relocation

[Danny Adair]

Have you ever relocated? How did you handle the adjustment to a new scene?

I just accepted a great job offer involving relocation from Dallas to Atlanta and I am freaked out about not having gigs out in Atlanta! I know I will need to focus on work, but I am interested in hearing some others' experiences in breaking into a new scene.

Please share any suggestions our thoughts about this situation.

Many thanks,
Danny

[Ed Fuqua]

If you can use this board (or any other source) to get names of numbers of other bass players or musicians that yuo can call with a "Hey I'm Danny , so and so gave me your number and suggested I give you a call when I got to Atlanta. I'm new in town and if you need a bassist for rehearsals or sessions, please give me a call. And put me on your gigspam list, I'd love to be able to come out and here you play."
Make every jam session you hear about, if you hear cats playing who you dig, get their numbers and invite them over to your crib for a session.

I know the small town scene is way different from the metro; bassists in smaller scenes can tend to be kind of "protective" of their scene and work. The great thing about being up here is how open and friendly and supportive the bass scene is. I don't really know the Atlanta scene; the only insight I ever had was back in the early 80's when Kate and I were first thinking about moving out of Augusta. I ran into Neal Starkey in a club and introduced myself and told him I was considering moving to Atlanta and asked how the jazz scene was, he said "It's terrible, you shouldn't move here."
And it was hard for me to tell if he was giving me good advice or just guarding his gig.

[Ben Rose]

All of the advice given above is good.

Don't forget to carry business cards to the jam sessions. One thing that I have seen cats doing around town is to call each others cell instead of trading business cards. It seems a bit forward to me, but it does get your number onto their phone and vice versa. Of course, that only works if they save the number.

Two things that worked for me are joining a big band and booking my own gigs. Big band pay usually sucks, but there are 15-20 other cats that may need a bass player for some other gig. I can trace most of my gigs here back to the big band in one way or another.

If you find some people that you want to play with, book your own gig and hire them. This way you'll get to play with musicians who may be more advanced, and they'll become familiar with your playing. I've been trying this for a few months, and it has been an excellent growing experience.

DISCLAIMER: I relocated to Dallas about 2 years ago, suck at networking, and would rate my bass playing as average at best, but have managed to get busy despite all of that.