The Professional Scene

A lot of musicians think that political situations only exist in their own musical world. I remember what Marvin Stamm (professional trumpet artist) said at one of his clinics.

.When he first moved to New York he was confronted with subtle pettiness and covert backstabbing on a level he never expected. This was the “Big Apple” and this wasn’t supposed to be happening here.
He observed that if you were "too good" you might not get hired (referring to New York). Trumpet players on the scene would be reluctant to give you a good recommendation in fear that you would end up competing against them and perhaps take their jobs.  If you weren't good enough, you still might not get hired because you weren't at their professional level. Naturally it was a dilemma as to how to straddle these attitudes so that you could make a respectable living. In other words you had to be good but not too good.  How in the world do you do that? Excellence had somehow perverted itself.

In Marvin's case he chose not to play the "idiot" game and went on to do clinics and recordings. He ended up finding a measure of peace by not being in the "rat race" and playing by these restrictive rules. He was later sponsored by Yamaha and represented that company successfully at clinics promoting their products.

Even at this highly professional level, musicians had to be "guarded" to keep in the employment picture.  One such self-serving practice was to come to the gig early and “grab” the third trumpet player's chair. The next guy that would come in the door would take the second book. (It should be noted that these are trumpet players.)  The last guy would be “stuck” playing the lead book. This wasn't always the case but it wasn't out of the ordinary that this was happening. In other words, who needed the added responsibilities.

One time at a studio engagement the contractor remarked to the lead player. "Did you play the first book for the entire recording?"  He said he did.  The contractor then remarked, “Well son-of-a-gun. I just paid the guy on third double to play the lead.”  The guy on third was an exceptional player and it was assumed he would be the lead player.

It was while Jimmy Maxwell (renowned lead trumpet player) was at NBC that Benny Goodman approached him to be one of the star musicians in the band for the Russian tour. Maxwell didn't want to go to Russia, but Goodman kept raising his offer. He also applied pressure and Maxwell had a call from one of the NBC bosses to tell him that it would be all right to take the six weeks off.

Someone called from the State Department and suggested that it was Maxwell's duty as a patriot to make the trip. "I already take care of my patriotic duty by paying my income tax," said Jimmy. The man from the State Department said, "Yes, and we can look into that, too."Goodman suggested that Maxwell's son David could travel as the band boy and showed him the duties involved in setting up music stands and so on. Maxwell relented and agreed to travel.

In Leningrad, five weeks into the tour, Goodman's secretary gave Maxwell a bill for David's living costs at $32 a day. Maxwell confronted Goodman with the bill and reminded him of the agreement they had made. Goodman denied that he had ever agreed to David being the band boy. Defeated, Maxwell told Goodman, "Have the Russians give me a bill. I'll pay them, not you." The Soviet travel agency charged Maxwell $10 a day, not $32.

In any case Benny and Jimmy were at odds the entire tour. To further make his point (what ever that was) Goodman made Jimmy play the fourth trumpet book and not lead. Jimmy said he was the highest paid fourth trumpet player in the world. So much for peace and harmony, which incidentally was the theme of the tour.

By the way, the wonderful haunting trumpet playing on the movie sound track "The Godfather" is Jimmy Maxwell.

I remember reading where a section player was inquiring how Jimmy was going to interpret the next phrase.  In answer to his question Jimmy said, “As a matter of fact I’m going to play it beautifully".

I might add. He did just that.

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