Your Career Is Over Or Is

YourYour CareerCareer IsIs OverOver OrOr isis it?it? Failures,Failures, humiliations,humiliations, injuriesinjuries andand dissappointmentsdissappointments areare partpart ofof everyevery musician’smusician’s life.life. WhetherWhether oror notnot theythey areare fatalfatal hashas aa lotlot toto dodo withwith attitude.attitude. By Rick Mattingly e can laugh about it now, but one of Anyone who has been in music for any Erskine first encountered a click track in a Emil Richards’ first big breaks caused length of time can tell a comparable stor y recording studio at a 1976 session. “I was Hone of his biggest embarrassments. It of a moment in their career when they felt a sideman on Maynard Ferguson’s band, happened in his hometown of Hartford, they had blown it big-time. While such an and we were booked to work the first day of Connecticut, when Richards was in tenth experience can seem catastrophic to the a week’s worth of recording sessions for a grade. person it’s happening to, other people are new Maynard album,” Erskine remembers. “Arthur Fiedler was going to do six pops likely not taking it as seriously. Although “Harvey Mason was also at the studio; he concerts with the Hartford Symphony,” Richards assumed the other musicians was booked for the week. I think he was Richards recalls. “They didn’t have a good were laughing at him, chances are that wondering what I was doing there, or per- xylophone player, so I got hired. At the first many of them were recalling similar inci- haps wondering what he was doing there. At rehearsal we were doing ‘Jukebox Jingle’ by dents in their own lives. Learning to deal any rate, Harvey was quite gracious and Leroy Anderson. The piece starts with a with such public humiliation is one of the helpful while the session got under way. cowbell note that’s supposed to sound like many “rites of passage” a young player “Maynard’s rhythm section began track- a nickel dropping in the jukebox. So I hit the must experience. ing the first song, and I was confounded by cowbell, but Fiedler didn’t like it. He really Players must also learn to handle criti- what seemed to be the click track’s slowing wanted it to sound like a coin dropping in a cism from conductors and bandleaders. down and speeding up. I had never imag- slot. We tried all kinds of things, like hitting “Any time you’re playing with someone else, the cowbell with a chain. Then one of the you’re going to have to make adjustments other musicians gave me a silver dollar and of some kind,” says Gordon Gottlieb, who I dropped that inside the cowbell. Fiedler does symphonic and studio work in New loved it. York City. “Every day you’ll get the ‘You’re “Now comes the concert. My mother and too loud; you’re too soft’ stuff, and you father are in the audience, I’m wearing can’t take it personally. Everybody gets a tails, and I’m really nervous about playing lecture now and then, and comments that with the symphony. I’m looking closely at sting. It might not feel like the end of a ca- Fiedler. My problem was that I was looking reer, but it can sure waste the rest of the too closely at Fiedler, because when he day.” gave me the signal to drop the coin, I In Richards’ case, there was no lasting missed the cowbell and the silver dollar hit damage to his burgeoning career as a per- the French horn player in front of me. Then cussionist as a result of his botched at- it fell on the riser and started rolling. No- tempt to drop a coin into a cowbell. In fact, body was playing anything, because when I the Hartford Symphony was so impressed missed the cowbell, Fiedler stopped con- with his abilities that he played full time ducting. So everyone was sitting there with the orchestra from that point until he watching that silver dollar roll down three was drafted four years later. levels of risers. Often, however, there is no immediate “It came to rest right in front of Fiedler. resolution to a failure. The player has to do He bent over, picked it up, and then came some analyzing and soul-searching in order all the way to the back of the orchestra to determine why he or she did not suc- where the percussion section was. He ceed. In some cases, perhaps a change in “Everybody gets a lecture now and then, and handed me the silver dollar and said, ‘Can career direction is in order. In other situa- comments that sting. It might not feel like the we try it again now?’ with a big, sarcastic tions, one just needs more practice and ex- end of a career, but it can sure waste the rest smile. The whole orchestra was giggling. perience. of the day.” Man, was I embarrassed!” That was the case when drummer Peter —Gordon Gottlieb PERCUSSIVE NOTES 10 JUNE 2001 wise, many young players who lose an audi- tion, get fired from a gig, or have their spirit crushed by a harsh remark from a teacher or conductor can find it difficult to realize that the way they are feeling now is not the way they are going to feel for the rest of their lives. It’s not just the young, however, who suf- fer such insecurities. In a culture obsessed with “making it” while young, many people feel that if they haven’t reached a particular goal by, say, age twenty-five or thirty, then it’s too late. But even those who reach a certain level of success at a relatively early age are often afraid of losing it as the world changes around them. “When I first started my own band in the late ’60s, we had a burst of success,” jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton recalls. “Every- body was writing about us and praising us, and it seemed we could do no wrong. But it’s that way with anyone new. You’re the ‘hot thing’ for a year or two, and in most “Mistakes and goofs are valuable friends in the learning process.” cases that’s followed by a period where you —Peter Erskine can’t get coverage or attention because ined that my sense of time was susceptible failures and disappointments that happen you’ve already been covered so much. So to such tempo irregularities; I could not early in one’s life can be even more difficult there’s always that danger of seeing your stay with the metronome. Yikes! But we did to deal with because of a “tragic flaw” of career disappear after a couple of years. the best we could and wound up with a downright Shakespearean proportions that Learning how to sustain your career after workable track.” has to do with living totally “in the mo- that initial burst is a crucial phase to get Erskine returned to the studio the next ment.” Romeo and Juliet’s untimely deaths through.” day, anxious to hear the track he’d played were the result of their teenage inability to By 1969, the initial buzz about Burton’s on. “As the tape was being put on the ma- understand that there is a tomorrow, a day new group had passed and they weren’t chine, I saw two sets of drum tracks listed after tomorrow, and a whole lot of days, getting nearly as much press. But Burton on the track sheet: mine and Harvey’s— weeks, months, and years after that. Like- entered the year with confidence. His group which apparently had been overdubbed after we left the studio,” Erskine recalls. “The initials TBE were next to the tracks marked ‘Peter drums.’ I asked the assistant engi- neer what TBE stood for. ‘To be erased.’” Erskine describes his reaction as “cha- grin and profound embarrassment.” How did he ultimately deal with it? “Well, the passing of time always helps,” Erskine says. “I decided to make the best of the situation by attempting to learn how not to repeat my errors in the recording studio— which is still an ongoing quest! In other words, mistakes and goofs are valuable friends in the learning process—a process that should continue for the rest of our lives. Some of the martial arts teachings show us that we can take the energy of any situation and turn it to our advantage. Sometimes we can create sweet fruit out of bitter disappointment with a quick change of mind and heart. Sometimes we have to be patient and wait for another opportunity to make our mark.” “Although I knew that this happened to most artists, I felt totally rejected.” Patience can be the hardest part. The —Gary Burton PERCUSSIVE NOTES 11 JUNE 2001 had plenty of gigs booked, and he felt sure years of being in a band not knowing what I quee out front with plastic letters that said, that if he hung in there he would get was going to do.” ‘MONDAY BINGO, FRIDAY FISH FRY, TONITE through the slump. Morgenstein had developed a name for KROKUS.’ “Then I was hit with a double whammy,” himself, however, frequently winning Mod- “Our tour manager got on the bus and Burton says. “The country went into a seri- ern Drummer magazine polls in the Progres- said that ticket sales had been light so the ous recession. A lot of clubs went out of sive Rock category. Almost immediately, he gig had been moved from the theater to this business, festivals were called off, and con- was invited to join a European-based rock place, but there wasn’t room for both bands cert dates were canceled.

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