Fair pay scales ...

[TIMKAT Entertainment, Inc]

Hi Friends,

Well this month's been quite the eye opener for this budding jazz promoter, and I thought I would share my findings here in Denver with you, and hear your feedback on if this is a regional thing, or happening everywhere due to economy or other factors.

My group and I played a great 4-hour Thursday night gig at a small and elegant local restaurant last month, and got great feedback on our performance from the ownership. I should note that this gig was booked through a partnership with a local Denver agency, due to a standing contract that the agency had with the restaraunt (not TIMKAT).

The restaurant owners said that they would be willing to book us more frequently, and would we even consider a weekend gig sometime? They said that they would let us know how things would work out after having their weekly meeting with their booking company the next day. We were paid a fair (not wonderful, but OK) rate that night, also were treated to 1 included meal and non-alcoholic cokes at the bar, and the band all went home happy and eager to play there again sometime.

A couple of weeks went by and the booking agency emailed me and said that everyone at the club was super happy with our show ... however ... that as a result of their meeting, the restaurant staff decided that our classic jazz sound was not what they were looking for on weekends after all, and also, that the "fair" rate that we were paid before would be cut in half, for the same 4-hour set on a Thursday night ... and were we interested in playing again sometime?

I have not yet responded to this booking agent, but I did forward the mail to my band, and we're mostly in agreement that to take the job again at half price would absolutely demean us and the scene in this town, as well as sell ourselves and our talent to one of the rock-bottom lowest bidders we've gotten in a long time. Ultimately, I am sadly going to have to decline the booking agency's offer and keep moving on.

On Saturday night, I went to see a good friend of mine perform with her group, who has a MUCH longer-standing relationship and rapport with this same club, and she confided in me that they were doing the same thing to her, even as a professional, union-membered musician, such that she has sadly had to cease her group's relationship with the club as well.

Is this kind of rate-slashing happening everywhere? Is the idea of paying professional-level musicians "union scale or better" now a complete joke? Where is the musician's union in the face of issues like these? And by the way, how can $200 for 4 musicians or more for a 4 hour set even be something that a respectable booking agency can offer to its talent and still stay in business ... for a myriad of reasons .... one being that this pay rate is too low to pay the talent (... split it out 4 ways over the six hours that you'll spend setting up/playing/tearing down, and you GROSS $8.33 an hour each).... and also too low for the booking agency to take a reasonable "cut" (15-25%) and continue to book top talent?

I'm not unreasonable; I know that these are recessionary times, and that the entertainment industry is often the one that suffers the most as people's homes, cars, jobs, etc are at stake, and I'm compassionate to that.

However, some of these same musicians are struggling to make it like everyone else in other fields, and they have studied just as long and hard as a lawyer or doctor at their craft (consider practice time, levels of schooling, etc for years), are ultimately working long nights, and are hauling their own stuff in and out of the gig for an extra hour or two ON TOP of playing the bill, and usually on a "double shift" (because they worked an 8-10 hour day at their 'other' jobs before showing up to the gig) ... these folks are often taking salaries worse than an entry level job at a fast-food place! My father mentioned that he knew of a few pros in the Dallas area that were getting $60 a night each for 3-4 hour performances. (Incredible, when so-called meager "union scale" is $110 for sidemen/women and $220 for leader pay.)

As a booking agent, I would like to understand and offer salaries that are competitive to top talent. For those pros out there, what percentage above and beyond "union scale" do you find competitive, or even acceptable?

As a musician, I have been quoted rates from $35 TOTAL for a two-hour set, to $60 TOTAL for a quartet for a 3-hour set, and now $200 TOTAL for a 4-hour set, all of which I have declined because to accept this would bring the musician's economy in Denver to a screeching and depressing halt. How? Because establishments figure that if one band is willing to take such low pay for the exposure and time on stage, then another band, and another, and another, can be low-balled in the same way. It was the exact purpose for why the original musicians' union was begun in the first place.

Your comments are definitely appreciated!

Warmly yours,
Kathryn @ TK

[Michael Kraft]

It's the same all over the world - and not only in Jazz! Depressing and downright disrespectful. Even hits more 'close to home' because I'm considering moving to the Denver area this Summer! Damn!

[Sharon Rae (aka Shar)]

Hi Kathryn,
I am new to the Denver area. Love it here but, I have to concur. The respect and pay for live musicians is going down, down, down. My husband/partner/pianist and I have been in the "biz" for many years. Where we came from, (Tucson/Phoenix area)we were received with great enthusiasm AND we were rewarded financially in the way that we felt we deserved. Prior to living in Arizona where we stayed for 2 years, we lived in Florida. We were paid fairly there also. We have never been asked to play for the kind of money we have been offered here in Denver. Ok, one gig...very fair but few and far between... certainly not enough to make a living. We refuse to work for pennies. Everything you say hits so close to home, I just had to respond. You are probably wondering why we moved away from a place that treated us so well. Plain and simple, we always wanted to move to the beautiful mountains of Colorado. Shelly lived and worked in the Boulder/Aspen area over 30 years ago. A lot has changed.

