The truth about the New Orleans music scene today....

I get a lot of questions about what's going on with the local music industry following Hurricane Katrina. The truth is not pretty:

Prior to Katrina, this was a great place to be a working musician. If you had the skills, you could make a handsome living playing. Before I retired from actual performance (for reasons of health), I certainly did. It was not at all unusual for me to play six days a week, sometimes three gigs on each of those days. Lots of full time (no day job) players I knew were buying nice homes and sending their children to good schools strictly off the proceeds of the music business. Those days are gone, and probably gone for good.

The secret of all of this high paying work was the convention and tourist business, and that has pretty much vanished. New Orleans used to be one of the top tourist destinations in the world, and it was not unusual at all to have a couple of 20,000+ attendee conventions going on simultaniously in town. Ordinary tourists flocked here from all over the world. No more. Why, you ask? Two reasons: crime and insurance.

You're taking your life into your hands if you come to New Orleans and don't know which areas (and there are a lot of them) to avoid. We're the number one (with a bullet...) murder per capita city in the United States. Mugging tourists is a big industry in certain communities. It's dangerous here. You should stay away until the situation is resolved. I'd like to point out that we have about half the pre-Katrina population base, and about the same number of police officers we had BEFORE Katrina. We also have 300 armed National Guardsmen and 80 State Troopers patrolling the streets. Feel safer? You shouldn't. They haven't been able to stop the murders and robberies. The city government is too interested in being PC to take the action that is necessary. Sure, they hold lots of news conferences talking about improvements, and they run nice ads in various television markets saying you should come on down. Before you book your flight, take a look at the crime statistics. The numbers don't lie....

Another big problem, as if the high chances of getting murdered was not enough, is that it's become very, very difficult for conventions to buy "event cancellation" insurance. Let's say you're the convention planner for the American Association of Solid Waste Engineers. You plan to bring 20,000 people to New Orleans for your annual meeting. You have to buy a policy that guarantees that the caterer gets paid (and everybody else) if you cancel your event, for whatever reason. Given the weather we often have here, not to mention the high potential for civil unrest, insurers have pretty much stopped writing such policies. No insurance = no convention.

This has resulted in most of the successful, full time players leaving town. They're gone. You can't make money like you could pre-Katrina, and life is too hard here (that's another entirely different topic) to endure on a reduced income. I don't blame them in the least.

There have been numerous efforts to keep musicians here. Most are scams. Take the Musician's Village, for example: it was a great idea as originally put forth by Harry Connick, Jr. You build houses for musicians, give them mortgages, and set up a performance center with rehearsal halls etc. Harry was right on the money with this plan. Unfortunately, it got hijacked at city hall by the PC housing advocates, who insisted that the money raised for musicians housing should be used for others as well. Now, musicians are a very small minority of the inhabitants of the so called Musicians Village. There's something wrong with this picture....

The problem in New Oreans is that there is not enough work here to make a living. The demand for musician's services has decreased dramatically, and until it returns, the players won't be back.

Gonna Buy 10 Copies for My Mother...

I'm extremely honored to have been selected to appear on the cover of The Saxophone Journal and to have a feature article about my work be contained in this issue. I've been reading this fine publication since the 1980's, and some years ago purchased all the back issues to complete my collection. This is without question the most important part of my reference library.

Through The Saxophone Journal, I have learned more about saxophones and saxophonists than through any other source. It keeps me constantly up to date and inspired. It has opened new doors to the tremendous diversity of the saxophone community. Through advertising in The Saxophone Journal (which I have done for years) I've been able to reach new markets that were previously inaccessible to me.

I salute Ken Dorn and David Gibson for bringing this great resource to saxophonists everywhere, and give them a hearty "thank you" on behalf of the entire saxophone community.

Why we use kangaroo leather

First, I want to apologize for being away from the blog for the last few weeks. My life has not been simple.....
When the Saxgourmet pads were being designed, we had several requirements that we felt were not being met by any other pad available on the market today:
(1) they must not stick
(2) they must have a very long life
(3) they must be quiet
(4) the surface should be quite supple to allow the use of very firm felt and backs

Kangaroo leather is the only material that provided the solution. Many different leathers were tried and rejected. Several synthetic materials were tried as well.

Kangaroo leather is the strongest leather on the planet. You cannot tear it. It is also extremely soft, so it prevents annoying key noise. The leather is extremely smooth and non-porous, so it does not stick. It also has a nice "drape" quality that allows the manufacture of pads to closer tolerances that perfectly retain their shape and size and do not wrinkle.

By using the soft kangaroo leather, we were able to use a much firmer felt and more rigid back on the pads. This gives the horn a much more precise feel and keeps the pad size stable over the service life of the pad. There is no shrinkage as with other pads.

Kangaroo leather does not have the impact noise associated with goatskin. The key action is much quieter. It lasts longer than sheepskin because the leather has much smaller pores and does not tend to accumulate materials which cause deterioration.

Quite a few imitators have sprung up as a result of the success of Saxgourmet pads. There's a big difference that you can very easily see: take a Saxgourmet pad and a competitor's pad (Ed Myers, Joey Grey, or Prestini) and flex the pad in your fingers. The Saxgourmet pad does not easily bend, the others can be bent over double. Their felt and back are too soft. They chose to "cheap out". Soft felt allows the pad to change shape over its lifetime, and gives the horn a spongy feel.

Saxgourmet pads are standard equipment on Steve Goodson Model, Orpheo, and Saxgourmet saxophones, and are available in sizes 6.5mm - 77mm from www.musicmedic.com. All Saxgourmet pads are hand made in the USA, and are distributed exclusively by MusicMedic.