professsional jazz band or orchestra?

[imperialbari]

The benefit of taking the symphony choice is, that you can do about as much jazz, do as much teaching, and do as much conducting on the side , as the jazz road would allow totally.

It will be possible to give a 150% commitment to the secure bread earning job in the symph orchestra and still have a physical and mental surplus to make a significant cultural contribution to ones community.

An extra plus may be a remarkable further potential of income. An obvious, but somehow manageable, minus will be the reduced chance to sign up for short and and long term plannned touring.

A sample, albeit from the trombone area:

The late Poul Ivan Møller was the lead bone of our radio light orchestra, which aside from doing anything like backing pop and musical shows also is the Mozart and Haydn era orchestra of our radio, even doing some extremely remarkable Stravinsky performances.

Poul Ivan Møller was a somewhat younger contemporary of Palmer Traulsen, whom I have written on in a thread on Michael Lind.

Poul Ivan Møller was a bit more concentrated on the trombone in his teaching than PT, but they were considered competing trombonist factories. Both placing students in top postions, which they still hold. Even if PT was considered a bit more legit tham PIM, the latter has two students sitting right on the top.

Carsten Svanberg has held the solo trombone positions in both of our top orchestras, the Royal Chapel and the DRO. Today he is professor in Linz in Austria. I have had the honour to back CS in the Launy Grøndahle trombone concerto (I played 4th horn)

Mogens Andresen is our top brass professor after having played bass trombone with Palmer Traulsen as section leader in our Royal Chapel until the untimely death of PT in a train accident. I have studied briefly with MA during a holiday from a job in another country. I have played under his batton at several occassions since then.

Back to Poul Ivan Møller, who also experienced one of the embarrassments of taking the road of a orchestra type musician:

Back in 1967 I took part in the band championships of my island, Zealand. I was in a top division and winning brass band. But the schedule of the championships were scewed for an extremely odd reason.

Poul Ivan Møller was the conductor of the supposed winner of the top concert band division. He had secured himself a leave from his orchestra, which did a live radio show on the day of the championships. The music played only called for one tenor and one bass bone, parts which the colleagues of Poul Ivan Møller had agreed to cover, and the orchestra management had accepted that.

In comes the conductor cum arranger of the show in question. By accidense he reads the orchestra rooster on the morning of the show. He realises 3 trombones being "available" and immediately writes one more trombone part for the whole show and demands it to be covered by the regular solo trombone.

So Poul Ivan Møller has to put the island championships and his band on hold. The lucky outcome was this:

Poul Ivan Møller arrived in time before the final deadline to lead his band through a winning performance.

A long posting, but somehow this board also is about brass history being told.

Klaus

[TubaRay]

I agree with cktuba. Counting rests isn't much fun, I must admit. All in all, though, the symphony gig would be better for me in my situation. I am definitely not prepared to tour extensively. Occasional might be fine.

[Rick Denney]

Here's a poll about job/genre preference.

Regardless of your current skill level, put yourself in the place of a tuba player who is qualified to perform with a full-time symphony orchestra and qualified as well to perform with a full-time top-drawer jazz band (though few of these exist - Jim Cullum, Dukes of Dixieland, etc.).

Fortunately for most folks in this position, I think this is really a false choice. I can't think of any full-time orchestra pro who can't add considerable other gig activity to their schedule if they want to, especially if they have the qualifications as you say.

But it is a choice between working hard on the road and working less hard but with higher scrutiny and stress at home. I'd probably take the home job myself, just because traveling sucks after a while. That's not a musical choice, but rather a lifestyle choice. The ideal job would be a balance of the two--just enough of the fun jazz gig to offset the stress and boredom of the symphony gig. But that wasn't a choice.

And doing occasional fun gigs is different than doing the same gig week after week, even if it's the same music involved. We often think that if we enjoy doing something once in a while we'll enjoy it more doing it all the time, but that seems to me like one of those grass-is-greener sorts of attractions.

Rick "who has had his fill of work travel" Denney

[Dan Schultz]

I don't have to think very hard about this one! I would take the orchestra gig. I would still have pllenty of time to have a little fun with Dixie gigs. Like Rick D, I've done my time on the road.