What really bothers us is that the musicians themselves will work for SO LOW. These guys and gals seem to have no idea of what they are doing when they go out and work for peanuts. I understand that full-time musicians have to work but if more GOOD musicians refused work for nothing, maybe someone would listen. I grew up the daughter of a jazz musician therefore I know what it's like when you have to work and travel and live on the road. Its never been easy but this is ridiculous.

My husband went and sat in at a blues club the other night and even carried his 88 with him and the owners made him pay for his own beer! ONE beer! Our car just konked out at the loading zone and I had to sit and wait for AAA to give us a jump. I told Shelly to just go in and play until the AAA guy came. After Shelly played for an hour, he had to grab his 88 and we took off. Now, if I were a club owner with a packed house, I would have had a little sympathy for the poor guy and given him the stupid beer!

I have to say that I made more money as a brand new singer over 30 years ago than I've been offered here. No, we won't move because we do love Colorado and it has been a dream to move here. But I am very disappointed. It especially makes me sad that the musicians don't rally together and give each other support. There is no room in this world for petty jealousy and greed. If we can't help each other, what does that say about us as human beings? We are artists. Artists are supposed to be sensitive, caring and loving. That's my take on it. Thanks for the blog. Sharon Rae

[TIMKAT Entertainment, Inc]

Hi Sharon and Michael,

Thank you both so much for responding, and as sad as it is, I feel a little better that I'm not having to tackle this issue alone!

I think a lot of the issue is that Denver is a growing and vibrant live music scene, but one factor may be that we're generally a young town and that we're located very close to several college towns, where budding musicians feel that if they take a job for next-to-nothing (or free), it will gain them some 'exposure.' Some are afraid to be assertive and tell a booking agent that a proposed rate is too low, and still others, to your points, really don't know what a decent living wage in music is.

I have spoken to many young talents who say that they are playing gigs for free just to get an audience to come hear them play. Every time I meet someone like this, I gently ask them to please stop doing that, as their talent is worth being paid for. Sadly, the exposure argument only works in the extremely short run, and what many don't understand is the over-arching ripple effect on other musicians ....

1. When folks take a job for low money, venue owners understand that they can get an act booked for a low rate. I have seen CraigsList ads where restaurants want to pay a jazz combo $100-180 for a 3-hour show! (At $100 for a quartet, that breaks down to $8.33 an hour. Amazing how that figure keeps coming up - see post above! We'd do better working part-time retail.)

2. This causes a gradual downtown in the local music/arts economy, and makes it even harder for those that truly do this "full time", for a living. Furthermore, professional musicians are self-employed and must afford health care and retirement, and certainly cannot do so on such low wages.

3. It also cheapens the future and perception of the music profession itself. I would submit that musicians study just as hard and long as other "professions" -- doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc, especially when one considers the years invested in music lessons, daily practice, theory studies, and time it takes to master one's voice or instrument to be able to play at a high level. I believe that some venues have a perception people who work in the "entertainment business" are "just having fun" and shouldn't be taken or paid seriously. And when musicians buy into that and don't demand to be paid for their education, this only seals that perception into a kind of reality.

4. Finally, it also weakens the reason behind a musician's UNION. In Denver, this is the Denver Musicians' Association (DMA).

While I understand that we live in an era where there are no longer live "union gigs" and that we live in a "right to work" state, basic Union scale (artists' min. wage) still dictates that a group leader earn $220 for a job, and that side personnel earn half that rate, at $110 (both rates are assumed for 3 hours). When venues offer low rates for the entire band, and non-union musicians do not have any idea what pro rates should be, the union is powerless to help, and again, hurts everyone that has chosen music as a lifetime career. There are still other musicians (jazz and otherwise) that posit that even 'scale' is too low and hurting their careers. (See http://www.afm.org/ for information on the musicians' union.) Keep in mind that some jobs, particularly TV and film, do still only hire union musicians, and this ripple effect continues, right into these areas as well.

The best that my jazz quartet has been paid at a live venue in Denver was $400 for a four-hour show. That's a LONG night! It broke down to $25 an hour (and less, if you're a drummer, considering set-up time). The night after we played this particular show, the venue informed us that they were going to be working with a new, exclusive booking agency, and that the rate next time would be $200. We politely told the new agency that as much as we enjoyed working with the venue that we would not accept the new pay and would be

[TIMKAT Entertainment, Inc]

... declining their offer (these are the same people I talked about before). Since then, the agency and venue have raised their rates back to CLOSE to what they paid in the past ... but not quite.

The way for artists to begin to combat this in Denver is to encourage our fellow musicians (and ourselves) to push back on wages offered. If $550 is union scale for a quartet (3 hour show), then certainly we should feel empowered to begin the bidding there, if not very close to that, remind the club owners that we understand that times are hard, but we need to keep the economy strong for those that depend on music for their living, and slowly edge the scales up over time. When we see people playing gigs for free for the dream of stardom and/or exposure, we should help bring them into the reality of what that action is really doing.

Over time, as we DEMAND BETTER for our craft, the live music venues will have no choice but to respond. Right now, however, because we will take less, they know that they can continue to offer less ... and less.

Best always,
Kathryn