Because it is a slow season for musicians to be working corporate gigs (not many people have weddings and parties in March) I have been spending a lot of time at home, practicing, and thinking of promotional ideas, especially for the cover band. People keep telling me that as musicians, we are the first expendable thing to go when people are throwing events, but I disagree. I really think that this March was not any slower than every other of my twenty three Marches I have lived through. Booking out does seem to be a little more spacious than before though, normally at this time of year summer is filling up pretty quick! I will cross my fingers, perhaps people will be booking more short notice this year. This is all specifically talking about corporate gigs though, club shows are going great for the "Dudley Manlove Quartet" and for some of the jazz projects I have been working on.
When I hang around my friends, who are mainly musicians... (my closest and oldest friends are not though) I feel like such a businessman. It obviously comes from the family background, which can be a post of its own on another day! A lot of the time this business side of me has really felt like a blessing, but lately as I am home alone practicing music and scheming marketing techniques for groups that I play in, my business side has felt sort of like a curse.
I have loved playing music on the piano my whole life, and one thing that is very difficult for me is to choose a certain type of music that I want to really pursue. I love to play classical music, and could do that for the rest of my life... I feel the same about jazz and blues, and funk, and sometimes I think it would be fun to be a singer-songwriter. When this kind of uncertainty mixes with my business side, I think to myself "Well, which one of these musics is more financially worthwhile?" I guess I am not being a very good artist, I analyze how and what people will think of my playing too much.
I think over the years, people have told me so many times that there is no money, or future in jazz that it has built a neurological block inside of me. My whole life I have loved playing jazz, and the past few years I think I taught myself to want to play other things, that would be more popular, or cool, or worthwhile. See, this is all because my business side is sticking his fat nose in my artist side's business. Really, for anything to be really great I have to be fully committed to it -- I need to put the artist side first, and then fit the business side into whatever is going on in the creative realm! Harder to do than you might think! Especially when there are so many things that I like to play!
Well, I have been thinking lately that I think I love to play jazz a little bit more than those other types of music. Especially because I like to play with a lot of different musicians. I think that I need to be a jazz pianist. You might think "Mack, you have been a jazz pianist for ten years already" and although this is true, I have also been playing all sorts of stuff that whole time. Not that I am going to necessarily stop playing everything else, but I feel like for some reason right now I can accept that I want to play jazz the most. I do not know how or what happened to me to make me realize that I had been faking myself out the last year or so into thinking that I did not want to play jazz, but I know some things that have helped me realize that I think jazz is cool, does have a future, and can be just as financially rewarding as anything else. (I have always been a supporter of the idea that anybody can make money doing anything, have you seen some of the movies and albums that are released? People are making money from those!)
Studying with Dave Peck has definitely lit a fire under my ass! When he plays at my lesson, it makes me want to be better. I want to have control of harmony in the way that Dave does.
I have also been checking out some european pianists lately, Stefano Bollani, Florian Ross (German), Enrico Pieranunzi, and they are all blowing my mind. They sound great, and it has been a while since I could sit down and really enjoy some piano trio cd's. Jacky Terrasson is great too, Greg really digs him.
I also read an article by the great Enrico Rava - Italian trumpet player, who once had a discussion with Stefano Bollani. At the time Stefano was studying pop music, although he was a really talented and great jazz pianist (I felt a connection immediately). In the article Enrico told Stefano that his life is too short for him to be trying to be great at something he was not passionate about, and that he should quit everything and move to the city and play jazz. Long story short, he moved to the city, and today is one of the best players in the world. This story was inspiring to me. Check out Stefano Bollani on youtube.
I guess that lately I have just lost vision of a goal that I want to achieve. Well, maybe it is not that I lost sight of a goal, but that I had many possible goals that I could chase after instead of putting all my energy towards one, and going out and achieving it. I feel like I am getting back on track now. So, because it is a slow season right now I am going to start setting up jam sessions a couple times a week, just to start playing a lot. I want to play jazz right now, so I am gonna try to be an artist first, and make what I think is great music, and then fit my business into my music, my product.
A fun jazz trio/quintet that really takes influences from all kinds of music -- rock, r&b, funk, pop, but also does not cheat my own, or my bands musical integrity and artistry. This is not going to be a wallpaper band -- its time to get serious!
