Here's the scenario. Around here $50 for a nursing home is tops. I have two that pay $35. Once or twice these two gave me $50 for one hour. Don't forget I'm unknown around here in the music-entertaining field. I laid brick in this area since 1977. I really just started play music again in public maybe 5 or 6 years ago and it was slow going and still is.

When I turned her down She changed the whole show at the last minute so that I could play for 1 and a half hours straight instead of playing half an hour tearing down and playing another half hour after another entertainer played thirty minutes. She has maybe 4 or 5 other people doing something. I expect there will be a few folk singers with a guitar and that's all they will have.

She asked how much I would charge to let my PA set up and run it for the other players. A sound company with a PA wanted $700. She's a very nice lady I told her to make me an offer and she said $200. I told her $250. If everything goes OK, I figured if she called next year and wants me to play or run the sound or do both, I�d ask for $500.

It's not as easy here playing what I play to get gigs. DonM wouldn't do as well here as he does in Shreveport but he would do much better than me. Every where you go it�s country country country. I was told this by an older musician in maybe 1960. He said that country music was and always will be the biggest audience in the USA. Well I laughed because Rock and Roll and Dixieland is what was happening in New Orleans at that time.

But after many years of paying attention I have to admit, every town I�ve lived in has a few rock and rock & roll stations. Heck we even have a Hispanic station on the radio here in this small town, but most cities have 8 to 15 country stations. With the exception of Chicago and towns like that you can�t get a jazz station. At least that�s been my experience. One friend got me in his truck to hear the radio he was paying for. He said there�s jazz here. All it was is that acid fusion stuff. Three tunes in a row of that bores me to death. Give me all the old Tenor Sax Giants and a few Alto players too.

I'm pig headed. I'm doing my Jazz Standards for my self. I do a little country, lots of rock and roll from the 50�s. At first I thought I'd make a lot of money. Ha! Ha! I used to play more weddings in New Orleans in a year then they have in this city in 10 years. The DJ thing is big here. I�m not going to do DJ. Those guys don�t know a Bb from a hole in the ground. Ha! Ha! With extremely few exceptions. You ever see a DJ play a sax. I consider myself an above average Sax player. No not Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, David Sanborn etc., Those guys are so far above average it isn�t funny. So I play for my self for the fun mostly for the present. In a couple of years I'll probably get tired of this and put the sax away again.
Boo