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A cousin of mine recently moved to the DC area. He wants to "make it" in the music business. When I asked him what he meant by that, he said, "I want to get a record contract, make records, tour the world, that sort of stuff." To which I answered, "Then you probably need to move either three hours North or thirteen hours West." [*] (NYC or Nashville, for those not familiar with the area)
I've thought about moving to NYC a few times myself. DC has a pretty decent jazz scene, but NYC is really where it's at. So, it's interesting to see what someone who's living that life has to say about it.
Andreas Steffen from Germany asked me to write about what the life of a New York Jazz musician was like. Most people have some glorified idea of what the NYC musician does to make a living. Adreas' idea went like this: sleep until noon, practice, studio job, gig, jam session, repeat from start. That's pretty much what I expected when I got there with five hundred dollars in my pocket. The economic realities of living in NYC have changed drastically in the last thirty years. Long time resident musicians have told me that back in the 70s you could pay your rent by working one or two gigs a month. Many musician had large lofts where they jammed till the wee hours of the morning. New York is one of the most expensive cities in the world and gigs still pay roughly what they did in the 70s. There are still tons of fifty-dollar gigs all over town. Of course now you could be playing fifty-dollar gigs every night of the week and still be starving.
* Yeah, I know that some people have "made it" from the DC area. Good Charlotte, Dennis Chambers just to name two off the top of my head. Still, most bands that make it aren't going to be found here. It's just the odds, as much as that might suck.
Posted by Casper at August 9, 2005 11:04 PM