"Keeping busy?"
"Plenty of work?"
Whenever pro musicians meet the conversation will very often thus commence. It's a long-standing tradition that we tend to measure our success as professionals by the amount of work we are doing. But in these changing times it can be a coarse and increasingly inaccurate scale.
A gig is a gig, or is it?
When there are bills that need to be paid the short answer is undoubtedly yes, but the older I get the more I begin to think about what it is I truly value after fifty plus years playing.
Now and then I look back at some of my diaries, particularly from the mid 90s, and wonder how I found the time. Between two regular touring concert packages I had better than 150 dates per year, as well all manner of freelance gigs, a little studio work, and had started teaching at the long gone Musicians' Institute in London. Added to which this was the time when I took it upon myself to set up a jazz big band as something to do in my spare time. Spare time I really did not have. Nobody talked about work/life balance back then, and I can vividly remember getting home in the small hours and having to sort out laundry for the next day. Happily my upstairs neighbours never once complained about the 5am spin dryer racket. Every minute of the day seemed to be accounted for sometimes.
Earlier this year I had the perfect week; three great gigs with people I admire, where the music is of a kind that keeps my reasons for being inspired to learn to play very close to the surface. In addition I had a day of private pupils and a day teaching college. Also significant is that within this 'perfect' week I had a decent amount of time to work on things I value; existing projects, new projects, catching up with friends and associates, and of course the glue that holds all of this together, the art of playing music.
Having time and opportunity to develop is so important. The only exception to that is if you are constantly busy with playing that pushes you to the limit and enables you to perform at the top of your game. For an illustration of this look no further than the classified listings in old copies of Downbeat magazine from the late 50s and early 60s. At that time America's most distinguished jazz players could be found in 'location' jobs where they would play two or more shows per night for two, three, four or more weeks at a stretch. The players who weren't on the road were mostly enjoying a boom in regular, high quality studio work, playing jazz after hours and in some instances even opening their own clubs. Not just in the USA but here in the UK this was truly a golden era of plentiful opportunity when good players could work regularly and in so doing maintain the highest standards. Any wonder that the music they made was so good?
So all is this started me thinking about how much is enough, and is it possible to become too busy to improve?
Recently I was sounded out about a block of work that would have kept me busy for about six weeks. As always it's highly gratifying to be thought of and to be asked to do stuff, and without doubt the thought of the money was tempting enough to consider the possibility of clearing the diary for the period in question. Equally significant though, was the strong possibility that the requirements of the music were such that I might have come away from the run of work with all kinds of 'damage' to put right. I was reminded of a week in 1998 when I spent Monday to Saturday playing with Kid Creole and the Coconuts and on the Sunday played the launch concert for my debut big band album 'Playing With Fire'. All good without a doubt but my jazz/big band chops had taken hit after days of playing in a different bag. With hindsight I would schedule things differently now.
We've all wished away that half hour between 11:30 and midnight in the function suite of some hotel or another more than once, and as professionals it's not realistically possible only to play the things that give us the greatest pleasure, but there are limits. This was brought home once and for all by a gig I did in Cardiff just over twenty years ago. It was a dep gig with a well-known band, but on arrival I found that the repertoire was a long way removed from what I would have expected from this aggregation. It wasn't fun to play, it didn't swing, everybody else had done a thorough rehearsal (and another gig) the previous day, and I had to jump in with both feet and wing it. Honestly I couldn't wait for the gig to end and it occurred to me that I went home liking music less than when I left the house, and from that day forward I made it policy to ensure that this didn't happen again. I don't call it perfectly all of the time but my average is probably somewhere in the high nineties percent, but being less busy than I was in my 30s has created time to play consistently better.
These days I have three 'regular' gigs, plus my own projects and all the education activity. Added to which there's freelance playing and the (very) occasional bit of acting. Also for about a decade now I've had the great good fortune to carve out a niche on the UK drum scene, and industry events therein are amongst some of the most satisfying things I now do. Importantly this leaves enough time to work on playing and leave room to accept new opportunities. A newly established fortnightly residency in Brighton with the emphasis on New Orleans and early swing gives me a welcome opportunity to flex some different muscles, and I feel fortunate to be in a place where I have the luxury of being able to do the things I like best. That said, if someone rings this afternoon and offers me a gig that involves 11 hour flights through numerous time zones plus all the attendant hanging about, you can be certain that I'll be looking for my passport. As long as the music is right of course.
Also don't ever underestimate the benefits of downtime. Had it not been for an unexpected slack period for about two months in the spring of 1997 I doubt I would have found the time to pull together the necessary resources to make the debut big band album mentioned earlier in this piece, and I'm often mindful of the truth that something I started as a spare time pursuit continues be rewarding and has become the thing for which I am probably best known. So remember that if you have an empty page in your diary.
