On Music

...The afm also achieved the following: The new contract requires the networks to keep quotas of staff musicians (established prior to the strike) through July 1971, although personnel over the quota may be discharged after July 1969...

...So, in the hope of settling down with semi-regular employment, many musicians have turned to studio work and made what Clark calls "the necessary distinction between music and the music business...

...If singers or featured artists cannot provide this kind of direction, both recording sessions and rehearsals tend to degenerate into frustration and personality clashes, no matter how good the musicians are or how sympathetic they may be to the performer's problems...

...They must be able to blow anything well...

...By Thanksgiving Day, the staff musicians in the three cities voted 270-263 for a new two-year contract...

...Well, it's got to be the bread, man, pure and simple...

...After all, each New York member (there are 30,000 in Local 802) pays dues of $30 a year, besides a union tax on each job and record made...

...They did not grant any increase in the pension fund or establish a health and welfare plan (Blue Cross-Blue Shield...

...Under the new settlement for studio men, the business will not get easier...

...The picket lines held, at least in New York, and the strikers were supported by sister organizations like aftra (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists...

...They can make or break a studio musician by placing him on anything from a staff position to the "fifth call" list for his instrument on casual dates...

...While they may not be happy with the junk music they have to play, jazz players are proficient and, consequently, in demand either as staff members of particular tv show bands and network orchestras, or as "casual" musicians who work on specific job calls, usually consisting of recording sessions or tv-radio jingles...

...The featured artist has initial discussions with the company's A&R (artists and repertoire) man to plan the album and the general approach to the music...

...Then the artist, the arranger, and the contractor meet to further determine the requirements of the music and the composition of the studio band that will play it...

...While most musicians play a certain style for which the contractor selects them, they must be extremely competent, since anywhere from 17 to 50 or 60 people are hired to play together as a unit without rehearsal...

...Or so it might seem...

...The union in its bargaining demanded a $64-a-week increase in base pay for staff and wound up settling for $23, bringing the new scale to $280 a week...

...More Bread for Junk Music But those with staff positions in New York, Miami or Los Angeles (the live broadcasting centers) often found that they in effect had traded one bad gig for another: They still had no real job security or benefits, their pay was inadequate, and working conditions were frantic and capricious...

...The jazz people I talked to voted against the settlement because it neglected what they saw as the main issue of the strike—job availability and working conditions...

...Most of the studio musician's problems in recording stem from the fact that he is really working for four different people—the contractor, the arranger, the artist, and the A & R man (who runs the actual session...

...Some jazz clubs have been paying less than $15 a night for years and consistently getting good people to perform...

...The union rates the clubs A, B, C, etc...

...One rehearsal, involving a prominent husband-and-wife singing team, went on virtually all day because neither had a clear-cut conception of what they wanted from the performance...

...as to scale, but musicians who need work have to accept the poor wages at the lowest-rated clubs...

...For this the Copacabana paid them a scale of $22.50 a night...

...These problems are compounded in rehearsal sessions, which sometimes drag on forever...

...What are these cats doing in a scene like that...

...And the union's uncompromising demand for "a one-hour meal break after six hours [sic] of continuous service" was acceded to by the networks...

...The admonition to "be cool with your contractor" is not idle...

...A board of review has at last been instituted to prevent cases of summary firing...

...This is what the recent 28-day American Federation of Musicians (afm) strike against the networks was all about...

...Thad Jones, one of New York's top jazz musicians, has been part of the studio scene for some years...

...Even though rehearsals were easy, with Miss Lee gracefully in charge, the musicians put in long hours on the bandstand, playing demanding material...

...They won from the three networks a little more money, some job security concessions, and not much else...

...and the road, after a time, becomes a drag...

...Not having such a program particularly bugs musicians because it indicates their non-professional status...

...They question how this money is being spent, especially because conditions in the clubs haven't improved much and because the afm leadership was unable even to mobilize the total support of its membership for the strike...

...Zoot Sims and Bob Brookmeyer have often performed with the band on the "Merv Griffin Show...

...It is a tough business, and many studio musicians are angry that their local unions have not done more for them...

...Clark Terry, for instance, regularly appears with Doc Severmson's nbc Orchestra on the "Tonight Show...

...But recording scale remains $65 per 3-hour session...

...After the parts are scored and copied out, the band and the artist meet for the first and only time to record...

...The strike was effective enough to force a number of network shows to cancel, while others had to resort to fake-alongs over records, a ca-pella singing, old tapes, and reruns...

...A meager 5 per cent increase was granted to orchestrators and copyists, the workhorses of the industry...

...And their tenure itself is shaky, with the networks pushing hard for fewer live music shows...

...He contrasts this rehearsal with one involving Peggy Lee, booked for a show at the Copacabana...

...Musicians constantly complain of difficulties in scheduling (many recording sessions take place after midnight) and being perpetually on call...

...The Peggy Lee date also illustrates why the jazz folk are turning more often to studio work, sometimes in spite of themselves...

...This agreement involves 617 staff or regular network musicians nationwide, 232 of whom are members of Local 802 (New York City...

...Thad Jones says, "Jazz musicians are realizing that the studio scene is not all it's cracked up to be, and this strike proves it...

...Because she knew exactly what she wanted from the beginning, the rehearsal went beautifully, the musicians loved her, and their rapport made the show a success...

...If the musicians did not achieve their objectives at the bargaining table, their own insecurity is partly to blame...

...These are the top commercial musicians in the country, responsible for performing the musical segments of every tv variety show...

...As Thad recalls, it was anything but an easy gig...

...And although the club's scale has since risen somewhat, this is by no means the lowest figure for such work in the city...

...Each may require something different of him, and their conflicting demands often result in protracted sessions—without the 10-minute breaks that the union is supposed to stand firm on—or in an inordinate number of "takes" and time wasted...

...Nobody is willing to pay $200 a week for jazz musicians, although a few places like the Americana come close...

...jingles continue to pay $65 for 2 hours, plus residuals...

...concert dates are hard to come by...

...And Clark Terry, with many others, is still bitter about the contract: "The guys cleaning the toilets at nbc get Blue Cross, and we can't...

...Their cohorts, the casual musicians, won a 10 per cent increase for both rehearsal and broadcast time...

...To illustrate, a typical recording session might develop this way...

...As Clark Terry puts it, "You see Cincinnati or Paris once or maybe twice, not five or six times...

...The same impulse which drives jazz musicians out of the clubs and into the studios makes them willing to accept any conditions there so long as they are provided with steady work...

...Although casual musicians did win a 10 per cent increase in the new contract, they are still paid at the ordinary rehearsal rate, even for dress rehearsals and broadcast tapings, both of which are far more demanding than the typical rehearsal situtaion...

...Although staff men now seem to have all the plums—fair salary and a regular contract—their numbers may dwindle sharply (to 105 in New York) after July 1969, since the networks have the right to make further cutbacks then...

...Because of their nomadic, sporadic work, jazz people appreciate a steady paycheck more than most...

...Jobs in the clubs pay poorly...

...Since the studio band was prepared, the fumbling was agonizing...

...He talked about some of his experiences as a staff member of the band on the "Ed Sullivan Show...

...The fortunes of the casual musicians are even more dependent on the genial "contractor," the man who selects the personnel for a specific record session, tv spot, etc...

...Old show-biz professionalism might have been their stock in trade, but these over-anxious performers were not satisfied with anything less than a perfect take, even though they had no idea of how to achieve it...

...Contractors," says Clark Terry, "are the top politicians...

...According to Thad, things finally began to swing when the husband just got up and sang...