Even though my own jazz career, and blogging career, dominate my working hours I still like to keep 1 foot in the freelance recording camp. Being a session trumpet player can open doors and allow a musician to connect with people who may otherwise be unaccessible.
Yesterday, however, things turned a little ugly.
I was booked to play a big band session, taking the solo chair. Whenever I get called for this kind of gig I’m always a little apprehensive. Trumpet players have some of the biggest egos in the musical world and, since everyone wants the solo chair since it gives them the biggest chance to shine, some of those egos can get out of hand.
Add to that the fact that my trumpet was made for me by David Monette, a fact that is always guaranteed to rattle a few cages, and those egos, especially the ones of the trumpet players who can’t blow there way out of a paper bag, really start to rear their ugly heads.
Yesterday’s session started innocently enough but after just 1 hour the trumpet player sitting to my right, let’s call him Jon, since that’s his name, asked me the following question.
Aren’t you that blogging guy who made Lily Allen run away from Twitter?
I told him that I was that blogging guy and that I could, just maybe, be partly credited with making Lily Allen run away from Twitter, although it was more likely that Lily ran away from Twitter because she got caught with her metaphorical pants down.
And then, for no apparent reason, he opened his mouth and let the following pearls of wisdom pour out.
You suck man, you suck! Where the hell do you get off telling everyone to download music for free? People like you are killing this industry from the inside. Lily Allen wanted to protect musicians and you just took shots at her and made her look dumb. How would you like it if people stole your music?
Oh, I forget, you make money all day long by giving away your music using that stupid micropatronage thing you keep pushing like it’s the way we can all start to make a living from music.
Seriously man, you suck. You sit there with your 5 figure 24 carat gold plated trumpet, driving around in your flash car, telling other musicians what to do. You suck.
He went on for a little while. I tried to ignore him but it was tricky since he just wouldn’t shut up. Eventually I decided to reply to him and tried, unsuccessfully, to explain to him how real independent musicians can make good money by distributing their music for free, how listening to music isn’t the same as stealing it, and how, if he just calmed down for 5 minutes and thought it through he would see that he was wrong, very, very wrong.
Needless to say, he didn’t agree.
I persuaded him to shut up for the sake of the recording and, amazingly, he agreed. He was clearly upset, however, and continued to mutter under his breath and generally act like an amateur.
Jon will never get it. Jon will always fail.
For the record, and for all the trumpet players who read this blog waiting for this next piece of information, Jon plays a Taylor Chicago with numerous superfluous sleeves, caps and other weight adding accessories with a Vincent Bach mouthpiece.
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