I thought this was an amusing little story from my day so far:

This morning as I entered the hockey rink with my son Dylan (he had the mis-fortune of having a PD day on my regular hockey day) I saw Much Music doing a photo shoot of some VJ or musician pretending that they were playing hockey....anyways, I spoke up and told the people doing the shoot that in a few minutes they could also shoot our weekly "jazz hockey game". I said something like" you can see some of Canada's top jazz artists playing hockey together...."

So, a few minutes later I am on the farside of the room in my underwear, and jockstrap (i know....too many details) and I notice that a woman from Much Music knocks at the door and wants to know more about our game. Before I could put some clothes on or get involved the guys basically told her to get lost. Then the jokes broke out in the room like..."How much does it pay?..." "hahah...Much Music...hahaha"

It is no big deal but it is symbolic of how Canadian jazz musicians (especially your typical sidemen) really don't have any idea how hard the leaders of their bands, the agents, publicists and record companies have to work to get any attention, in order to be successful and in the end be able to pay the musicians a decent wage. (the same people will be complaining about how poorly certain gigs pay!)

Oh well, no jazz hockey on Much Music this week. Maybe we can get them out to cover our last game of the year; the annual Mingus Cup!

tim
www.GuildwoodRecords.com