Let's call him Young Al.
He's an immensely talented 18-year-old who plays bass. That much is not in question. I'd played with him a few times, and when I booked a gig for which the piano player's left hand would not have been sufficient, I asked him, on the spur of the moment at one of Stella's soireés if he would be available. He was.
So a couple weeks go by, and we are informally playing tunes at Stella's to fill the requirements of the client, whose 40th birthday party we are playing in Morgan Hill (on Easy Street!) Saturday, the 13th of April.
Each and every time, the piano player, who has the most contact with Al, lets him know by text that we are having a get-together and each time he bows out.
The other day a couple things happened. First, I heard that he'd need a ride. That in itself is not a big deal, but adding an acoustic bass to the equation and you're dealing, in this case, with a ride for two people. The piano player would be taking Al, I'd be taking his bass. Shrug. Not a really big thing. But then Al decides to call me from his parents' landline, which shows up as an unlisted number on my phone. I'm on my way out the door anyway, and decide to let it drop to voicemail.
Last night I get home from playing, for the first time in quite a while with David O'Connor, who I played in Sofrito with. I had such a great time revisiting the old Sofrito book with David, Tom Brown, Alice and Steve Peterson, and Sammy the African conga player, that I decide to have a look at Facebook, perhaps post how great playing with O'C was.
When Facebook came up, there was a post from Young Al.
He was complaining that he didn't know where the gig was (he got the town wrong). He said it was going to be the weirdest gig ever.
Now I know what being a young and gifted player is like. I was pretty cocksure myself at eighteen. But I also know that posts of this sort accomplishes exactly nothing for the poster, and serves to piss off the leader, who can only guess at the vague language what the meaning of the post is, and hope like hell that the client won't see their 40th birthday tarred with a "weirdest gig ever" brush.
This morning I called him on it. I let him know in a text that he ought to have thought twice before using Facebook for these thoughts. He came back at me saying he'd run out of cell minutes, was forced to call on his folks' phone, blah, blah. Everything except the issue I was carefully focusing on.
So I let the kid go.
Lucky for me, Chris had been standing in for Young Al over at Stella's and he was happy to accept my offer.
When I was 18 we couldn't express opinions like that. Not that we had Facebook back in 1969, but the merest whisper of discontent among the sidemen, and we were out. No leader wants the client or the rest of the band having to face this sort of thing. I don't see how anything's changed.
I did the right thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment