a heart-connection to the former (even if you wanna argue it is superficial nostalgia-based)...... plus, you cannot deny it got da' beat which makes 'em wanna move dey're feet....

 

[JayeNM]

I see both trad and bebop as hugely important in the evolution of music but here we are now with bebop close to 80 years old and I view both genres as sort of artifacts now.

Digression, but ...honestly...I do not think "Jazz" has had any revolutionary or even significant leap since Jazz Fusion of the late 60's-early 80's.

Everything else since them has been highly derivative of what already had been done....the Marsalis-orchestrated rebirth of straight ahead, neo-bop, acid-jazz, even smooth jazz.

I am talking to degree of the big shifts that happened between, say, Dixie and Big Band, Big Band to Bop, Bop to "Cool" or "West Coast"(not so big there but not insignificant), the "adoption" of Bossa Nova as a Jazz genre in the 60's, then whatever you wanna call what was going on jazz-wise in the 60's-early 70's, (post-hard bop) to the birth of Jazz Fusion.
All of those were massive shifts, really injecting fresh and exciting ideas.
Massive in musical evolution, as you call it.

Nothing since, IMHO, has been anywhere near as significant, within the genre.

Just kinda re-hashings, given catchy marketable names.....

 

[skeller047]

Nice, which club if I may ask (I lived in SF for 25 years). North Beach was always the funnest place to gig.

Not Nice: pay absolutely ABSURD.
SF one of the most expensive, highest income per capita cities in US.
$50 for a gig literally was the pay scale..... in 1987, when I arrived there.

Another example of USA's race to the bottom (bottom actually has fallen out, now). But not taking away from your positive experience, it was always fun to play out in SF

Comstock Saloon, on Columbus just above Kearny. A few doors down from City Lights. Old San Francisco at its finest.

Jazz gigs have never paid. In the late 70s one of the best LOCAL gigs was a 4 night run with a house organ trio, on upper Fillmore. He had a stable of 7 or 8 guys that would rotate through as “guest artists”; I was on that list 🙂. $25 a night, so $100 for the week. Of course my rent at the time was $175 a month, so that was a good gig…

Most the local jazz gigs I see (and I’m out either playing or listening 3-4 nights a week) have tip jars. In the smaller joints, that’s often the entire fee for the musicians.

 

[Ivan]

I kinda think of it as "sipping music" as opposed to "drinking music".

I don't think the punters in the Babbity Bowster Bar in Glasgow, where we play first Sunday in the month, would agree...

I'm certainly not going to ask them to show some respect and sip their pints

 

[mizmar]

I don't think the punters in the Babbity Bowster Bar in Glasgow, where we play first Sunday in the month, would agree...

I'm certainly not going to ask them to show some respect and sip their pints

Sure. If you're playing, metaphorically speaking, "sipping music" - stuff you feel deserves attention - to a swigging audience (metaphorically); I guess there's a misfit.

 

[Ivan]

Sure. If you're playing, metaphorically speaking, "sipping music" - stuff you feel deserves attention - to a swigging audience (metaphorically); I guess there's a misfit.

The Jack Ruby 5 isn't choosy, we're pleased to have appreciative audiences, whether they chat or not

 

[mizmar]

The Jack Ruby 5 isn't choosy, we're pleased to have appreciative audiences, whether they chat or not

I'm sure it's great!

 

[JayeNM]

Comstock Saloon, on Columbus just above Kearny. A few doors down from City Lights. Old San Francisco at its finest.

Jazz gigs have never paid. In the late 70s one of the best LOCAL gigs was a 4 night run with a house organ trio, on upper Fillmore. He had a stable of 7 or 8 guys that would rotate through as “guest artists”; I was on that list 🙂. $25 a night, so $100 for the week. Of course my rent at the time was $175 a month, so that was a good gig…

Most the local jazz gigs I see (and I’m out either playing or listening 3-4 nights a week) have tip jars. In the smaller joints, that’s often the entire fee for the musicians.

Cool, man, they never offered jazz shows there in my day for sure.

When I was gigging in SF, around 1990-2007, band members would regularly get $50-60/player from the house, not tip $, that was the gig pay. I ran my own 5-tet for a few years...the places we would play in SF, be they bars or cafes or restaurants....I paid out my bandmates that amount. I could not GET a full roster of players if I did not guarantee them $50 plus some comps.
None of us had a "track record" by a longshot. None of us had ever released on a recording label. All we had were demos on cassette and later CD and maybe some xerox pics of the band and a bio blurb, and we would hoof it around and schmooze until a venue manager would either say "get lost" or "OK, we'll try the last Friday this month, see how it goes".
Eddie Jack's, SOMA...Club 181, Tenderloin...local hangs with regular live entertainment, that is what they paid. I had a friend who had a regular gig for well over a year at a place at the time called The Gathering, nice bar, cool joint, a few doors down from the Savoy in N.Beach. We got $50/ea for a quintet there, plus two free drinks. Plus tips. Great gig, ownership changed a year after I started that gig and they discontinued live music, which was dumb because we were a solid group and having the band right there in the window would draw people in.
Now, good, very-established local spots like Rassela's for example, when I played there as a sideman from time to time, we would each get $75-80 for a 4-tet or 5-tet and I am pretty certain the band leader was taking a larger cut than us, deservedly. One of my pianists would play Jazz at Pearl's as a sub/sideman occasionally, during that time period, he always got $75 base pay min.
We had a few gigs in that alleyway downtown with the stretch of 5 or 6 restaurants, forgot name of street, it was between Sutter and Post I think ? French restaurant (two actually), a Spanish tapas place, an Italian restaurant, and a couple of european-style Cafes. Cafe Bastille, I think was one of the two we played at once in a while. $45-50/band member, from the house. Tips made extra. They gave us two comp bevs.
Peninsula and Oakland/Berkeley, similar. A solid jazz player wanted a $50-60 minimum to show up at the gig. You offer less, they'd decline and actually probably get offended.

So my experience in SF area was not as dismal, pay-wise, in that time period, as what you describe. It was still pathetic, even for the 90's-early 2000's. I mean, SF was NOT cheap to live in by then.

But to read a report that guys are still getting $50, and not all from the house....30 years later ? That is criminal. Take 30 years and find and apply the cost of living increases for even just 6 of those years...it would still be criminal.
That is acually de-evolution. Pay, even not adjusting for "inflation", has gone DOWN since 30 years ago....maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but given Bay Area...gotta admit, I am.

 

[turf3]

I saw that video too. The jazz gigs that locals play at here in the SF Bay Area pay somewhere between a share of the tip jar to about $100. People with a track record, or who tour or have a few records out will get more, and the venue will add a door charge. Larger clubs and venues like SF Jazz, or Yoshi’s, the ticket price will be somewhere between $50 and $150. Depending on the act....

Well, I'd guess the clubs are riding the razor's edge of financial viability, but for sure $100 a man ain't financially viable for the musicians. Best case, 3 nights a week (nowadays), best best case 50 weeks a year, annual gross $15,000 isn't going to support anyone.

So all of you who pontificate "you gotta play all the tunes without music, everything up to 1953 Fifty-Second Street standards" - you can be assured that every single musician you see there getting paid $100 for three fifty-minute sets (and you pretty much have to add an hour on each end for transport, setup, teardown - so $20hr for 5 hours three days a week) has other employment, probably a full time 40+ hour a week professional job.

 

[JayeNM]

Well, I'd guess the clubs are riding the razor's edge of financial viability, but for sure $100 a man ain't financially viable for the musicians. Best case, 3 nights a week (nowadays), best best case 50 weeks a year, annual gross $15,000 isn't going to support anyone.

So all of you who pontificate "you gotta play all the tunes without music, everything up to 1953 Fifty-Second Street standards" - you can be assured that every single musician you see there getting paid $100 for three fifty-minute sets (and you pretty much have to add an hour on each end for transport, setup, teardown - so $20hr for 5 hours three days a week) has other employment, probably a full time 40+ hour a week professional job.

Or even 20 hrs. week. I know a lot who teach music lessons maybe 15-20/week.

My trumpet player and I, on a car ride to a gig, actually crunched numbers based on local pay scale here in the SW. Even IF a musician was playing 5 gigs a week, even IF it was an act somewhere between solo and trio, so the pay was not being divvied up much at all...it was impossible to solely work as a gigging musician here and survive. Rent, living expenses, car insurance, utilities, going out socially twice a month, forget vacations....could not be done. You had to have other income.

At the time this WAS one of the most affordable regions of the country to live in, too. I know of no musician here, or have known of no others in the prior cities I lived in, on the same gigging level of expertise/ability as I (which is pretty good, better than most local musicians, let's say), which lived solely by gig income.

 

[Pete Thomas]

So maybe the question should be “is live jazz viable for a club while still paying a living wage?”

 

[skeller047]

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[skeller047]

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[Colin the Bear]

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[PigSquealer]

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[lig]

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