Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

Ed Fuqua · #1 08-18-2009, 12:41 PM

From the same mind that gave us JAM SESSION RULES, here's Careers In Jazz!

Jefenator · #2 08-18-2009, 01:03 PM

... wow...

Truth hurts.

Treyzer · #3 08-18-2009, 07:06 PM

"Post-Chromatic Stress Disorder in the Neo Lydian Landscape."

That is a truly funny line. This is funny in a sick, dark pathetic manner! Whoever wrote this is one very sick dude....I'm glad that I don't live in his world or see the world through his eyes. Then again, I never had to play a lot of casualties

Nathan Parker · #4 08-18-2009, 07:40 PM

The guy that wrote this, Bill Anschell, is a local Seattle guy. He has a very sarcastic, bleak sense of humor. But, I assure you, in person, he is a very kind, friendly man.

Marcus Johnson · #5 08-18-2009, 08:03 PM

I'm just glad I can't find my single-edge razor blades.

Then again, I'm gigging through Saturday.

relacey · #6 08-18-2009, 08:54 PM

I was going to send this to a friend of mine who was a jazz performance major, but I decided it was too cruel. Great satire, hits really close to the bone.

Uncletoad · #7 08-18-2009, 09:30 PM

That's all to familiar.

Ed Fuqua · #8 08-18-2009, 10:17 PM

Before he was a local Seattle guy, he was a local Atlanta guy. Check him out on myspace, he plays nice!

It would be really scary if it wasn't so funny. It would be really funny if it wasn't so scary....

etherealme · #9 08-18-2009, 10:43 PM

HAD to be a Seattleite. Man, do they love living up to the stereotype!

Whew ..

Treyzer · #10 08-18-2009, 11:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

It would be really scary if it wasn't so funny. It would be really funny if it wasn't so scary....

**Chris Fitzgerald** · #11 08-18-2009, 11:04 PM

Funny and scary, yes. But also unnecessarily bleak. A lot of guys I know feel lucky to pursue the music in whatever manner they have chosen to live. If I wasn't teaching, or end up a victim of the economy, I'm pretty sure I'd still enjoy playing as much and take it as seriously even as I had less time for it. It's primarily a form of expression, after all. If you speak it, you speak it.

Yango · #12 08-19-2009, 12:14 AM

This guy is funny as hell! His interpretation of the music business makes me laugh out loud. His band mates must love him.

salcott · #13 08-19-2009, 12:21 AM

I have a bit of a rep for having a dark sense of humor, but I'm torn between laughing (ruefully) and feeling really sorry for this guy. He seems to have contempt for anyone who's managed to survive as a player in the real world. If I were to take his essay at face value, I'd look back at 40+ years of music making that's taken me to parts of the world I'd never have seen otherwise, put me on stages with my heroes, provided a decent living most of the time, introduced me to my wife who puts up with all the vagaries of the business and put a bullet in my head at the emptiness and futility of it all. Can't do it, though; got gigs this weekend playing some simple old music that people like to hear.

Sam Sherry · #14 08-19-2009, 08:01 AM

What appears to be missing in that piece is the notion that some people actually are better, deeper musicians than others. It is truly hard for some players to come to grips with the fact that there are people who play on a level which most of us are capable of appreciating but not of achieving. (I don't know Mr. Anschell; this is not meant as a comment on him or his musicianship.)

A number of points flow from and relate to that truth. Among them, in no particular order:

a) People Who Do Not Play As Well As Michael Brecker ("us" or "we" for short) nevertheless have something musical to offer the world.

b) Musically, what we have to offer is almost certain to not be playing concerts for rapt, clued-in audiences. Those situations tend to go to People Who Do Play As Well As Michael Brecker because they produce rapture-inducing noises lots more frequently than we do.

c) Playing for us often mixes joy and frustration. We love to make that noise we love but we know that we are not reaching the musical level of the record we were listening to in the car on the way to the gig.

d) Even though we feel frustrated not to reach our desired level, many people who hear us derive FULL satisfaction from the experience. Our choice is either to look down on those people because they are too ignorant to appreciate our suckiness or to embrace the opportunity to provide them with the moment they seek. As far as I can tell there are no other choices. Every gig I play is a gig I CHOOSE to play. The responsibility for my spending time in an unsatisfactory musical situation is mine alone.

e) If there are musical education programs which tend to prepare us for any of this, I didn't find them.

I like my work, wife, kids, and I like my music. I came to grips years ago with the facts that 1) I am insufficiently obsessive/compulsive to focus on music to the extent required to fully realize my skills and 2) if it were otherwise I still did not have it in me to Play As Well As Michael Brecker. All I can do it struggle to grow and enjoy on my modest level, and dig my wife, kids and work.

There's lots more to say but I have to work.

hdiddy · #15 08-19-2009, 01:56 PM

You guys are taking this too seriously.

Ed Fuqua · #16 08-19-2009, 01:57 PM

Not me!

Sam Sherry · #17 08-19-2009, 02:19 PM

Nope.

On the micro level what's more serious than what you do with your life and with your meager talent?

Tick tick tick tick . . . .

**Thor** · #18 08-19-2009, 02:28 PM

I have a hundred pack of left over razor blades from remodeling
the house if there are any further requests.

Nathan Parker · #19 08-19-2009, 02:36 PM

As an aspiring gig-whore, I might need some of those blades. Send 'em yonder, please.

Gornick · #20 08-20-2009, 03:28 AM

I mean no disrespect to anyone here, but jesus: it's satire !--- perhaps close to the bone, but regardless.

At least the cat is a player and not a failed musician who found his calling in being a jazz critic, which ironically he doesn't profile, though they are an obvious target....wait? wait? maybe he's one of .... nevermind.

There's a couple that he missed! What about those gig whore types who can barely play their axe, never raise their eyes from the Real Book, maybe even play multiple instruments each with equal in-competency (and no real intention of going further), yet manage to hustle their way into 4 days a week of gigs that pay less than 20 a man.... and they're happy with that.

nah, that was funny, but I laughed loudest at Marcus's first response, so there you are.