Tonite when Jim (Zuki) comes to Lexington to pick-up his G-70 (Bontempi, actually, he just dosn't know it yet), he'll meet me at a restaurant where I'm playig for an annual Credit Union meeting. Pay: $250 for one hour.

The reason I'm there is I am the marketing V/P/ consultant for this organization. They pay my company $4500.00 per month for the service.

I get lots of my jobs like this...other business relationships.

Thing is, I really don't like to do solo gigs. But, I do them to solidify my other business relationships and to maintain the exposure/contact with key business and community leaders. I've gotten lots of business for my production company playing these kinds of jobs.

All during my work history, I've had to choose between doing what I want to do (playing jazz for little money, for instance)
and doing what pays well.

I don't like commercial photography, but it pays $2000.00 and up per day to take unimaginative photos of equipment for Fortune 500 companies. Creative photography is a much tougher sell and usually generates much less revenue.

I don't like to produce commercial brochures, but the pay is about $3000.00 per finished page to create. For most freelancers, magazine work pays a small percentage of what this work pays.

Some of you heard a recent post of a film rough. It's not close to the music I want to write and record, but it's an essential element of films I produce and the pay is at least $1000.00 per finished minute. I'd love to write and produce a jazz album, but it would be a "crapshoot" to make any significant money.

The choices are to do what you love and starve, to sell out completely and go for the bucks or find a comfortable place somewhere in the middle.

I'm somewhere in the middle and I'm sure a lot of us are.

How do you find the balance point?


Russ