[Rhodes22-list] Slim! Better keep your current gig a while longer

[Slim]

Brad,

I'm a member of another e-mail list board of piano players around the
country.  There was a big outpouring of assistance to NO players who lost
their homes and their incomes.  Fortunately, I don't know of any that lost
their lives or those of loved ones.  Nightclubs from coast to coast have
made special efforts to fly in, house and employ them.  Other players have
given up their own gigs to make room for them.

One of my colleagues, Cindy Chen has completely left the music biz and is
working full-time doing charity and fundraising work specifically helping
musicians.  She has provided names and addresses of musicians and their
families who are in need and many, myself included have sent donations of
clothes and sundries to specific out-of-work players.

Thanks for posting this article and I'll forward it to the piano board.

Slim

On 2/7/06 8:18 AM, "brad haslett" <flybrad at yahoo.com> wrote:

> It doesn't look like the Big Easy is ready for your
> act yet.  Brad
> 
> ---------------
> 
> 
> Sad reality sinks in for New Orleans music scene By
> Todd Martens
> Sun Feb 5, 5:44 PM ET
> 
> 
> 
> Like nearly every house in New Orleans, Bethany
> Bultman's home has holes in its roof. Buckets to catch
> rainwater surround her desk, and she is hesitant to go
> out at night. Much of her neighborhood is still
> completely without power.
> 
> She is one of the lucky ones. Leaky roof aside, her
> house suffered little damage, and she has a second one
> in Massachusetts, a world away from the devastation
> Hurricane Katrina inflicted last August. Bultman
> admits to missing her Cape Cod getaway, but she cannot
> bring herself to abandon New Orleans. There would be
> the guilt of leaving behind the city and those who are
> suffering, but more important, there are checks to
> write.
> 
> Bultman inscribes upwards of 70 per week, each for
> $100, each given to a New Orleans musician. To date,
> her efforts have been funded largely by donations from
> Pearl Jam and nonprofit organization Jazz Aspen
> Snowmass; she recently was promised $250,000 from
> MusiCares, the Recording Academy's charitable arm.
> 
> The checks Bultman writes are allocated only to those
> who work, which these days in New Orleans can mean
> performing at a club in front of a handful of Federal
> Emergency Management Agency workers.
> 
> On many nights, money from the door is minimal or
> nonexistent. Bultman hopes her $100 subsidy is enough
> to dissuade someone from taking a gig in another city.
> If instruments and artifacts from the city's musical
> heritage were washed away, then New Orleans' soul --
> the musicians who define it -- must stay.
> 
> "As the time wore on," Bultman says, "more and more
> musicians who were dumped all over the country wanted
> to come back. We soon realized that this is really
> about giving people instruments and giving people
> hope, and that's when we started paying the gig fees."
> 
> Two months ago, Bultman, a writer/historian and the
> co-founder of the New Orleans Musicians' Clinic, was
> urging displaced musicians to return to the city. She
> started the clinic with her husband in 1998 with the
> assistance of Dr. Jack B. McConnell, the developer of
> Tylenol tablets whose son, Page, played keyboards for
> the band Phish. With a mix of pride and a dedication
> to preserving a music culture that she says
> "percolates out of the ground," Bultman hoped all New
> Orleans' evacuees would soon be returning.
> 
> 'NEW ORLEANS IS NOT A HEALTHY PLACE'
> 
> Reality, however, soon sunk in, and now she is not so
> sure. "The goal was to get everyone we could get back
> to New Orleans," she says. "Now that we're back, we've
> moved away from that. We've moved away from the
> fantasy that everything would go back to the way it
> was. New Orleans is just not a healthy place for
> everyone to come to."
> 
> Eight of the city's ZIP codes are still without full
> power, according to the January 24 status report from
> the mayor's office. The area affected most by Katrina
> -- the Ninth Ward -- remains under curfew, and 911
> emergency availability is scattered. Few hospitals are
> open, and the New Orleans Musicians' Clinic, which had
> free use of the Louisiana State University School of
> Medicine in New Orleans, has lost such privileges, as
> much of the facility needs extensive repairs.
> 
> And for many, life was not all that great before
> Katrina. One in four of the city's residents lived
> below the poverty line, and a great number of its
> working musicians relied on a steady influx of
> tourists.
> 
> Bultman stays in touch with the national organizations
> providing relief to New Orleans musicians, including
> MusiCares, which announced its pledge in support of
> her efforts January 25.
> 
> She is heartened by the outpouring of generosity of
> her top donors and has nothing but praise for
> MusiCares. But five months after Katrina, Bultman
> feels that little has been accomplished. Nearly all of
> the 200 musicians she helps lack a place to live. She
> worries the situation will only get worse with a
> dearth of health care and tries to communicate to the
> national associations that the effort to restore the
> music community in New Orleans is one that will take
> years -- and one that will happen one saxophone at a
> time.
> 
> RETURN TO SELF-SUFFICIENCY
> 
> Pianist Joe Krown was playing 12 gigs per week prior
> to Katrina. His wife, who worked at Tulane University
> Hospital, was laid off after the hurricane. He filled
> out the paperwork for nearly every charity dedicated
> to helping musicians.
> 
> "I have a mortgage and a rent and no income, and
> before I said anything more to a couple of them, there
> was a check in the mail," Krown says. "That happened
> with MusiCares and the Musicians' Clinic and the Jazz
> Foundation."
> 
> He also benefited from the New Orleans Musicians'
> Relief Fund, which was started by one-time dB's member
> Jeff Beninato and his wife, Karen. Along with Chicago
> rock group Wilco, the couple brought Krown and such
> musicians as Leroy Jones, George French, Craig Klein
> and Cranston Clements to Chicago for a benefit show
> that raised more than $100,000.
> 
> Beninato says he started the charity two days after
> Katrina hit New Orleans, and a few days after that he
> heard from MusiCares. He began working with the
> national organization, providing names of musicians he
> knew were still in New Orleans.
> 
> Beninato is re-outfitting the New Wave Brass Band,
> hoping to get the big band in marching form for Mardi
> Gras. Providing instruments for working New Orleans
> musicians has become a group effort, and MusiCares is
> at the forefront. Wick says the charity has helped
> more than 600 musicians get new instruments, and he
> says MusiCares receives between 30 and 80 applications
> per day. 
> 
> MusiCares has partnered with Gibson and the Guitar
> Center chain and launched its Music Rising replacement
> initiative in New Orleans with U2's the Edge. While an
> unknown number of musicians still need a place to
> live, they need the instruments to make a living.
> 
> Krown, for one, says he was able to replace some
> equipment thanks to MusiCares, and the program has
> made it easier for him to be self-sufficient. "It was
> starting to feel like I was begging, and I have too
> much pride for that," Krown says.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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