[NewMusic] Booking / 'Usual Suspects'

[Matthew Goodheart]

On Aug 21, 2007, at 10:08 AM, Phillip Greenlief wrote:

> I know I often compare our scene to jazz, but no one complained when
> Bird was playing 52nd street nearly every night of the week -

This may seem to imply I'm against the "promiscuous" scene, and I'm  
not by any means. The difference between the what you are talking  
about here (or Monk and Coltrane at the 5-Spot)- is that it was  
essentially the same band, playing mostly the same material, each  
time. What happened was that it allowed them to refine what they were  
doing based on the interactions of that particular group. It's a very  
different dynamic that a large number of "one offs" with different  
people each time. The "promiscuous" scene promotes a different  
modality of development- a more individualistic one (which fits with  
the more libertarian philosophy of many of it's practitioners, and  
the times themselves, really). It tends to concentrate more on "what  
do I bring to this particular group of individuals," rather than  
being a member of an ensemble where the playing of each member is as  
intimately familiar one's own.

I've only recently started looking at this thread, so maybe this was  
mentioned earlier: a couple of times a decade or so ago there was  
this "52nd Street" model, and I think it worked quite nicely with  
those who had that sort of musical interaction as it's goal. One was  
the month of gigs with Marco's American Jungle Orchestra at Venue 9,  
the other was the type of booking: Don Alan would do at  Radio  
Valencia in the early 90's: he would book your group for a whole  
month, specifically so you could develop in that particular way. It  
really allowed me to refine things with some of my early groups, and  
have a platform to develop new material.  I feel like I took some big  
leaps because of it.   I understand why he went to the other format  
later, but it was so nice that way at the beginning.  "Jazzed," a now  
defunct cafe in San Rafael, was really supportive in the same way, too.

mg