Originally posted by corinpills
I really hope that I can articulate this in a way which doesn't offend anyone and I hope that it will be read in that spirit.
Younger players may not recognize the musical culture that James Jamerson was coming out of. Today's music industry is completely corporate controlled, pre-programmed and co-opted. The Motown musicians were jazz musicians coming from a jazz lifestyle. Nowadays, the word jazz means that nice background music that you hear at Starbucks or at a corporate cocktail party, but back then it meant a lifestyle associated with heavy drinking, heroin and a generally dodgy way of living. Now, of course, wealthy parents send their kids to college to get a dergree in jazz, it wasn't like that back in the 40's and 50's when those guys were coming up- being a muiscian was not considered respectable in any sense of the word. I don't think that there was much of a chance that those guys were going to get it together and organize some proper recognition and compensation from the label. We all say "Oh man, I'd have love to have hung out with James Jamerson". The truth is, his huge talent notwithstanding, most of us would not have enjoyed hanging out with some of these bad-ass Detroit cats. I think one of the great lessons of the Jaco story is that one's talent only counts for so much when one becomes a drunk annoying screw up. Even his best friends were turning him away towards the end of his life.
This is not to imply that they were not taken advantage of by Motown. There has always been someone on the sideline waiting to take advantage of messed up musicians. It's almost the law of the universe: scummy guys waiting to take advantage of musicians, and musicians doing everything to let them. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy of failure.
My day job is at an agency that books music for corporate and private functions. I have very mixed feelings about it. On one hand, we payed over 1 million dollars to very talented musicains last year and they are generally people who have no other discernable job skills. These are not guys who could get an office job and they are all people whom I genuinely like and respect so I'm glad we've provided work for them. They are monster jazz/R&B musicians who have been gigging since they were teenagers and haven't developed the skills that one needs to be a grownup. They are all just absolute beasts on their instruments- world class, the real deal- you've seen some of them in magazines. I work with guys who have toured and recorded with David Bowie, Brian Mcknight, Michael Jackson, Prince, the Bee Gees, Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin, The Arsenio Hall Show band and the Wu Tang Clan. Almost without exception, every single one of them has more than 6 kids by different woman whom they haven't married, many of them drink hard liquor and get high every single day of their life, they all have tax problems, bad credit and child support issues and they have absolutely no investments, retirement plans or any health insurance. It's hard to not feel that they are living a jazz lifestyle that has brought down msuicans since the 1920s. Interestingly enough, I am glad to report that the bass players I work with seem to have it together more than some of their bandmates. I don't know why, it's just something I've noticed.
